Controversies in Intelligence Flashcards
What was Binet’s approach to measuring intelligence?
He wanted to find a systematic way to identify people with learning problems, and created IQ tests for educational purposes (in rank order)
What was Yerke’s approach to measuring intelligence?
He argued that intelligence is innate and not dependent on educational or environmental influences; he created the alpha and beta tests
How could the content of Yerke’s tests be potentially criticized?
They only measured acculturation and were used to justify racial and ethnic discrimination
Describe the two components of the WWI US army group administered IQ tests
Alpha tests for literates; Beta tests for illiterates and non English speakers (match symbols, continue patterns, speed tests, fill in blanks, etc)
What was suspicious about the distribution of scores obtained from the WWI army tests?
Zero was by far the most common value in several of the alpha tests (mode); highly skewed; they assumed people must be stupid; Beta tests were also skewed with many zeros
How was the average mental age of those who completed the WWI army tests calculated and what was dodgy about this?
The reference group used for standardization were a group of 62 students and businessmen, defined as having a mental age of 16; so the average white American male (with a mental age calculated at 13.08 yrs) performed worse than this reference group at the army tests; ethnic groups were found to have even lower mental ages (10-12 yrs)
Describe US eugenics policies after WWI
Strict immigration quotas into the US were introduced for ethnic groups found to have low IQ in WWI army data (e.g. European Jews; up to 6 million); compulsory sterilization for “feeble-minded” people
What were the key arguments put forward in “the bell curve”?
Because IQ is largely inherited (not due to environmental factors/SES and stays the same across the lifespan), educational interventions to increase IQ have either been unsuccessful or transitory; Society will become more stratified by intelligence, with the least intelligent representing a criminal underclass
What were the counterarguments to arguments about the bell curve?
Educational interventions tend to be short so it’s amazing they had any effect at all; their measure of SES is too crude (parent education x income)
What’s the evidence for a significant genetic contribution to intelligence?
You get a higher correlation (.86) between the IQs of identical twins than between non-identical twins (.60); this points to a heritability estimate for intelligence of about 50%; twins reared apart have IQs correlating at .76
What are the criticisms about the twins evidence for a genetic contribution to intelligence?
Twins reared apart are more likely to have similar environments (restricted range); identical twins are likely to be treated similarly (same looks/characteristics); shared uterine environment accounts for up to 20% of shared variance; genetic influence differs according to social class; slight differences in genetic intelligence might trigger environmental multipliers even though just the variance in genetics can account for the whole difference
Heritability estimates were found to be much higher for upper-middle classes than lower social classes. What’s a potential reason for this?
Because upper-middle environments are more homogenous so there’s little variation (genetics is all that’s left to vary); less restriction of range for lower as the environment may be much more variable and able to account for more of IQ variance
If IQ is largely inherited, what implications does this have for its mutability?
It has no implications of whether it can be changed or not; no effect on the extent to which it can be affected by the environment (e.g. short-sightedness and height are inherited but both can be improved)
What is the Flynn effect and what theoretical implications does this have for intelligence test scores?
Refers to huge observed increases in IQ test scores from generation to generation
What are the relationships between intelligence and biological measures?
IQ tests correlate between .3 and .4 with simple reaction time, inspection time and some EEG measures
