Week 16 Flashcards
Intelligence
An individual’s cognitive capability. This includes the ability to acquire, process, recall, and apply information
Intellectual ability
the ability to learn, remember, and use new information, to solve problems and to adapt to novel situations
Charles Spearman
Proposed the idea that intelligence was one thing, a “general factor” sometimes known as simply “g”. Based this conclusion on the observation that people who perform well in one intellectual area such as verbal ability also tend to perform well in other areas such as logic and reasoning
“g”
short for general factor and is often used to be synonymous with intelligence itself
Francis Galton
Interested in intelligence, which he thought was heritable in much the same way that height and eye colour are. Carefully tracked the family tree of top-scoring Cambridge students over the past 40 years. Found that intellectual achievement could still be the product of economic status, family culture, or other non-genetic factors. Established intelligence as a variable that could be measured
Alfred Binet
Interested in the development of intelligence, a fascination that led him to observe children carefully in the classroom setting. Created a test of children’s intellectual capacity and created individual test items that should be answered by children of various ages
According to Binet, what should a child who is three be capable of
Point to their mouth and eyes
According to Binet, a child who is nine should be capable of
Name the months of the year in order
According to Binet, a child who is 12 should be capable of
Name sixty words in three minutes
IQ
Short for intelligence quotient. This is a score, typically obtained from a widely used measure of intelligence, that is meant to rank a person’s intellectual ability against that of others
Standardized
Assessments that are given in the exact same manner to all people. With regards to intelligence tests, standardized scores are individual scores that are computed to be referenced against normative scores for a population
Lewis Terman
Adapted the Binet-Simon test to create what is, perhaps the most famous intelligence test in the world, the Stanford-Binet. This test was standardized. Based on a large sample of children he was able to plot the scores in a normal distribution, shaped like a “bell curve”.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Provides clues to a definition of intelligence itself. David Wechsler sought to create a superior measure of intelligence. Created a test that tapped a wide range of intellectual abilities. Assesses people’s ability to remember, compute, understand language, reason well, and process information quickly
What is the average IQ score
100
Normed
Assessments are given to a representative sample of the population to determine the range of scores for that population. These “norms” are then used to determine the range of scores in which he or she is compared to the population
Caroll’s intelligence divided into 3 levels
Levels or strata descend from the most abstract down to the most specific. Highest level (stratum III) the general intelligence factor “g”. Under this were more specific stratum II categories. Each of these can be subdivided into very specific components
Howard Gardner
Known for championing the notion that there are different types of intelligence. His theory is appropriately called “multiple intelligences”. His theory is based on the idea that people process information through different “channels” and these are relatively independent of one another
Gardner’s 8 common intelligences
Logic-math, visual-spatial, music rhythm, verbal linguistic, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic
Emotional intelligence
Emphasizes the experience and expression of emotion. Similar to more traditional notions of cognitive intelligence with regards to workplace benefits
What do researchers argue about emotional intelligence
Some argue that emotional intelligence is a set of skills in which an individual can accurately understand the emotions of others, can identify and label their own emotions, and can use emotions. Other researchers believe that emotional intelligence is a mixture of abilities, such as stress management, and personality, such as a person’s predisposition for certain moods
why is the way an individual thinks about their intelligence important
It predicts importance. Carol Dweck discovered that it is not gender or social class that sets apart the high and low performers. Instead, it is their mindset. Children who believe that their abilities in general and their intelligence is a fixed trait tend to underperform. Kids who believe that intelligence is changeable and evolving tend to handle failure better and perform better
How can the phenomenon of why women are underrepresented in certain fields be explained
It might be the result of inequalities in the educational system, it might be due to the differences in socialization wherein young girls are encouraged to develop other interests. It might be the result of that women are-on average-responsible for a larger portion of child care obligations and therefore make different types of professional decisions, or it might be due to innate differences between these groups
What did Halpern find about women in terms of specific aspects of cognitive abilities
Women appear, on average, superior to men on measures of fine motor skills, acquired knowledge, reading comprehension, decoding non-verbal expression, and generally have higher grades in school.
