What is intelligence?
- Ability to adapt and solve problems
- Psychologists can’t agree on a precise definition
“Boring’s definition of intelligence
Intelligence is whatever a test measures
Two types of approaches to intelligence
- Psychometric (focus of measuring and testing)
- “expanded” models (non-traditional/multiple intelligences)
Galton (1822-1911)
- Intelligence based on processing speed, sensory capacity
- Psychometric tests of size of head, sensory tests
- But these did not predicts outcomes in life
- First attempt at systematic study of intelligence
- coined the phrase “nature and nurture”
- Believed intelligence was inherited; eugenics movement
Ancient intelligence tests
- China 4000 years ago
- ‘civil-servant exams’ to assess skills of community members
“negative” vs “positive” eugenics
negative-discouraging people with “bad” genes from reproducing
positive-encouraging people with “good” genes to reproduce
Binet and Simon
- Regarded as first intelligence test
- Differed from Galton by testing for higher mental processes (reasoning, understanding, judgement)
- Test items positively correlated with each other
Spearman
- Did a ‘factor analyisis’ of Binet and Simons findings
- Took their findings of item correlation as suggesting a shared factor
- Called this General Intelligence (g)
- Also proposed Specific Abilities (s), allowing for particular skills
- Took intelligence to be strength of our mental engines (like car engine)
Factor Analysis
- Done by Spearman
- Analyzes correlations between responses/results on (intelligence) tests; tries to find underlying factor that explains correlations
Louis Thurstone
- Found that some test items clumped together more than others
- Identified 7 primary mental abilities
Thurstone’s 7 mental abilities
- Spatial ability
- Numerical meaning
- Verbal meaning
- Verbal fluency
- Memory
- Inductive reasoning
- Perceptual speed
Cattell
- “Cartel” said both Spearman and Thurstone were right
- Introduced Fluid and Crystallized intelligence
- Fluid: Ability to learn new ways of solving problems
- Crystallized:
Robert Sternberg (three icebergs)
3 facets of intelligences:
Analytic (book)
Creative (creativity)
Practical (street)
All three OVERLAP (three circles)
Criticism: can measure performance but not potential
Analytic Intelligence (Sternberg)
- Efficient information processing (recall speed/memory)
- Solve problems (monitor self as you execute solution)
- g based
- Traditional type of intelligence (reasoning/math)
Creative Intelligence (Sternberg)
- Applying knowledge to new tasks
- Turning novel/effortful task into automatic/effortless
Practical intelligence (Sternberg)
Four ways to adjust to context:
- Understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses
- Adapting to our environment
- Choose new environments;
- Shape existing environment
Gardener
- Argues for multiple, entirely seperate intelligences:
- Linguistic, spatial, logico-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, naturalistic
- Argued that “savants” are proof: extremely gifted at one thing but not others
-Criticisms to Gardener’s view of intelligence
- Impossible to falsify
- Not clear why certain abilities classify as intelligence, while others not
- No evidence that these intelligences are truly independent
Intelligence test logic:
Hypothetical property — Consequential behaviours — test result
Explain
- Intelligence is a hypothetical property that enables people to perform a wide variety of consequential behaviours.
- Good grades, good leadership, high income, etc, are “consequential behaviours”
- Intelligence test are a set of tasks that correlate with these behaviours
Examples of today’s intelligence tests
- Stanford-Binet
- WAIS
Original intelligence tests
- Alfred Binet
- Wanted a test that could identify children who needed remedial education
Mental age IQ
- MA/CA x 100
- Level of age graded problems a child can solve
- Child’s intellectual performance
- At 16, mental age performance starts to level out, so doesn’t work with adults – everyone’s IQ would get lower as they age
Deviation IQ
- Used with adults, when MA perf. levels off
- (score/average) x 100
- Tells us how many SD away from mean a score is
Distribution of IQ scores
- 95% are within 2 SD
- 68% are within 1 SD
