Intelligence and Individual Differences

Question 1

achievement test

Answer 1

a test designed to assess what a person has learned.

Question 2

cohort

Answer 2

a group of people from a given time period.

Question 3

content validity

Answer 3

the extent to which a test samples the behaviour that is of interest.

Question 4

crystalized intelligence

Answer 4

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Question 5

Down syndrome

Answer 5

a condition of mild to severe intellectual dis- ability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.

Question 6

emotional intelligence

Answer 6

the ability to perceive, understand, man- age, and use emotions.

Question 7

factor analysis

Answer 7

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of re- lated items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score.

Question 8

fluid intelligence

Answer 8

fluid intelligence our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

Question 9

general intelligence

Answer 9

a general intelligence factor that, accord- ing to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Question 10

grit

Answer 10

in psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals.

Question 11

heritability

Answer 11

the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

Question 12

intellectual disability

Answer 12

a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life. (Formerly referred to as mental retardation.)

Question 13

intelligence

Answer 13

mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Question 14

intelligence quotient

Answer 14

defined originally as the ratio of men- tal age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average.

Question 15

intelligence test

Answer 15

a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Question 16

mental age

Answer 16

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.

Question 17

normal curve

Answer 17

(normal distribution) a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (about 68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes.

Question 18

predictive validity

Answer 18

the success with which a test predicts the behaviour it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behaviour. (Also called criterion-related validity.)

Question 19

reliability

Answer 19

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

Question 20

savant syndrome

Answer 20

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in compu- tation or drawing.

Question 21

Standardization

Answer 21

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.

Question 22

Stanford-Binet

Answer 22

the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet’s original intelligence test.

Question 23

stereotype threat

Answer 23

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

Question 24

validity

Answer 24

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. (See also content validity and predictive validity.)

Question 25

WAIS

Answer 25

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.