Week 9 Intelligence 1 Flashcards
What are some definitions of intelligence?
- the ability to carry out abstract thinking
- ability to adjust oneself to the environment
- a biological mechanism by which the effects of a complexity of stimuli are brought together to give a unified perception
What are the three main types of intelligence and what do they mean?
verbal- general learning & comprehension, good vocabulary
problem solving ability- abstract thinking/reasoning, can apply knowledge to tasks at hand
practical intelligence- real world adaptive behaviours, determines how to achieve goals
How you go about assessing intelligence is based on?
the theoretical take we have on it
What are the three main types of theoretical approaches?
- lumpers
- splitters
- hierarchical
Who was the founder of lumpers and discuss more about it
- Charles Spearman
- general theory of intelligence
- found that people who were pretty good at one thing tended to be pretty good at another thing
- thus came up that intelligence was governed by a general mental ability called ‘G’
Why is Spearman’s “G” theory criticized?
there are too many correlations therefore the G couldn’t possibly explain all the data
Who was the founder of splitters and discuss more about it
- Guilford
- intelligence has 120-150 different abilities, each separate and independent
- if you want to measure intelligence you have to measure each and every ability
For Guildford’s model of intelligence, what were the three overarching sections that the task had to fit into
- operations
- products
- contents
What was a problem with Guildford’s model of intelligence?
you often could not find a task to fit under each overarching section
Poetry is to prose as dance is to… is an example of which theorists’ theory
Guildford’s theory of intelligence (splitter)
What is the better alternative to splitters/lumpers?
hierarchical models
What are two hierarchical theorists?
Vernon’s model of intelligence and Thurston’s primary abilities
Discuss Vernon’s (1950) model
- lumpers were at the top, splitters at the bottom
- G = major group factors>minor group factors> specific factors
- two major group factors
What were the two major group factors in Vernon’s model?
-verbal + educational and practical
What was the difference between Vernon & Thurston’s approach?
instead of two major factors, Thurston had seven incl. verbal comprehension, word fluency, space, memory etc.
