Topic 5a - Intelligence, Health and Wellbeing Flashcards
What is intelligence?
- Ability to carry out abstract thinking (Terman 1916)
- Ability to learn, or have learned, to adjust to environment (Calvin, 1923)
- A global concept that involves an individual’s ability to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with the environment (Wechsler, 1953)
What is Gottfredson’s (2000) definition of intelligence?
General ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, learn quickly and learn from experience
What is IQ?
Originally a measure of deviation of mental age from actual age, redefined as a standardised score showing deviation of ones mental age from the average score of 100
Normally distributed, SD = 15
85-100-115 (68% of the pop falls within this)
What is the Digit Span Test? - measure of intelligence
Repeat each string of numbers in the correct order (of presentation) - amount of numbers in the span increases
What is the letter number sequencing test? - measure of intelligence
Rearrange these items so you say the numbers first in ascending order then the letters in alphabetical order. E.G = 7G4R becomes 47GR
What is the trail making test? - measure of intelligence
Join the circles in numerical order as quickly as possible (jumbled up numbers)
What is the hierarchy of g (general intelligence)
Broad domains = verbal ability (vocabulary reading, synonyms), working memory (digit span and letter-number sequencing), visual-spatial reasoning (box folding, hidden figures), processing speed (reaction time and trail making)
What is the link between intelligence and health? - Chamorro-Premuzic, 2013
IQ correlates with achievement and job performance -> increased longevity
What is cognitive epidemiology?
Examination of cognition and IQ as a correlate of health and mortality - tries to establish a causal relationship
What is reverse causation?
Poor health can influence IQ, present after a stroke
What are confounding effects (SES)?
Childhood SES can influence health and iQ (malnutrition and poorer health care)
What was the Scottish Birth Cohort Study?
- How to measure the mental ability of Scottish children - tested entire nation (every child born 1921 took same mental test. Repeated again with every child born 1936)
- Brain scans, surveys on diet / health behaviours
What was the Moray House Test? (used in the Scottish cohort study)
74 items measuring arithmetic, directions, proverbs, analogies and reasoning
Scores correlate with tests of IQ - children aged 10/11
Can be used to investigate childhood IQ with health and longevity
What did Whalley & Deary, 2001 find after following the children who took the Moray House Test?
80% of cohort - 76 years old
SES estimated by overcrowding in childhood and their fathers occupation
Found that higher IQ - higher survival
Women - at any age, with a high IQ more likely to survive
Men - less consistent, more apparent in later years but teens/ 20’s there isn’t a difference in survival rates
THIS COULD BE DUE TO WW2
What does Deary 2008 state the causal mechanisms are for IQ and health?
High IQ -> education -> employment -> high SES -> high mortality
