Chapter 9 - Theories Of Intelligence And Binet Flashcards
Alfred Binets Definition
Tendency to take and maintain a definite direction; the capacity to make adaptations for the purpose of attaining a desired end, and the power of auto criticism
Spearmans Definition
Ability to deuce either relations or correlates
Freeman’s Definition
Adjustment or adaptation of the individual to his total environment, the ability to learn, the ability to carry on abstract thinking
Das’s Definition
The ability to plan and structure ones behaviour with an end in view
H Gardner’s Definition
The ability to resolve genuine problems or difficulties as they are encountered
Sternbergs Definition
Mental activity involved in purposive adaptation to, shaping of, and selection of real-world environments relevant to ones life
Anderson’s Definition
Two dimensional and based on individual differences in information processing speed and executive functioning influenced largely by inhibitory processes
TR Taylor
Man identified 3 independent research traditions that have been used to study nature of human intelligence
- Psychometric approach
- information processing approach
- cognitive tradition
Psychometric Approach
- examines elemental structure of a test
- we examine properties of tests through an evaluation of its correlates and underlying dimension
- oldest Approach
(One of three traditions identified by TR Taylor)
Information Processing Approach
Examines processes that underlie how we learn and solve problems
(One of three traditions identified by TR Taylor)
Cognitive Tradition
Focuses on how humans adapt to real world demands
One of three traditions identified by TR Taylor
Binet Definition Intelligence
Capacity to
- Find and maintain definite direction or purpose
- Make necessary adaptations -strategy adjustments -to achieve that purpose and
- To engage in self-criticism so that necessary adjustments in strategy can be made
Binets two most profound contributions
She differentiation and mental ability
Age Differentiation
One can differentiate older children from younger by their greater capabilities
- Binet found tasks that could be complete by up to 75% of children in age group and by smaller percent in younger age group
- could estimate mental ability of a child in term so this completion of tasks designed for child of particular age
- capability eventually called MENTAL AGE
General Mental Ability
Binet measured only total product of various separate elements of intelligence - general mental ability
- freed himself from burden of identifying each element and finding relation of each element to whole
- judges value of tasks in terms of their correlation to combined total score of all tasks
- this tasks with low correlation could be eliminated
Psychometric g
Spearmans notion of general mental ability based on phenomenon called “positive manifold’
Thought g could be conceptualized in terms of mental energy
Positive Manifold
Phenomenon that when set of diverse ability tests are given to large unbiased population samples, almost all correlations are positive
-supported Spearmans notion of general mental ability
Factor analysis
Method for reusing set of variable or scores to a smaller number of hypothetical variables called factors
Developed by spearman to support g
Through FA one can determine how much variance a set of test or scores has in common
gf-gc Theory
Recent theories suggest intelligence best thought of as multiple intelligences
-two basic types of intelligence: fluid (f) and crystallized (c)
Fluid intelligence: abilities that allow us to reason, think, gain knowledge
Crystallized intelligence: knowledge that has been gained
1905 Binet Simon Scale
Meant to identify disabled children on three levels
- idiot: most severe impairment
- imbecile: moderate impairment
- moron: mild impairments
-30 items increasing difficulty
Fell short
- no measuring unit
- shitty normative data
- rude classifications
- little to document scales validity
- norms based on 50 normal kids
1908 Binet Simon Scale
An age scale with items grouped according to age level rather than one set of items with increasing difficulty
Two major concepts: age scale and mental age
Main improvement concept of mental age
-attempt to solve problem of expressing results in unit
Did little to meet big criticism: Scale produced only one score mainly related to verbal/language ability
- at expense of other factors like visual and motor
- Binet claimed single score consistent with notion of g
