nature nurture

Question 1

developmental differences

Answer 1

Developmental changes in structure:
Spearman (1927): relationship between abilities may not be constant.
He proposed the ‘Law of diminishing returns’ (LDR) or ‘ability differentiation hypothesis’.
LDR: predicts that the positive correlations among different cognitive abilities is weaker among more intelligent subgroups of individuals. Correlation between 12 cognitive tasks in children was .47 for typically developing, but .78 for lower ability children.
Schaie (1996)
Early adulthood sees modest gains on tests of numeracy, verbal recall, verbal ability, inductive reasoning, and spatial orientation.
Middle adulthood is a fairly stable period.
Late adulthood may see a reduction in fluid intelligence, but not in crystallized.
Some abilities show a robust decline, e.g. reaction time and processing speed (e.g. Rabbitt, 1996) and working memory, but not short-term memory.

Question 2

gould

Answer 2

The human mind and its intelligence are far too complex to summarise in just one number (the IQ score).

It is a very human tendency to try and make complex things simple.

For example to think in terms of opposites, dichotomy, such as hereditary versus environmental influences (nature vs nurture).

Intelligence isn’t simple and should not be treated as such (one should not try and capture it in one number).

Question 3

race

Answer 3

Studies have reported differences of about 10-20 points between the IQ scores of black and white individuals (Mackintosh, 1998).

Herrnstein and Murray (1994) reported that white Americans score 15 points higher than black Americans on the Wechsler intelligence test, and 18 points higher on the Stanford-Binet test

Question 4

sex differences

Answer 4

Terman (1916) used the Binet-Simon test with1000 school children and found that girls scored higher.

Spearman (1927) argued that there were no sex differences.

Wechsler (1944) admitted that in standardising his IQ scale he had taken out items that may have been biased against women.

men have better spatial abilities, women have better verbal abilities (although some say this dies after adolescence) and men have much more variation and widely distributed scores than women

Question 5

biological explanations for sex differences

Answer 5

Spatial ability is related to testosterone.
Females overexposed to androgens show higher spatial intelligence than control groups (e.g. Resnick et al.,1986).

effects of brain size and maturity rates on general intelligence
Rilea (2004) found that in a mental rotation task men only use the right hemisphere whereas women use both hemispheres of the brain (fMRI studies).

Haier et al. (2005) suggested that men and women achieved intelligence through different areas of the brain. Women have more white matter and fewer grey matter areas associated with intelligence. This may suggest that for men intelligence is more related to information-processing (grey matter), but for women it is more related to association and integration of information (white matter).

Question 6

environmental explanations for sex differences

Answer 6

Toys: Levine et al. (2005) suggest that playing with building blocks, puzzles, and video games is related to spatial skills, and boys spend more time with these toys than girls do (e.g. Dorval & Pepin, 1986).

Servin et al. (1999) suggest that playing with dolls and household objects may encourage verbal and social skills.

Cultural: Men see their strengths as being in logical and spatial ability, but women see the strengths as being in language and personal skills (e.g. Furnham, 2001).