Intelligence Flashcards
Week 8 (31 cards)
Early approaches to measuring intelligence
Different perspective son intelligence
Western Cultures:
- Cognitive, innate, fixed ability, analytical and academic performance, quick thinking
Non-Western Cultures:
Social competence, malleable, includes values like respect-humility-social harmony, emphasize on memory (China) and practical use (Africa), wise and context-sensitive speech, thoughtfulness and careful action
Intelligence- African perspective
No exact linguist category for intelligence in African languages
Intelligence- Te Reo perspective
Matauranga: Knowledge, wisdom, understanding, education
- Refers to the collective body of Maori knowledge passed down through generations
Mohiotanga: Knowledge, understanding, compression, awareness
- Emphasis on the process of knowing and understanding
Atamai: To be knowing, quick-witted, ready, intelligent
Ihumanea: Knowledge, quick to learn and create ideas
- The knowing or understanding of something which emanates from a persons gut feeling rather than through logic or evidence
Rautaki: Strategic
What is intelligence
Set of measurable traits that allows some people to think and solve problems more effectively than others.
No universal accepted definition of intelligence
Intelligence is what is measured by intelligence tests
Ontology
What we know.
Beliefs, values, and perspective son the world.
Often fixed position that shapes the researchers approach to their work, or the way a person sees the world.
Epistemology
How we know and learn things
Acceptable evidence
Idea about what is or should be regard as acceptable (meaningful & valid) knowledge
How such knowledge can and should be generated
Historical context
(General)
(428/427–348/347 BCE) Ancient Greek Culture – Plato:
Plato believed that human beings are born with different levels of intelligence, strength, and courage, making them naturally suited for different roles—such as farming versus politics and aristocracy.
(551–479 BCE) Ancient Chinese Thought – Confucius:
Intelligence and knowledge were used interchangeably.
Confucius believed that people varied in their levels of intelligence based on how knowledge was acquired and utilized—earned throughout life.
1880s – Emergence of Western Psychology as a Discipline:
First Journal of Psychology (German) – 1881
First English Journal of Psychology – 1887
First Chinese Journal of Psychology – 1992
Theories of Intelligence (Western)
Galton and Measurement
Darwinian Approach - Physical Traits 1880s
Galtons lab- def on intelligence started off biological
A polymath and pioneer of individual differences and mental testing
Examined people on 13 traits Height, sitting height, arm span, weight, breathing capacity, memory form etc
Design tools to measure
Nature over nurture
Developed term eugenics
Believed intelligence but also morality and character was genetic
Comments on African people
1900 - 1930
Need to mass educate and test
Who was worthy of educating- children not worth educating
Immigration- who we let into our country, bets breeding stock
Wide range of attitudes to intelligence research
Interest: Research and media reports on intelligence often attract much interest
Indifference: much of mainstream psychology and wider social science ignores individual differences in intelligence
Hostility: the emotional heat generated by some aspects of intelligence research is matched by few other topics in psychology
“Intelligence is rarely discussed for long before the word “controversial” appears” p, 454
Humanitarian motives and education
Alfred Binet (1857 - 1911)- Wanted to identify children who would benefit from further instruction
- How could they tests
What did he develop
Concern educating the ‘mentally retarred’ and ‘insane’ worldwide
1837 establish first school devoted to educating the ‘mentally retarded’
Limited spaces in these schools
Criteria needed to be established
Differentiate mentally restarted form insane- insane can’t be educated
First IQ tests 1905 (France)- concern his test would be used to label people
- Lack of intelligence was an illness
- Intelligence could be affected by education, but limited by inherited factors
-tested on children and
Binet & Simon test - 1905
30 tasks on increasing difficulty
- Attention, social interaction, vocabulary, reasoning, judgement, memory
Child scored expressed as ‘mental/intellectual level or mental age
Later became the Stanford Binet test (5th edition) after published in Sandford US
The Intelligence Quotient - IQ - 1912
William Stern (1871-1938)
Individuals with low intellectual level (mental age) (eg. people with disabilities) slower than their chronological age compared to those with a high mental age
Expressing ability as ratio of mental age (MA) to chronological age (CA)
Lewis Terman 1877 - 1956
MA/CA * 100
Results (IQ score) grouped
140 and over = Genius or near genius
below 70 definite feeble mindedness
Modern day= used more restful words
Deviation IQ
Looks at IQ score relative to age group
Why?
Our IQ can’t keep going up and up. Goes up as a child, hit peak at 30, then it starts to decline (some forms of IQ more than others)
Knowing if someone is gifted
Spearman’s positive manifold- 1904
If you are good at one subject at school you a re probably good at another, especially those with high correlation (e.g. good at math, tend to be good at physics)- GENERAL INTELLIGENCE FACOR (g)
Spearmans 2-Factors Theory
General factor(g):
General mental energy, innate and biological based
Specific Abilities (s):
Skills unique to particular tasks (e.g., math, vocabulary).
In short: Spearman proposed that performance on any cognitive task depends on both a general mental ability (g) and task-specific abilities (s).
Intelligence global, unitary ‘trait’
Louis Thursrtone and primary Mental Abilities - 1938
Intelligence not a single trait but a cluster of independent abilities
7 primary mental abilities: Word fluency, verbal compression, number, space, memory, perceptual speed, reasoning
Raymond Cattel and John Horn-
Crystalized and fluid intelligence 1960s
Crystalised intelligence (gc)
- facts and knowledge about what word
hold OK with age
Fluid intelligence e(gf)
Thinking on the spot, reasoning, problem solving
declines with age
John B.Carroll 3 Stratum Model
Stratum I – Narrow Abilities:
Specific skills like spelling, vocabulary, or reaction time.
Stratum II – Broad Abilities:
General cognitive domains such as fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, memory, and processing speed.
Stratum III – General Intelligence (g):
A single overarching factor influencing all mental abilities.
Cattel-Horn- Carroll (CHC) Theory 1990s to 2000s
General Intelligence (g) – overall mental ability (top level).
Broad Abilities – major cognitive domains like fluid reasoning, crystallized knowledge, memory, and processing speed (middle level).
Narrow Abilities – specific skills under each broad area (bottom level).
In short: CHC theory blends earlier theories to describe intelligence as a hierarchy of general, broad, and specific abilities.
Howard Gardner- Multiple Intelligence - 1980s shift towards recognise diverse abilities
Concerns that linguistic and logical mathematical abilities over emphasised - including in schools: Drew on cognitive, anthropology
Types of intelligence: verbal, logical mathematical, spatial, naturalistic, musical intelligence, personal IQs, bodily kinesthetic, existential
Gardner’s 8 Criteria for Defining a Separate Intelligence:
Exemplified by savants, prodigies, or effects of brain damage
Can be isolated by brain damage
Rooted in evolutionary history (must be adaptive and evolved over time)
Has a core set of operations, such as pitch/rhythm (music), motor control (kinaesthetic), or pattern recognition (naturalistic)
Encodable into a symbol system (e.g., language, music notation)
Follows a clear developmental path (has identifiable stages of growth)
Distinct from other abilities
Supported by psychometric evidence
