Chapter 10 - Intelligence Flashcards
Intelligence
Concept or construct that refers to the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment
Sir Francis Galton
- Showed through study of family trees that eminence and genius seemed to occur across generations with certain families
- Exhibited belief bias, and dismissed fact that successful people often came from privileged environments
- Approach to mental skills measurement fell into disfavour because measures of nervous system efficiency proved unrelated to socially relevant measures of mental ability
Alfred Binet
- Developed test to help identify children who require educational help at early age*Made two assumptions about intelligence:
- Mental abilities develop with age
- Rate at which people gain mental competence is a characteristic of the person and is fairly constant over time
- Tests would result in score called mental age (age at which a child can solve problems for)*William Stern provided a relative score called intelligence quotient
- IQ = (Mental age / Actual age) x 100
- Problem is that increases in mental age begin to slow down dramatically around age 16
- Deviation IQ ? modern score that represents how much standardized distance a score is above or below the mean of a particular sample
The Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Scales
- Lewis Terman revised Binet’s test, creating the Stanford-Binet test
- David Wechsler developed intelligence tests for adults (WAIS), children (WISC), and preschoolers (WPPSI)
- Most widely used intelligence tests**Consists of series of subtests that fall into verbal tests and performance test
Group tests of aptitude and achievement
- Using written tests for selective purposes highlights an issue Binet faced:
- Should university applicants be given an achievement test (how much they have learned in high school) or an aptitude test (measure applicant’s potential for future learning and performance)?
Two major approaches to studying intelligence
- Psychometric: maps the structure of intellect and specifies the kinds of mental ability that underlie test performance
- Cognitive: studies specific thought processes that underlie mental competencies
Factor Analysis
- Psychometrics: statistical study of psychological tests
- Standardization, reliability, and validity are all psychometric concepts
- Tries to identify and measure abilities that underlie individual differences in performance on tests
- Factor analysis - analysis of patterns of correlation between test scores in order to discover clusters of measures that correlate highly with one another but not with measures in other clusters (Example: if four tests were highly correlated with each other, and all required subjects to solve mathematical problems, the underlying factor may be mathematical reasoning ability)
- Some believe intelligence is a single global mental capacity, while others regard it is a set of specific abilities to do different types of thinking
The ?g? factor
Charles Spearman found that school grades among different subjects were highly correlated, but were not perfect*Found also in intelligence tests *Concluded that intellectual performance is determined partly by general intelligence (?g?) and partly by other special abilities required to perform a particular task*Example: performance in a mathematics course would depend mainly on the ?g? factor of the individual, but also ability to learn mathematics
Intelligence as specific mental abilities
L. L. Thurstone concluded that human mental performance depends not on a general factor, but seven distinct abilities, called primary mental abilities (spatial, perceptual speed, numerical, verbal meaning, memory, verbal fluency, and inductive reasoning)
Crystallized and fluid intelligence
Horn and Cattell divided Spearman?s ?g? factor into two correlated but distinct abilities*Crystallized intelligence ? the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to current problems*Depends largely on ability to retrieve information and previously learned problem solving schemas from long term memory*Fluid intelligence ? the ability to deal with novel problem solving situations for which personal experience does not provide a solution*Throughout life, people progress from using fluid intelligence to crystallized intelligence
Cognitive process theories
try to explain why people vary in intelligence by relating types of individual variation described in the psychometric approach to various cognitive skills
Sternberg?s triarchic theory
addresses both the psychological processes involved in intelligent behaviour and the diverse forms that intelligence can take
Divides the cognitive processes into three classes
Metacomponents ? higher order processes used to plan and regulate task performance (include identifying problems, formulating hypotheses and strategies, etc.)**Fundamental sources of individual differences in fluid intelligence*Performance components ? actual mental processes used to perform a task (include perceptual processes, memory retrieval, etc.)*Knowledge acquisition components ? allow us to learn from experience, store information in memory, and combine new insight with previously acquired information**Underlie individual differences in crystallized intelligence
Environmental demands may call for three different manifestations of intelligence
*Analytical ? involves kinds of academically oriented problem solving skills assessed by traditional intelligence tests*Practical ? refers to skills needed to cope with everyday demands and to manage oneself and other people effectively (includes emotional intelligence)*Creative ? mental skills needed to deal adaptively with novel problems
Gardner?s Multiple intelligences
*Howard Gardner advanced a theory of multiple intelligences that define six distinct varieties of intelligence (linguistic, mathematical, visual-spatial, musical, body-kinesthetic, and personal) *Bases argument on studies of brain damaged, which leave some abilities devastated, while sparing others **Savants ? intellectually disabled in a general sense, but exhibit striking skills in specific areas
