Lecture 5 Flashcards
(12 cards)
1
Q
Psychometrics
A
- Science of psychological assessment
- Concerned with individual differences
2
Q
How is intelligence is measured
A
- Individual tests for one-to-one testing and group-level tests
- Single item type tests e.g. British picture vocabulary test
- Multiple item tests to measure wide-ranging cognitive abilities e.g. Primary scale of intelligence
3
Q
Verbal ability
A
- How well a person takes in info from environment
- Receptive vocabulary tests = presents children with pictures and asked to select one
- Non-verbal reasoning test = ability to think about problems in new situations e.g. the Marti reasoning task = shown patterns and asked which shape goes here
- Block design task = show ppt what you want array to look like and have 90 seconds to recreate it
4
Q
Is intelligence heritable?
A
-DNA sequence counts for 50% of variance in intelligence
5
Q
What heritability estimates dont tell us
A
- Doesn’t say 50% of individuals intelligence is due to DNA
- Nothing about average IQ
- Heritability is a statistic describing variation but is not same as heredity (passed on)
- BUT heredity found to be 0.5
6
Q
Genes
A
- Specific genes unknown
- Individual genes have small effect
- Genome wide association studies (Plomin and VonStumm, 2018):
- -> identify specific loci through genome
- -> Indicated polygenic
7
Q
Environmental influences
A
- Childrens IQ correlated with family factors
- Social selection vs causal causation (Hackman and Farah):
- -> Social selection = individual characteristics of parents results in lower levels of socio-economic status
- Social causation = limits resources and stresses conditions associated with low SES which damages cognitive development
8
Q
Adoption
A
- Van Ijzendoorn et al (2005) = studied neglect and maltreatment in early life
- Adopted children IQ’s greater than non-adopted siblings but similar to adoptive siblings
- But no longitudinal studies available to track changes in IQ
- Specific factors helping adopted children unclear
9
Q
The Flynn effect
A
- Used Ravens Matrices data from 5 countries and found fluid intelligence across generations
- Meta analysis by Pietschnig and Voracek (2015) confirmed original findings
- IQ resign by 2.8 points in last decade
- Flynn argued decade is too short for genetics to have changed = environmental influence
- Problem with IQ = can tank people within generation but not across generations = cautious when comparing ethnicities and races
10
Q
Correlation between IQ and education
A
-Could be longer someone stays in education the higher the IQ or people with high IQ choose to stay in education longer
Meta analysis of quasi experimental studies (Ritchie and Tucker-Drob, 2018):
- 142 studies from 20th century
- Longitudinal studies
- Looked at countries with change in duration of education
- Found for every 1 year of education you gain 3 points in IQ
11
Q
Gene-environmental interaction
A
- Genetics influences are fully expressed in nourishing environments
- Tucker-Drob and Bates (2016) meta analysis of socio-economic status effect on heritability of IQ
- -> Found genes exerted weaker influence on IQ in low SES groups
12
Q
IGF2R gene
A
- Plomin (2004) looked at DNA of 50 US children with IQ of over 160 and compares to DNA of children with normal IQ
- Found gene IGF2R on chromosome 6 was twice as common in children with high IQ
