INTELLIGENCE AP Psychology Intelligence Intelligence mental quality consisting

INTELLIGENCE AP Psychology

Intelligence • Intelligence – mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. • Socially constructed by a culture • Usually referred to as “school smarts” • Several intelligence theories • 1 intelligence or multiple? • Can it be quantified with a number?

Spearman’s General Intelligence (g) • A single , basic intelligence - g - predicts our abilities in varied academic areas • General intelligence (g) • Factor analysis - A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test • Mental abilities tend to form clusters • People tend to show about the same level of competence in all abilities in a certain cluster • CRITICS - Human abilities are too diverse to be encapsulated by a single general factor

Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities • A single g score is not as informative as scores for seven primary mental abilities • 7 intelligence factors: word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory • CRITICS – 7 factors show tendency to cluster, suggesting an underlying g score.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences • Intelligence is more than just verbal and mathematical skills as other abilities are equally important. • 8 intelligences Multiple intelligences theory has the most effect on the educational system. • Some teachers agree while others do not. • • CRITICS - Should all abilities be considered intelligences? Shouldn’t some of them just be talents instead?

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence • 3 areas that can be tested reliably • CRITICS - These three factors are related and can have an underlying g factor. Also, additional testing is needed to determine whether these facets can reliably predict success.

Other Intelligences • Social intelligence - the know-how involved in comprehending social situations and managing oneself successfully • Emotional intelligence - the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. • Found to be higher in women

Creativity • The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas Exceptionally creative people do not score higher on intelligence tests than their non-creative peers. • Convergent thinking vs. divergent thinking • • 5 components Expertise • Imaginative thinking skills • A venturesome personality • Intrinsic motivation • A creative environment •

Big Brains = Big Smarts? • Some studies have found a correlation between brain size and intelligence scores. • More educated, therefore defined “intelligent”, people have more connections between neurons (more synapses) than less educated people → more complexity and density. • nature or nurture?

Savant Syndrome • A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing. • 4/5 savants are male • Many savants have autism. • Crash Course – Intelligence 1

ASSESSING INTELLIGENCE

Origins • Intelligence test – a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores. • Aptitude – capacity to learn • Alfred Binet (1857 -1911), French intelligence researcher • Hypothesized that all children develop intellectually in the same way but some develop quicker • Mental age – a measure of intelligence; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance

Origins • Stanford professor Lewis Terman (1877 -1956) revised Binet’s test → Stanford-Binet (American version) • adapted some questions, established new age norms, and extended the upper end of the test’s range from teenagers to “superior” adults • German researcher William Stern (1871 -1939) developed the intelligence quotient (IQ) mental age chronological age x 100 • IQ no longer computed with intelligence tests; now used as a term to refer to a score on an intelligence test • IQ refers to the test-taker’s performance relative to the performance of others of the same age.

Misuse of IQ and Intelligence Tests • Historically, IQ tests have been used to label certain groups of people as inferior. • Terman promoted the widespread use of IQ tests to “take account of the inequalities in original endowment” – believed intelligence was innate and some people were naturally inferior/superior. • • Envisioned that the use of IQ tests would “ultimately result in curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency. ” (essentially advocating for eugenics) In the early 20 th century, the US experienced a massive immigration wave → new immigrants were given American IQ tests… • intelligence tests assess intelligence which is culturally defined …therefore it is no wonder immigrants did poorly on American intelligence tests and were classified unfairly.

Modern Tests • Aptitude tests – designed to predict the ability/potential to learn a new skill. • Ex: SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test, formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test – seeks to predict your ability to do well in college) • Achievement tests – designed to assess what a person has learned. • Ex: EOC (End of Course exam – seeks to assess what you learned in the course)

Modern Tests • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) – developed by David Wechsler, the most widely used intelligence test; contains both verbal and nonverbal subtests • 11 subtests • Yields an overall intelligence score, and also scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed. • Results are important to identify learning disabilities or brain disorders (important for teachers, employers, and therapists) • Also a version for children

Principles of Test Construction • To be widely accepted, psychological intelligence (aptitude and achievement) tests must be: • Standardized • Reliable • Valid

Standardization • Standardization – defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested standardization group AND using uniform test procedures • The number of correct responses on an intelligence would reveal almost nothing… your performance must be compared others’ performances • First the test is given to a sample population, then later given with the same procedures to other groups → compare scores to the sample group to determine your position in relation to others • Tests need to be constantly restandardized to properly assess different generations – Flynn effect = intelligence scores have been rising over time.

Standardization • When a test is standardized, the results when graphed typically form a normal curve – symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many psychical and psychological attributes; most scores fall near the average and fewer scores lie near the extreme. • On an intelligence test, the average score is 100.

Reliability • The extent to which a test yields consistent results Retest the same people, split the test in half and see if scores are consistent → higher the correlation between scores, higher the reliability (WAIS and Stanford-Binet IQ have a +. 9 correlation coefficient) • People should generally score the same when the test is taken multiple times •

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 • • Ex: a driving test assess driving tasks Predictive validity – the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict Criterion – the behavior a test is designed to predict • Ex: the SAT is designed to predict future college performance which is the criterion •

Extremes of Intelligence – Below 70 • Mental handicapped – a condition of limited mental ability , indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficult in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound. • Mentally handicapped can sometimes have a physical cause – Down syndrome – a condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one’s genetic makeup.

Mental Retardation Severity • Many with intelligence scores just below 70 have been integrated into regular education classrooms and mainstream society → more happiness and dignity.

Extremes of Intelligence – Above 130 • Some extraordinarily intelligent children are more isolated and introverted, but most thrive and continue on to higher education. • nature or nurture? • Controversy over gifted children programs: not as many children labeled as gifted are actually extraordinarily gifted • “Tracking” children of different abilities can cause them to live up or down to a perception of their intelligence/abilities (self-fulfilling prophecy)

Nature and Nurture Genetic • Twin studies show that identical twins reared together have almost identical intelligence scores • Adoptive children’s intelligence scores tend to resemble those of their birth parents rather than adoptive parents. Environmental • Intelligence score of identical twins raised apart is less similar than scores of pairs raised together. • Other studies have shown that children raised in impoverished or enriched environments or different cultures show that experiences influence test performance.

Gender Differences Females • better spellers • more verbally fluent and can remember more words • better at nonverbal memory • more sensitive to touch, taste, and color • better at math computation • higher emotional intelligence - empathy Males • better at math problem solving • Superior spatial intelligence • more underachievers

The Question of Bias • Scientific bias – however, intelligence tests, like the SAT, are not biased in the fact that they are less valid for some groups. • The predictive validity of the SAT (as in whether it accurately predicts future behaviors) is the same for men and women, blacks and whites, and the rich and poor. • Stereotype threat – the self-confirming belief that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. • Are intelligence tests discriminatory? • Yes – they are designed to distinguish individuals apart from their peers. • No – they are not designed to distinguish individuals based on political, racial, or ethnic backgrounds Crash Course – Intelligence 2