Unit 11: Intelligence
Unit 11: Intelligence
What is intelligence?
Intelligence is a social construct, used to evaluate a person’s success in a specific society. Therefore intelligence differs in different places. It is defined, universally, as a mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. There is debate of whether intelligence is one factor, or several. Different Theories of intelligence are as follows:
● The G Factor: Charles Spearman believed that we have one general intelligence, which is a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.Spearman helped develop factor analysis, which is a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score. People find this theory rather incomplete now.
● Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences: Gardner believed that people could have extreme or strong intelligence in some areas but be dumbfounded by others, and that intelligence was not concerned with excellence in all areas of assessment.
● Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory - Sternberg agreed that there were multiple intelligences, but proposed three areas of intelligence, not 8.
● Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence is assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer. Such tests predict school grades reasonably well and vocational success more modestly.
● Creative intelligence is demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas.
● Practical intelligence is required for everyday tasks, which may be ill-defined, with multiple solutions. Managerial success,for example, depends less on academic problem-solving skills than on a shrewd ability to manage oneself, one’s tasks, and other people. Sternberg and Richard Wagner’s (1993, 1995)test of practical managerial intelligence measures skill at writing effective memos, motivating people, delegating tasks and responsibilities, reading people, and promoting one’s own career. Business executives who score relatively high on this test tend to earn high salaries and receive high performance ratings.
How is it assessed?
An intelligence test is a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.
History of Intelligence Testing
● Alfred Binet: Predicting School Achievement - Binet started intelligence testing as a way of sorting the children of france into the correct classes based on intelligence. He and his colleague, Theodore Simon, developed tests that assessed mental age, a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance.
● IQ: William Stern derived the famous intelligence quotient, or IQ. The IQ was simply a person’s mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100 to get rid of the decimal point:
Thus, an average child, whose mental and chronological ages are the same, has an IQ of 100. But an 8-year-old who answers questions as would a typical 10-year-old has an IQ of 125. It didn’t work that well for adults. For example, should a 40-year-old who does as well on the test as an average 20-year-old be assigned an IQ of only 50?
● Psychologist David Wechsler created what is now the most widely used intelligence test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), with a version for school-age children (the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC]), and another for preschool children. The WAIS consists of 11 subtests broken into verbal and performance areas. It yields not only an overall intelligence score, as does the Stanford-Binet, but also separate scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization,working memory, and processing speed. Striking differences among these scores can provide clues to cognitive strengths or weaknesses that teachers or therapists can build upon.
Modern Tests of Mental Abilities - Modern intelligence tests are classified as either achievement tests, or aptitude tests.The former is supposed to predict current knowledge, and the latter is supposed to predict future ability, but the tests tend to overlap in what they assess.
● Principles of Test Construction
● Standardization - The process of defining meaningful scores relative to a pretested group. The distribution of test scores often forms a normal, bell-shaped curve. Tests must also be reliable, by yielding consistent scores (on two halves of the test, or when people are retested).
● Validity -. A valid test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. Content validity is the extent to which a test samples the pertinent behavior(as a driving test measures driving ability). Predictive validity is the extent to which the test predicts a behavior it is designed to predict (aptitude tests have predictive ability if they can predict future achievements).
Dynamics of Intelligence
I. Stability or Change?
A. Observation IQ Tests can predict children’s future aptitudes
B. At around 4, children’s IQ tests can predict their teen and adult scores
C. At the age of 7, test scores start to stabilize
D. The consistency of scores over time increases with the child’s age
II. Extremes of Intelligence
A. Low extreme
a. Intellectual Disability is classified on a child when he/she has a low test score as well as difficulty adapting to normal demands of independent living
b. Down Syndrome is among the disorders that created the opening of institutions for slower learners where the students received less attention, privacy, and hope. Parents were told to separate themselves from the child so as not to become attached
B. The High Extreme
a. Scoring high on the verbal aptitude test was likely to end up in the humanities field or writing a novel
b. Some people show high intelligence at very young ages and may end up in a gifted education program
C. Low income families may not get the same opportunities as the financially stable gifted children
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence
1. Are our intellectual abilities mostly inherited, or shaped by our environment. Perhaps both factors come into play.
● The intelligence test scores of identical twins reared together are virtually as similar as those of the same person taking the same test twice.
● Brain scans reveal that identical twins have very similar gray matter volume, and that their brains (unlike those of fraternal twins) are virtually the same in areas associated with verbal and spatial intelligence.
● Other evidence points to the effects of environment. Studies show that adoption enhances the intelligence scores of mistreated or neglected children.
● Fraternal twins, genetically no more alike than any other siblings but are treated more alike because they are the same age, tend to score more alike than other siblings.
Heritability
● We credit heredity with 50 percent of the variation in intelligence among people being studied and therefore heritability never pertains to an individual. Only to why people differ from one another.
● Since environmental differences are more predictive of intelligence scores, Mark Twain’s theory of raising boys in a barrel till the age of 12 would prove that any differences in the boy’s intelligence test scores would be due to heredity.
● Our genes shape the experiences that shape us.
Environmental Experiences
● J. McVicker Hunt’s tutored human enrichment program recognized the dramatic effects of early experience and the impact of early intervention, and trained caregivers to play language fostering games with infants so that by 22 months of age, they could name more than 50 objects and body parts
● The musical training effect suggested that listening to classical music, keyboard or vocal training boosted cognitive ability.
● Education boosts children’s chances for success by developing their cognitive and social skills.
● Genes and experience together weave the intelligence fabric--- what we accomplish with our intelligence depends also on our own beliefs and motivation, according to Carol Dweck.
Group Differences in Intelligence Test Scores
● Verbal ability Females excel at verbal fluency and remembering words and other facts.
● Nonverbal memory Females have an edge in remembering and locating objects. In studies of more than 100,000 American adolescents, girls also modestly surpassed boys in memory for picture associations.
● Sensation Females are more sensitive to touch, taste, and odor, as well as being better emotion detectors
● Math and spatial aptitudes On math tests given to more than 3 million representatively sampled people in 100 independent studies, males and females obtained nearly identical average scores. However virtually all math prodigies participating in the International Mathematics Olympiad have been males---they score higher in math problem solving.
● Greater male variability Intelligence research consistently reports that males’ mental ability scores vary more than females’. As a result, boys outnumber girls at both the low extreme and the high extreme.
The Question of Bias
III. Two Meanings of Bias
A. An aptitude test may be considered biased if it detects differences in intelligence as well as performance differences due to by cultural experiences
B. The scientific meaning of bias includes whether the test predicts future behavior only for a selected few groups of test-takers
C. Stereotype Threat doesn’t account for the test score differences between Blacks and Whites
D. Banning aptitude tests would lead those who decide on jobs and admissions to rely more on other considerations, such as their personal opinions
E. Aptitude tests can be considered discriminatory while at the same time, not discriminatory. They are meant to distinguish among individuals but also judge a person based on character versus any other contributing factors to a personality
Unit 11 Vocab
intelligence / mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.intelligence test / a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.
general intelligence / a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.
factor analysis / a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score.
savant syndrome / a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.
emotional intelligence / the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.
mental age / a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.
Stanford-Binet / the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet’s original intelligence test.
intelligence quotient / defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.
achievement tests / tests designed to assess what a person has learned.
aptitude tests / tests designed to predict a person’s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) / the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.
standardization / defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.
normal curve / a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes.
reliability / the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting.
validity / the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.
content validity / the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.
predictive validity / the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior.
intellectual disability / a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound.
Down Syndrome / a condition of intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21
Stereotype Threat / a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.