Intelligence Flashcards
what are some differences between the brains of men and women?
- Recent report looked at sex differences in brain sizes in detail in 5000+ people who underwent brain scans.
- They found that male brains were larger than female brains on average, but also more variable in size
- Females found to have thicker cortices
- Males showed a very small advantage on general IQ test and reaction time test
define personality
what you are like psychologically
define intelligence
what you can do mentally
why does intelligence matter?
it matter in reality and in perception
why does intelligence matter in reality?
- Possessing more or less intelligence reflects your actual capabilities
- The most obvious way to see this is to look at your own development from a baby to a child to an adult
- As you grow, you get smarter and can do more e.g. vocabulary grew, mathematical ability grew
- However, people differ in intelligence e.g. college students are generally smarter than the average person
- There are other differences that exist too e.g. journalist tend to have higher linguistic intelligence
why does intelligence matter in perception?
- If someone can do something mentally, but they are believed not to be able to by people, then this assumption may hold them back and short-change society from their talents being utilised.
- If the difference is presumed to be larger than it is, or more consistent than it is e.g. men and women do not differ much in intelligence but women might be less likely to be hired despite being qualified
- On the other hand, if someone cannot do something mentally but are believed to be able to by people, then this assumption may be a mistake and cause problems due to underperformance down the line
- Expectations do not change performance
- Self-fulfilling prophecies are weak
- Most expectations are rooted in reality
- There is no known reliably means of increasing general intelligence - this includes just presuming that people are smarter
- Other’s perceptions impacts their decision-making
what are the two types of theories?
implicit and explicit
what are implicit theories?
- What non-experts think
- Laypeople who are not familiar with theory and research on intelligence
- They are lay, informal, intuitive, everyday, naïve
- They may be informed by stereotypes and prejudices which could be accurate
what are explicit theories?
- What experts think
- Experts who are not familiar with theory and research on intelligence
- They are formal, scientific, specialised and informed
- More likely to be accurate but may still be debated
how are implicit and explicit theories related?
- Implicit theories inspire and inform explicit theories
- Explicit theories partly shape implicit theories
what do laypeople think intelligent behaviours are?
- Practical problem-solving
- Verbal ability
- Social competence
what do laypeople think intelligent traits are?
- Goal directed
- Fluid thought
- Pattern perception
- Adapts to environment
explain the method of Robert Sternberg’s first study
He asked different groups of people to write down behaviour characteristics of intelligence.
He then asked other people to rate the characteristics they had listed
explain the findings of Robert Sternberg’s first study
Three characteristics emerged:
1. Practical problem-solving: analysing a variety of difficult situations for a solution - practical as opposed to intellectual
2. Verbal ability: the ability to articulate oneself well - using language, only better than normal
3. Social competence: the ability to confidently interact with and cooperate with others - noticeably social
explain the method of Robert Sternberg’s second study
In a different study, he asked people to list the characteristics of intelligent people.
explain the findings of Robert Sternberg’s second study
The same elements came out as well as:
1. Contextual intelligence - the ability to adapt to the environment
2. Pattern perception - the ability to make connects and recognise similarities and differences
criticisms of Robert Sternberg’s studies
However, these studies were done in the USA.
The western world tends to have a practical, individualistic and capitalistic orientation.
what do people in the West believe about intelligence?
The western world tends to have a practical, individualistic and capitalistic orientation.
Things like mental speed for fluid thought and spontaneous adaptability for contextual intelligence are values as people have to work quickly and have to be mobile.
People are supposed to be ‘movers and shakers’
The west highlights the importance of asserting oneself
People classify themselves relatively more individually rather than as part of their social circle - bounded cognition.
The West emphasises mental speed and spontaneous adaptability like individualism, self-assertion, create change and bounded cognition.
what do people in the East think about intelligence?
However in the East, things are different
Other virtues are emphasised due to the influence of philosophers such as Confucius and Lae Tze.
e.g. Demetrius and Papadopoulos (2004) said that problem-solving is seen in more social and cognitive terms.
One is advised to draw on traditional wisdom, the advance of family and friends and one’s spiritual needs
The east highlights the importance of humility.
People classify themselves relatively more collectively rather than as separate individuals - shared cognition.
The East emphasises interpersonal skills, intrapersonal awareness and traditional wisdom like collectivism, humility, maintain harmony and shared cognition.
what are some exceptions to the differences between the west and east?
