Intelligence: Theories, Measurement & Debates

Question 1

What did Galton contribute to the study of intelligence? - 1865 onwards

Answer 1

One of the first to pursue the idea that humans differed in intelligence - emphasised hereditary nature.

Question 2

What did Binet contribute to the study of intelligence? 1905

Answer 2

created 1st intelligence test - aimed to identify children who needed further support in the classroom (aged 3-10)
Could be used to identify child’s mental age
- a child at 6yrs who passed the test designed for 6yr olds but failed test designed for 7yr olds would have a mental age of 6.

Question 3

What did Terman (1916) contribute to the study of intelligence?

Answer 3

Adapted Binet’s test to be used with children in the US from age 4-14
- administered to over 1000 children (much larger than Binet’s sample of approx 50)
Led to standardised testing
- data on other children needs to be representative allowing the assessment of one child to be fair

Question 4

What did Stern (1912) contribute to the study of intelligence?

Answer 4

had been using Binet’s test in germany
- developed the idea of intelligence quotient (IQ) - recognised that child’s mental age varied proportionally to their real age.
- proposed that if mental age was divided by chronological age, the ratio was consistent

Question 5

What is the equation for IQ?

Answer 5

IQ=(mental age ÷ chronological age) x 100

Question 6

What did Yerkes (1917) contribute to the study of intelligence?

Answer 6

Head of committee appointed by the APA to consider how psychology could aid war efforts (ww1)
- committee decided that testing the intelligence of recruits would help them to assign soldiers to appropriate roles/tasks - alpha test and beta test

Question 7

What did Charles Spearman contribute to the study of intelligence?

Answer 7

Introduced the concept of general intelligence (g)

Question 8

How did Spearman come up with general intelligence?

Answer 8

Used several different tasks to test intelligence of school children from 1904-1921 - eg. vocab, maths, spatial awareness, memory
- analysed the relationship between the different tasks
concluded that if a person did well on one task, they would perform well on other tasks too/if they performed poorly on one task, they would perform poorly on other tasks

Question 9

How many factors of intelligence did Spearman theorise and what were they?

Answer 9

2
- specific abilities (s)
- general intelligence (g) - claimed that g was the intelligence to underlie all positive correlations between the different tests
-> According to his theory, if you had a good score on spatial awareness tasks, it would not be spatial awareness abilities, but general intelligence underlying this.

Question 10

What was David Wechsler’s contribution to the study of intelligence?

Answer 10

Worked under the army initiative with Spearman
Wechsler test (still used today) - expanded to use with general population from infancy to elderly

Question 11

What is the formula for deviation IQ?

Answer 11

actual test score / expected test score for that age.

Need to:
- determine expected score
- transform variation of scores to a standardised form
all ranges of intelligence test scores transformed to have a middle score of 100

Question 12

What was Raven’s progressive matrices?

Answer 12

Based on Spearman’s theory
- designed to minimise influence of language and culture - made use of non-verbal problems

Question 13

Who challenged Spearman’s theory and what did they argue?

Answer 13

L.L. Thurstone
Argued that all Spearman had done was demonstrate that different tests correlated positively - suggested that g results from, rather than underpins, primary mental abilities
- associative memory, number, perceptual speed, reasoning, spatial visualisation, verbal comprehension, word fluency

Question 14

What was Cattell’s contribution to the study of intelligence?

Answer 14

Claimed that g comprises 2 related but distinct components
1. crystallised intelligence
2. fluid intelligence

Question 15

What is crystallised intelligence?

Answer 15

Gc is believed to reflect schooling and cultural learning

Question 16

What is fluid intelligence?

Answer 16

Gf is considered to be an innate capacity - it is a basic reasoning ability applicable to a wide range of problems
scoring high on fluid intelligence will increase learning capacity

Question 17

What is fluid intelligence affected by?

Answer 17

brain damage
fluid abilities decline with age more than crystallised abilities
largely inherited

Question 18

What is crystallised intelligence affected by?

Answer 18

schooling

Question 19

What is Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences?

Answer 19

Relegates the position of psychometric g.
distinct intelligences that reside in different places in the brain

Question 20

What are the 9 intelligences proposed by Gardner?

Answer 20

Linguistic-verbal
Logical-mathematical
Visual-spatial
Bodily-kinesthetic
Musical
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalist
Existential

Question 21

What is the Flynn effect?

Answer 21

The discovery that year-on-year, the average IQ score steadily increases

Question 22

What are some potential causes of the Flynn effect?

