Module 13

Intelligence

INTRODUCTION

• Psychometrics

– Subarea of psychology– Concerned with developing psychological tests that

assess an individual’s abilities, skills, beliefs, and personality traits in a wide range of settings

• ____________________________• ____________________________• ____________________________

DEFINING INTELLIGENCE

• Two-factor theory

– Developed by Charles Spearman – Says that intelligence has two factors

• general mental ability factor “g”; represents ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• specific factors “s”; include specific mental abilities such as __________________________________________

• ___________________________________________________________________________________________

DEFINING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)

• Multiple-intelligence theory

– Developed by Howard Gardner– Instead of one kind of general intelligence, there are at least

seven different kinds, including• __________________________________________

• __________________________________________

• _________________________________________________

• __________________________________________________

• __________________________________________________

• __________________________________________________________________________________________________

DEFINING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)• Triarchic theory

– Developed by Robert Sternberg– Says that intelligence can be divided into three different

kinds of reasoning processes• uses ____________________thinking skills measured by

traditional intelligence tests

• uses ___________________that require _______________and the ability to learn from experience

• uses ____________________________that help a person adjust to, and cope with, his or her sociocultural environment

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE• Early attempts to measure intelligence

– Head size and intelligence– Francis Galton

• noticed that intelligent people often had intelligent relatives and concluded that intelligence was, to a large extent, biological or inherited

• low correlation between head size and intelligence

• using head size as a measure of intelligence was abandoned in favor of using skull or brain size

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)• Early attempts to measure intelligence

– Brain size and intelligence• Paul Broca• claimed there was a relationship between size of brain

and intelligence

• larger brains indicating more intelligence

• later reanalysis of Broca’s data indicated that measures of brain size proved to be unreliable and poorly correlated with intelligence

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)• Early attempts to measure intelligence

– Brain size and achievement• enormous variation in brain size and achievement

– Brain size, sex differences, and intelligence• female brains weigh about 10% less than male brains• little or no difference in intelligence between men and

women• larger size of men’s brains doesn’t result in higher IQs

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)• Binet’s breakthrough

– Alfred Binet• Believed intelligence was a _______________________;

best way to assess it was to measure a person’s ability to perform cognitive tasks

• Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale– contained items arranged in order

_______________________________________– measured vocabulary, memory, common knowledge,

and other cognitive abilities

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)

• Binet’s breakthrough– Binet and Simon revised their intelligence scale to solve

several problems in their original scale

– Mental age• ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)

• Formula for IQ– Intelligence quotient

• computed by dividing a child’s mental age (MA), as measured in an intelligence test, by the child’s chronological age (CA) and multiplying the result by 100

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale– Most widely used IQ tests– Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III), ages 16

and older– Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) for

children ages 3 to 16– Both have items organized into various subtests

• ______________________________• ________________________________• _______________________________________

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE (CONT’D)• Two characteristics of tests

– Validity• ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

– Reliability• ______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DISTRIBUTION & USE OF IQ SCORES

• Normal distribution of IQ scores– Normal distribution

• ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DISTRIBUTION & USE OF IQ SCORES (CONT’D)

DISTRIBUTION & USE OF IQ SCORES (CONT’D)

• Mental retardation: IQ scores– Mental retardation

• substantial limitation in functioning characterized by significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, along with related limitations in 2 of 10 areas, including communication, self-care, home living, social skills, and safety

– borderline mentally retarded: _________________

– mildly/moderately mentally retarded: ________________________________

– severely/profound mentally retarded: _______________________________________________

DISTRIBUTION & USE OF IQ SCORES (CONT’D)

• Mental retardation: IQ scores– Causes

• Organic retardation– results from genetic problems or brain damage

• Cultural-familial retardation– results from a greatly impoverished

environment

DISTRIBUTION & USE OF IQ SCORES (CONT’D)

• Vast majority: IQ scores – about 95%, have scores that fall between 70 and 130

• Gifted: IQ scores• moderately gifted

– usually defined by an IQ score between 130 and 150

• profoundly gifted – usually defined by an IQ score around 180 or

above

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS OF IQ TESTING

• Binet’s warnings

– ______________________________________________________________________________________

– _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS OF IQ TESTING (CONT’D)

• Cultural bias– The wording of the questions and the experiences on

which the questions are used

• Nonintellectual factors– Refer to noncognitive factors, such as attitude,

experience, and emotional functioning, that may help or hinder performance on tests

NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION

• Definition – Asks how nature (hereditary or genetic factors)

interacts with nurture (environmental factors) in the development of a person’s intellectual, emotional, personal, and social abilities

• Twin studies– Fraternal twins

• siblings (brothers and sisters) who develop from separate eggs and have 50% of their genes in common

NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION (CONT’D)

• Twin studies– Identical twins

• develop from a single egg and thus have identical genes (have 100% of their genes in common)

– Interaction of nature and nurture• when researchers report that genetic factors

influence intelligence (IQ scores), it means that genetic factors influence cognitive abilities to varying degrees, depending on the environment

NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION (CONT’D)

• Adoption studies

– Children with limited social-educational opportunities and low IQs were adopted by parents who could provide increased social-educational opportunities

– Studies show that children with poor educational opportunities and low IQ scores can show an increase in IQ scores when adopted into families that provide increased educational opportunities

NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION (CONT’D)• Interaction: nature and nurture

– Heritability• number that indicates the amount or proportion of some

ability, characteristic, or trait that can be attributed to genetic factors (nature)

– Reaction range• ______________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION (CONT’D)