There are some exceptions and qualifications.
e.g. Indians, Irish, Canadians etc
Many Western criteria
How do they gel?
what are some moderators of implicit theories?
age
professional disciplines
people’s own abilities
explain age as a moderator of implicit theories
- What makes a child intelligent is different to what makes an adult intelligent
- Fry (1984) found that social as opposed to intellectual attributes were counted more towards intelligence for children than young adults
- People are different ages have different views of intelligence.
- Yussen & Kane (1985) found that children thought that social ability was more important to intelligence than adults did
- Also found that children, unlike adults, did not fully acknowledge that people could be smart in one way but dumb in another (thought intelligence was one-dimensional) and thought that intelligence was innate (rather than acquired)
explain professional disciplines as a moderator for implicit theories
- Sternberg (1985) asked professors of philosophy, business, arts and physics the same questions he asked laypeople
- Philosophy - logical thinking
- Business - focus on essential issue
- Arts - weigh up alternatives
- Physics - precise maths thinking
explain people’s own abilities as a moderator for implicit theories
- People define intelligence in terms of the abilities they possess
- This constitutes something of a self-serving bias
- This effect was shown by Dunning et al. (1991) - self enhancement
what is Wechsler’s definition of intelligence (explicit theories)?
‘a global concept that involves an individual’s ability to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with the environment’
Wechsler (1958)
what is Simonton’s definition of intelligence (explicit theories)?
‘a certain set of cognitive capacities that enable an individual to adapt and thrive in any given environment they find themselves in’
Simonton (2003)
what is Kurzweil’s definition of intelligence (explicit theories)?
‘intelligence is the ability to use optimally limited resources - including time - to achieve goals’
Kurzweil (1999)
what is Gardner’s definition of intelligence (explicit theories)?
‘an intelligence is the ability to solve problems, or to create products, that are valued within one or more cultural settings’
Gardner (1993)
what is Boring’s definition of intelligence (explicit theories)?
‘intelligence is what is measured by intelligence tests’
Boring (1923)
what are some disagreements that exist amongst definitions of intelligence from explicit theories?
- One can take what is called a protype approach to define intelligence
- May not be able to sum up what intelligence is but we might be able to agree on what would be a good exemplar of it when we see it
what are some agreements that exist amongst definitions of intelligence from explicit theories?
- Experts on intelligence agree on some core features
- Snyder & Rothman (1987) found that a large sample of experts indicated near agreement with these qualities as being excellent exemplars of intelligence:
○ Abstract thinking or reasoning
○ Problem-solving ability
○ The capacity to acquire knowledge
explain a study that found a reasonable consensus as to the definition of intelligence (explicit theories)
- Reasonable consensus is possible
- 52 researchers signed up to the following statement published in the Wall Street Journal on Dec 13th 1993, under the title “Mainstream Science on Intelligence”.
- “Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings – ‘catching on’, ‘making sense’ of things, or ‘figuring out’ what to do.”
define phrenology
Pseudoscientific fad that flourished in the 1800s
The idea was that traits or types were associated with overgrown bits on the outside of the brain which in turn lead to swellings in the skull
what do leading explicit theories of intelligence focus on?
Mix of theory and practice
Mix of progress and dispute
Mix of findings and questions
name the main theorists in the field of intelligence
Aristotle
Galton
Binet with Simon
Terman
Yerkes
Spearman
Wechsler
Raven
Thurstone
Cattell
Guilford
Vernon
Cattell/ Horn/ Carroll
Gardner
Sternberg
what contribution did Aristotle make to the field of intelligence?
- Genius Greek Philosopher in ancient Athens
- Set the intellectual agency for a thousand years in a range of subjects
- Wrote a book called De Anima (On the Soul)
- He distinguished between the passive intellect and active intellect
what is passive and active intellect according to Aristotle?
Passive intellect - gather information via senses
Active intellect - make sense of that information - suggests modern distinction
what are the two stages of intellect according to Aristotle?
First stage is more automatic and unconscious
Second stage is more deliberate and conscious
what is Galton known for?
- Well known for his book Heredity Genius where he argued that intelligence was genetic as it ran in families
- Had a passion for quantification and statistical analysis
what contribution did Galton make to the field of intelligence?
- Argued that intelligence was genetic and that it ran in families
- Had the idea that dull senses equate to a dull mind and that acute sense equate to an acute mind
- Set up his Anthropometric lab to assess the public’s perceptual acuity
what did Galton do in his Anthropometric lab?