What did Halpern find about men in terms of specific aspects of cognitive abilities
Men appear on average, superior to women on measures of fluid reasoning related to math and science, perceptual tasks that involve moving objects, and tasks that require transformations in working memory as mental rotations of physical spaces. Men are disproportional represented on the low end of cognitive functioning including intellectual disability, dyslexia, and attention deficit disorders
Stereotype threat
The phenomenon in which people are concerned that they will conform to a stereotype or that their performance does conform to that stereotype, especially in instances in which the stereotype is brought to their conscious awareness
What has research on stereotype threat yielded
Mixed results and we are currently uncertain about exactly how and when this effect might occur. One possible antidote to stereotype threat, at least in the case of women, is to make a self-affirmation before the threat occurs. The affirmation largely erased the effect of the stereotype by improving math scores for women relative to control group by similar affirmations had little effect for men
Plato’s triarchic view of the human psyche
Described in phaedra, wherein he depicts the intellect as a charioteer, an affect (interests) and will (to master) as horses that draw the chariot
Trilogy of Mind
Cognitive, affective, and conative factors that have all been found in comprehensive model of human development
Under-determined or misspecified casual models
Psychological frameworks that miss or neglect to include one or more of the critical determinants of that phenomenon under analysis
Theory of Work Adjustment
Provides a useful organization scheme for treatment by outlining critical dimensions of human individuality for performance in learning and work settings
Satisfaction
Correspondence between an individual’s needs or preferences and the rewards offered by the environment
Satisfactoriness
Correspondence between an individual’s abilities and the ability requirements of the environment
What is the extent that satisfactoriness and satisfaction co-occur
The individual is motivated to maintain contact with the environment and the environment is motivated to retain the individual; if one of these dimensions is dis-correspondent, the individual is motivated to leave the environment or the environment is motivated to dismiss
The model of talent development
Places equal emphasis on assessing the individual (abilities and interests) and the environment (response requirement and reward structures)
What do comprehensive reviews of outcomes within education, counselling, and industrial/organizational psychology emphasize
person/environment tandem: aligning competency/motivational proclivities to performance standards and reward structures for learning and work.
What features does educational, counselling, and industrial psychology share
The scientific study of implementing interventions or opportunities, based on individual differences, for maximizing positive psychological growth across different stages of life span development
What does a radex show
A general outline of the hierarchy (that cognitive abilities are ogranized hierachically) is represented graphically. This illustrates the reliable finding that cognitive ability assessments covary as a function of their content or complexity
When cognitive ability tests are scaled based on how highly they covary with one another, what do they show?
The more that two tests share complexity and content, the more they covary and that the closer they are to one another as a point within the radex
Test complexity
Scaled from the centre of the radex (“g”) out, and, along lines emanating from the origin, complexity decreases but test content remains the same. Varies between bands (but on lines from the origin to the periphery, content remains constant)
Test content
Scaled around the circular band with equal distance from the centre of the radex and, progressing around these bands, the relative density of test content changes from spatial/mechanical to verbal/linguistic to quantitative/numerical, but test complexity remains constant
What does the cognitive ability test model provide
Affords an excellent overview of the content and sophistication of thought applied to familiar and novel problem solving tasks. Mathematical, spatial, and verbal reasoning constitute the chief specific abilities with implications for different choices and performance after those choices in learning ad work settings. The content measures or tests these specific abilities index individual differences in different modalities of though: reasoning with numbers, words, and figures or shapes.
General mental ability
The general factor common to all cognitive ability measures, “a very general mental capacity that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience. Reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings- ‘cathcing on’, ‘making sense of things’, or ‘figuring out’ what to do
What do measures of g manifest
Life importance by going beyond educational settings, by placing a role in shaping phenomena within Freud’s two important life domains, arbeiten and lieben, working and loving
Special abilities
Cognitive abilities that contain an appreciable component of g or general ability, but also contain a large component of a more content-focused talent such as mathematical, spatial, or verbal ability; patterns of specific abilities channel development down different paths as a function of an individual’s relative strengths and weaknesses.
What did researchers discover about the differences between STEM and non-STEM educational groups
Students who ultimately secure educational credentials in STEM domains are more capable than those earning degrees in other ares, especially in nonverbal intellectual abilities. Within all educational domains, more advanced degrees are associated with more general and specific abilities.