Answer 22

Environmental boost - better nutrition
Improvements in schooling
Modernisation
Testing attitudes and familiarity with testing
Tests no longer measure IQ

Question 23

What does Flynn propose about IQ and the Flynn effect?

Answer 23

IQ tests are not totally invalidated by the Flynn effect but may be measuring only a limited range of cognitive abilities
- we are not getting smarter but are getting better at very specific skills

Question 24

How does g hold up in relation to the Flynn effect?

Answer 24

Holds up well when measured at a snapshot of time but over time through changing social and cultural contexts, the various subscales do not all change at the same rate

Question 25

Why is the fact that environment only weakly influences adult IQ a problem when measuring the flynn effect and g?

Answer 25

How can the environment have a huge influence across time but not at a snapshot of time?

Question 26

What is Flynn’s opinion on twin studies?

Answer 26

Has no problem with the use of twin studies to measure genetic differences in populations. It is his interpretation with which he takes issue - small genetic differences can be mistakenly credited with big effects

Question 27

What are some problematic assumptions in the study of intelligence? (3)

Answer 27

1. people of higher social status more intelligent than people of lower social status
2. race influences intelligence of different groups
3. men are more intelligent than women

Question 28

What was the Bell Curve controversy?

Answer 28

Herrnstein and Murray examined IQ scores in US
Book considered the extent to which intelligence is genetically inherited
Made suggestions about specific groups being potentially intellectually inferior

Question 29

What did the Bell Curve (1994) suggest?

Answer 29

There is a general factor of intelligence (g) on which humans differ
- IQ tests measure g and match what people mean by intelligence.
Scores are mostly stable over time
Properly administered IQ tests are not biased against social, economic, ethnic or racial groups
- cognitive ability is heritable (40%-80%)

Question 30

What is the east asian-white iq gap?

Answer 30

east asians score 5 points higher than white americans

Question 31

what is the black-white iq gap?

Answer 31

On average, white americans score 15 points higher on iq tests than black americans

Question 32

What did Murray (1996) suggest about IQ?

Answer 32

it can only be raised in modest amounts, inconsistently and usually temporarily

Question 33

What did Jensen (1998) assume about racial disparity and IQ?

Answer 33

Any racial disparity in IQ is due to a difference in basic intellectual ability between races, specifically, in what he calls g
- claimed that interventions have little if any long term effect on IQ as it is genetically determined - fueled social prejudice - differential educational systems for black/white individuals

Question 34

What was the APA taskforce and why was it required?

Answer 34

• identify, examine and summarise relevant research on intelligence
  focused on questions including:
  do various ethnic groups display different patterns of performance on intelligence tests? what might explain those differences?
  concluded there are ethnic group variations BUT no support for genetic interpretation

Question 35

What are alternative explanations for ethnic group variations in intelligence that are not genetic?

Answer 35

Cultural bias in IQ tests:
- devised by white middle-class
- even if IQ tests are culturally balanced, actual activity of taking tests is unfamiliar in some countries
Stereotype threat
- labelled as less intelligent, reduced confidence in academic potential - detrimental to learning? (self-fulfilling prophecy)
Socio-economic disadvantage
Black American children placed in white high SES homes during first year of life score high on IQ tests – disputes genetics (Moore, 1986; Scarr & Weinberg, 1983)

Question 36

What are the 3 most common explanations for individual differences in intelligence?

Answer 36

1. genetic
   - hard-wired differences. Some groups naturally disadvantaged in competing for resources and doing well in life (hereditarian hypothesis)
2. environmental
   - society is unfair towards certain groups (culture-only hypothesis)
3. test bias
   - IQ tests designed to favour certain groups

Question 37

What does the human genome project suggest about DNA?

Answer 37

Humans are 99.9% identical at DNA level and there are no genetic basis for race

Question 38

Other than genes, what could be group differences be attributed to?

Answer 38

Group differences likely a result of social context and the impact of a racist society
“race is a mirage but one that humanity has organised itself around in very real ways”
- variation within ethic groups far outstrips those between groups

Question 39

What is the gender gap in intelligence?

Answer 39

• historical belief that men are more intelligent than women
• pioneers in IQ testing found NO sex differences
• some evidence that adult men do 3-5 points better on full IQ test
• women may do better on verbal tests
• men do significantly better on spatial tests

Question 40

What is problematic about research into the gender gap in intelligence testing?

Answer 40

Ideas of gender differences in intelligence research are based on a cisnormative view of gender
Intelligence is probably more to do with how we socialise children than anything else.