- Set up his Anthropometric lab to assess the public’s perceptual acuity (hearing, sight) and just to do a lot of general measurement
- Measured physical strength and reaction time
- The public paid to be measured and he collected data on nearly 10000 people
what was the backstory behind Binet?
- Worked for the French Government
- Belonged to a board called ‘Commission for the Retarded’
- He was tasked with distinguishing between school children who were of normal intelligence and those who had special needs
- Came up with a set of 30 tasks relevant to everyday life that might distinguish them which increased in difficulty and was appropriate to difference ages
what was Binet’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Binet said you can define what tasks were typically accomplished by children of a particular age. If a younger child passed those tests they were ‘forward’ or advanced for their age. If an older child failed those tests, they were ‘backward’ or retarded for their age.
- Binet recognised that his test was not necessarily objective and did not regard intelligence as being dispositionally fixed
what did Stern contribute to the field of intelligence based on Binet’s work?
- Stern’s formalisation took Binet’s insight
- Said that if your mental age (MA) is more than what is appropriate for your chronological age (CA) then you are more intelligent than average. If your mental age (MA) is less than what is appropriate for your chronological age (CA) then you are less intelligent than average.
- MA/CA is greater than 1 you are more intelligence. MA/CA is less than 1 you are less intelligent
- Multiply this by 100 to get IQ
what does CA and MA mean in intelligence (Stern)?
CA - actual age in years
MA - age-appropriate performance
What was Terman’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Adapted Binet’s test to the US
- Adapted some existing items and added some of his own to develop the Stanford-Binet test
- Standardised and reliable testing on larger samples
what was Yerkes’ contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Formulated the Yerkes-Dodson law
- Found that soldiers differed in mental ability. Those who are higher were consider officer material. Those who were lower were considered regular soldiers
- IQ tests needed to distinguish between the two
- The tasks used with children took too long so something more efficient was needed
- Devised two types of test: alpha and beta
- Assigned a letter grade for their intelligence
- Later, the tests Yerkes developed proved of interest in peacetime too
what two types of tests did Yerkes devise and explain what they are?
Alpha test: consisted largely of arithmetic problems and verbal analogies test and general knowledge questions - linguistic and mathematical
Beta test: consisted of puzzle-like items, jigsaw-like assemblies, symbol-matching tasks and mazes - performance and practical
what was Spearman’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Theoretical developments - people started to think about the meaning of intelligence and the structure of mental abilities
- Spearman did a bunch of factor analyses on the results from intelligence tests featuring a variety of subtests
- Looked at the statistical link between performance on one subtest and performance on another
- Noticed that scores on some subtests weakly predicted scores on other subtests - all positively correlated
- Called this the positive manifold
- When he did a factor analysis, a single general factor came out. Specific cores on all the subtests then correlated with that general factor
- He interpreted this situation using two-factor theory
- There are a bunch of specific intelligences or mental abilities but these are all aspects of general intelligence
- The idea is that the underling factor is real and not just a statistical artifact
- It represents a general intelligence that casually underlies, at least in part, performance in all other domain
- It is not merely description but explanation too
- Commonly accepted interpretation
who is Spearman?
Father of psychometrics
what was Wechsler’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- One way to measure the intersection of different mental abilities: measure lots of different mental abilities comprehensively and look for the ‘common core’
- Founded the WAIS and the WISC
- Also pioneered a new computational method for IQ
- Used deviation Iqs - got a group of people at the same age and looked at the typical bell-shaped distribution of scores on a test and its sub-tests at that age. Then identified where in that age-relevant distribution each given test-taker was. Used a variant of z-scores to express this.
- A schematic outline of the sub-tests in the WAIS, together with the sub-factors they correspond to, and general factor too
- This hierarchical structure anticipates issues of the structure of intelligence, where there is more than just g and the test scores loading on it. Some test load more on g than others. They are called more g-loaded
what is the WAIS and WISC?
WAIS = The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale for adults
WISC = The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children
how do you get z-scores?
what is the purpose of z-scores?
how can you use z-scores?
what do z-scores tell us about data?