What is needed to understand attractions and aversions
Psychological information on motivational differences (personal passions) is needed to understand attractions and aversions, different ways to create a meaningful life, and how differential development unfolds
Realistic
Working with gadgets and things, the outdoors, need for structure
Investigative
Scientific pursuits, especially mathematics and the physical science, and interest in theory
Artistic
Creative expression in art and writing, little need for structure
Social
People interests, the helping professions, teaching, nursing, counselling
Enterprising
Likes leadership roles directed toward economic objectives
Conventional
liking of well-structured environments and clear chains of command, such as office practices
John Holland’s hexagon
Captures the general outlines of the educational/occupational interest domain, but there are molecular strands of intellective and interest dimensions that add nuance to these general outlines.
What is the correlation between abilities and interests
.20-.30 range. But, when selection is extreme, distinct profiles emerge and reflect different “types”
What do correlations between abilities and interests show?
For basic science, this shows how ostensibly different kinds of intelligence at the extreme do not stem from different qualities, but rather from endpoint extremes within a multivariate space of systematic sources of individual differences, which “pull” with them constellations of nonintellectual personal attributes
Conative factors
Distinct from abilities and preferences, having more to do with individual differences in energy or psychological tempo rather than the content of what people do or how rapidly they learn
Herbert Simon
Argued that our decisions are bounded in their rationality
Bounded rationality
Model for human behaviour that suggests that humans try to make rational decisions but are bounded due to cognitive limitations
What effects the quantity and quality of information that is available to us
Time and cost constraitns limit the quantity and quality of the information that is available to us. We only retain a relatively small amount of information in our usable memory. Limitations on intelligence and perceptions constrain the ability of even very bright decision makers to accurately make the best choice based on the information that is available
Tversky and Kahneman
Produced their own Nobel Prize winning research, which provided critical information about specific systematic and predictable biases, or mistakes, that influence judgment. Their work paved the way to our modern understanding of judgement an decision making
Biases
The systematic and predictable mistakes that influence the judgment of even very talented human beings.
What does Simon’s concept of bounded rationality teach us
That judgment deviates from rationality, but it did not tell us how judgment is biased
Heuristics
A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that reduces complex mental problems to more simple rule base decisions. They allow us to cop we with the complex environment surrounding our decisions. They also lead to systematic and predictable biases
Overconfident
The bias to have greater confidence in your judgment than is warranted based on a rational assessment
Anchoring
The bias to be affected by an initial anchor, even if the anchor is arbitrary, and to insufficiently adjust our judgments away from that anchor
Framing
The bias to be systematically affected by the way in which information is presented, while holding the objective information constant
What kind of information are we biased in favour of
Information that is easy for our minds to retrieve
Willpower is bounded
The tendency to place greater weight on present concerns rather than future concerns
Self-interest is bounded
The systematic and predictable ways in which we care about the outcomes of others. Sometimes were positively value the outcomes of others-giving them more of a commodity than is necessary out a desire to be fair
Bounded ethicality
The systematic ways in which our ethics are limited in ways we are note even aware of ourselves
Bounded awareness
The systematic ways in which we fail to notice obvious and important information is available to us
Bazerman and Moore’s outline to making a rational decision
Define the problem, identify the criteria necessary to judge the multiple options, weigh the criteria, generate alternatives, compute the optimal decision
System 1 decision making
Our intuitive decision-making system, which is typically fast, automatic, effortless, implicit, and emotional
System 2 decision making
Our more deliberative decision-making system, which is slower, conscious, effortful, explicit, and logical
why do we not need to use system 2 every time we make a decision
In most situations, our system 1 thinking is quite sufficient; it would be impractical, for example, to logically reason through every choice we make while shopping for groceries.
What is the key to reducing the effects of bias and improving our decisions
To transition from trusting our intuitive system 1 thinking toward engaging more in deliberative system 2 thought.
Why do we rely on system 1 thinking
The busier and more rushed people are, the more they have on their minds, and the more likely they are to rely on System 1 thinking. The frantic pace of professional life suggests that executives often rely on System 1 thinking
Thaler and Sunstein’s book, “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness”
Rather than setting out how to determine bias human judgment, Thaler and Sunstein outline a strategy for how “decision architects” can change environments in ways that account for human bias and trigger better decisions as a result
How can simple changes to defaults dramatically improve people’s decisons
They tackle the failure of many people to save for retirement and show that a simple change can significantly influence enrolment in 401k programs. In most companies, when you start your job, you need to proactively sign up to join the company’s retirement savings plan. Companies automatically enrol their employees in 401k programs and give them the opportunity to “opt out”, the net enrolment rate rises significantly
