chapter 9.1

Question 1

what is anthropometrics?

Answer 1

methods of measuring physical and mental variation in humans

Question 2

who created anthropometrics?

Answer 2

sir Francis Galton

Question 3

what is an example of anthropometrics?

Answer 3

using a set of 17 sensory tests such as the highest and lowest sounds people could hear or their ability to tell the difference between objects of slightly different weights

Question 4

what did further use of anthropometrics reveal?

Answer 4

that peoples abilities in different sensory tests were not correlated with each other or only very weakly, there for was not a good measure of intelligence

Question 5

what is intelligence?

Answer 5

the ability to think, understand, reason and adapt to or overcome obstacles

Question 6

what did Alfred Binet think intelligence should be indicated by?

Answer 6

more complex thinking processes such as memory, attention and comprehension

Question 7

how did Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon measure intelligence?

Answer 7

they set up 30 tasks, arranged in order of increasing difficulty, simple tasks like defining common words like “house” to difficult tasks like defining abstract concepts and to logically reason through a problem

Question 8

what did Binets test score measure for a student?

Answer 8

their mental age

Question 9

what is mental age?

Answer 9

the average intellectual ability score for children of a specific age

Question 10

what is an example of mental age?

Answer 10

if a 7 year olds score was the same as the average score for a 7 year old, their mental age would be 7. but if it was the average score for a 10 year old their mental age would be 10

Question 11

what did Lewis Terman describe the the Stanford-binet test as?

Answer 11

a test intended to measure innate levels of intelligence

Question 12

what did Binet view his test as?

Answer 12

a measure of the students current ability and that test scores reflect a changeable ability

Question 13

what did Terman adopt after Binets method?

Answer 13

William sterns concept for the intelligence quotient (IQ)

Question 14

what is the intelligence quotient?

Answer 14

a measure of intelligence using a standardized test and calculated by taking a person mental age dividing it by their chronological age and then multiplying it by 100

Question 15

did Binets mental age concept and sterns IQ concept generalize well to adult populations?

Answer 15

no

Question 16

what did they start using to help adjust the IQ tests for adults?

Answer 16

deviation IQ

Question 17

how is deviation IQ calculated?

Answer 17

calculated by comparing a persons test score with the average score for people of the same age

Question 18

what is the Wechsler adult intelligence scale (WAIS)?

Answer 18

the most common intelligence test in use today for adolescents and adults

Question 19

how does the Wechsler adult intelligence scale work?

Answer 19

it take the full IQ scale for each test taker but it also breaks intelligence down into general ability index (GAI) and a cognitive proficiency index (CPI)

Question 20

how is the general ability index (GAI) calculated?

Answer 20

it is computed from scores on the verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning indices, these measure intellectual ability without placing emphasis on how fast they can solve problems and make decisions

Question 21

how is the cognitive proficiency index (CPI) calculated?

Answer 21

it is based on the working memory and processing speed indices

Question 22

what is the one key problem with the Stanford-binet test and the Wechsler adult intelligence scale?

Answer 22

these tests are often biased to favour people from the test developers culture who primarily speak the test developers language. this puts all other people at a disadvantage

Question 23

who developed ravens progressive matrices

Answer 23

John raven

Question 24

what is the ravens progressive matrices?

Answer 24

an intelligence test that is based on pictures, not words, thus making it relatively unaffected by language or cultural background

Question 25

how does the ravens progressive matrices work?

Answer 25

the main set of tasks measure the extent to which the test takers can see patterns in the shapes and colours within a matrix and then determine which shape of colour would complete the pattern

Question 26

what is the social darwinism movement that emerges?

Answer 26

the rise of the “eugenics movement” and using these IQ tests to determine who was fit to have kids and create “better people”

Question 27

why did these IQ tests fit in to the agendas of eugenicists?

Answer 27

due to the differences in scores of people from different racial groups

Question 28

what causes this difference in IQ tests between races?

Answer 28

when immigrants first arrived to the US they had to take an IQ test and this resulted in lots of immigrants labeled as “morons”

Question 29

what caused many of the new immigrants to do bad on these IQ tests?

Answer 29

the cultural background affects many aspects of the testing process including how comfortable people are in the formal test taking environment, how motivated they are to perform well on a test

Question 30

what is the stereotype threat?

Answer 30

occurs when negative stereotypes about a group cause group members to underperform in ability tests

Question 31

what is an example of stereotype threat?

Answer 31

when a black person is reminded of the stereotype that black people perform poorly they end up scoring lower