- To get z-scores, you take an existing distribution, subtract its mean and divide by its standard deviation
- This gives you a mean of zero and standard deviation of 1
- Can convert these z-scores into a new set of scores by choosing any arbitrarily preferred standard deviation and mean
- We know that in every age bracket about 68% of people will have Iqs between 85 and 115 because we can compute area under a curve for normal distribution
what was Raven’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Another way to measure the intersection of different mental abilities: measure the common core itself
- Raven’s Progressive Matrices test isolated and measured the abstract core of general intelligence itself
- Identify missing element based on rules inferred from pattern
what was Thurstone’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- No evidence for g
- Claimed that IQ reflect a bunch of separate factors but the underlying factor did not represent general intelligence just the overlap of separate mental abilities
- Thurstone identified the separate 7 primary mental abilities
- Knew they were separate abilities as he found that in some groups you could have the same overall g but different profiles of score on these task
- Another way of deciding they are separate is based on conceptual and observational analysis
what 7 separate primary mental abilities did Thurstone identify?
Associative memory
Number (arithmetic)
Perceptual speed (recognition)
Reasoning (logic)
Space (Tetris)
Fluency (generate stuff)
Verbal comprehension
what was Cattell’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Accepted Spearman’s g
- But suggested it could be subdivided into two: gC and gF
- gF and gC peak at different ages
what is gC according to Cattell?
gC = crystallised intelligence
Reflects the knowledge and skills you acquire culturally
gC continues to slowly rise until old age
what is gF according to Cattell?
gF = fluid intelligence
reflects your ability to understand abstract relationships
gF declines from 20s onwards
what was Guilford’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Devised a structure of intellect model
- Didn’t accept g at all and said there was more than 7 primary abilities
- Said there was 150 types of abilities reflecting the multiplicative intersection of operations performed upon contents to make types of products
- Claimed support for this support in not finding a positive manifold but reanalysis of this data did find it
- Theory is a bit eccentric but it does anticipate attempts to understanding intelligence by looking at the operations underlying it
explain what Guilford meant by 150 types of abilities
- Said there was 150 types of abilities reflecting the multiplicative intersection of operations performed upon contents to make types of products
5 operation - type of processing of…
5 contents - what is processed…
6 products - form of contents
what was Vernon’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Specific intelligences: s1, s2 and s3
- General intelligence, g, the factor statistically underlying them
- There might be a level in between too or multiple levels
- Under g, Vernon postulated both major group factors
- Minor group factors for each of these as well
what did Vernon say were the major group factors and the minor groups factors?
Major group factors:
- Verbal, numerical and educational mental abilities
- Spatial, practical, mechanism and physical abilities
Minor group factors:
- Spelling, grammar
- Dancing, tool-use
what did Cattell, Horn and Carroll collectively contribute to the field of intelligence?
- 3 researchers grouped together to sort things out
- 3 stratum
Stratum I: 69 or so different specific abilities - corresponds to Vernon’s major group factors
Stratum II: 8 or so primary sub-factors above Stratum I - corresponds to Vernon’s minor group factors
Stratum III: g - Lots of different test scores then loaded on those specific abilities
- Also came up with a theory to explain some of the sub-groupings
- CHC theory is designed to capture insights from other researchers
- This could correspond to ‘controlled attention’ sub-factors vs ‘knowledge’ sub-factors
what were the common elements of CHC theory?
fluid intelligence, crystallised intelligence, general memory and learning, visual perception, auditory perception
what was Gardner’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Educational experience
- Idea of general intelligence less helpful given different profiles of mental abilities among students
- Intelligence is not sensory - each intelligence can be demonstrated in all senses
- Different ways to solve problems or to create products that are valued within on or more cultural settings, using different kinds of intelligence
- Originally listed 7 in his book ‘Frames of Mind’
- Overemphasis in Western education on linguistic and analytic intelligence
- Several other distinct intelligences postulated
- Added more components which reflects spiritual components of intelligence
what was Gardner’s original list of 7 kinds of intelligence?
Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Spatial
Musical (instruments)
Bodily-kinesthetic (dancing)
Interpersonal (emotional intelligence)
Intrapersonal (personal wisdom)
what components did Gardner add to his list of kinds of intelligence?
Naturalist (interacting with nature)
Existentialist (seeing the big picture)
what was a criticism of Gardner’s theory?
- Not a lot of psychometric evidence
- Subserved by different brain regions but interact with one another - relatively uncorrelated - awaits full testing
what was Sternberg’s contribution to the field of intelligence?
- Triarchic theory of intelligence
- The theory emphasises different logical or conceptual components but it is not clear whether it has any strong psychometric justification
what is the components of Sternberg’s Triarchic theory of intelligence?
Componential subtheory: analytic - internal mechanisms - corresponds to more traditional measures of intelligence
Contextual subtheory: practical - application to real world - corresponds to more adaptation to the environment
Experiential subtheory: creative - making something new - corresponds to more coming up with novel or well-practice solutions to problems
