IntelligenceOverview

Definitions of intelligence One ability or many? The role of creativity and emotional intelligence

How to construct tests to try to assess intelligence Intelligence stability, change, and extremes Genetic vs. environmental influences Group differences in ability Racial difference or cultural test bias?

Overall question to consider:does each of us have an inborn level of

talent, a general mental capacity or set of abilities, and can that level be measured

and represented by a score on a test?

Intelligence: An Introduction

Topics: What do we mean by intelligence?Defining intelligenceTypes and components of intelligence:

Spearman’s g, Gardner’s 8, Sternberg’s 3

Intelligence and creativityEmotional Intelligence

Intelligence tests are a series of questions and other exercises which attempt to assess people’s mental abilities in a way that generates a numerical score, so that one person can be compared to another.

Intelligence can be defined as “whatever intelligence tests measure.” Your college entrance test measures

how good you are at scoring well on that test.

“Definition” of Intelligence

Definition of Intelligence: Beyond the Test?

The text defines intelligence,

whether it’s math ability or a rainforest

dweller’s understanding of

plants, as the ability to learn from

experience, solve problems, and use

knowledge to adapt to new situations.

General Intelligence, also known as g

Charles Spearman (1863-1945) performed a factor analysis* of different skills and found that people who did well in one area also did well in another. Spearman speculated that these people had a high “g” (general intelligence).

*Factor analysis refers to a statistical technique that determines how different variables relate to each other; for example whether they form clusters that tend to vary together.

Multiple IntelligencesThe “savant syndrome” refers to having isolated “islands” of high ability amidst a sea of below-average cognitive and social functioning. This suggest that there can be isolated pieces of intelligence.

Howard Gardner’s Multiple IntelligencesHoward Gardner (b. 1943) noted that different people have intelligence/abilities in different areas. He felt that levels of these “intelligences” could vary independent of each other.Factor analysis suggests, though, that for most people there may be a correlation among these intelligences.

Howard GardnerHoward Gardner

Gardner proposes eight types of intelligences and Gardner proposes eight types of intelligences and speculates about a ninth one — speculates about a ninth one — existential existential

intelligence. intelligence. Existential intelligence isExistential intelligence is the ability to the ability to think about the question of life, death and existence.think about the question of life, death and existence.

Robert Sternberg (b. 1949) proposed that “success” in life is related to three types of ability.

Practical intelligence: expertise and

talent that help to complete the

tasks and manage the complex challenges of everyday life

Sternberg’s Intelligence Triarchy

Analytical intelligence: solving a well-

defined problem with a single

answer Creative intelligence:

generating new ideas to help

adapt to novel situations

Theories: ComparisonTheories: Comparison

The different intelligence factors tend to correlate with each other, and with a general level of intelligence.

Success, financial and otherwise, correlates with overall intelligence

Success also correlates with hard work, connections, and the development of expertise (The 10 year Rule regarding intensive daily practice).

Critique of Multiple Intelligence theories

Social intelligence refers to the ability to understand and

navigate social situations.

Social and Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence

involves processing and managing the

emotional component of those

social situations, including one’s own

emotions.

Emotional Intelligence: ComponentsEmotional Intelligence: Components

ComponentComponent DescriptionDescription

Perceive emotionPerceive emotionRecognize emotions in faces, Recognize emotions in faces,

music and storiesmusic and stories

Understand emotionUnderstand emotionPredict emotions, how they Predict emotions, how they

change and blendchange and blend

Manage emotionManage emotionExpress emotions in different Express emotions in different

situationssituations

Use emotionUse emotionUtilize emotions to adapt or be Utilize emotions to adapt or be

creativecreative

Daniel Goleman’s Theory of Emotional Intelligence

The ability to feel, deal with, and recognize emotions makes up its own kind of intelligence.

Emotional self-awareness: knowing what we are feeling and why

Managing and harnessing emotions: knowing how to control and respond to feelings appropriately

Empathy: knowing what another person is feeling

Aspects of this theory include:

Emotional Intelligence: CriticismEmotional Intelligence: Criticism

Gardner and others criticize the idea of emotional Gardner and others criticize the idea of emotional intelligence and question whether we stretch this intelligence and question whether we stretch this idea of intelligence too far when we apply it to our idea of intelligence too far when we apply it to our

emotions.emotions.

•Recognizing emotions in facial expressions, stories, and even in music

Perceiving emotions

•Being able to see blended emotions, and to predict emotional states and changes in self and others

Understanding emotions

•Modulating and expressing emotions in various situations

Managing emotions

•Using emotions as fuel and motivation for creative, adaptive thinking

Using emotions

Emotional Intelligence: Components

Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

People with high emotional intelligence often have other beneficial traits, such as the ability to delay gratification while pursuing long-term goals.

The level of emotional intelligence, including the skill of reading the emotions of others, correlates with success in career and other social situations.

Alfred Binet’s intelligence testing: to predict school achievement In the late 1800s, a new law in

France required universal education.

Alfred Binet knew that some new students would need help to succeed.

Binet develop tests to predict a child’s level of success in regular education.

Goal: to determine which students would need support.

Intelligence: a place on the path of development?

Alfred Binet assumed that all children follow the same course of development, some going more quickly, and others more slowly.

Binet’s tests attempted to measure mental age--how far the child had come along on the “normal” developmental pathway.

The implication was that children with lower ability were delayed (with a mental age below their chronological age), and not disabled; with help, they could improve.

Others saw intelligence as innate and fixed, including: Lewis Terman, who turned Binet’s test into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test.

Binet Terman Stanford-Binet IQ

Stern described Intelligence as a Quotient, a ratio comparing mental age to chronological age.

Lewis Terman, of Stanford University, adapted Alfred Binet’s test, adding new test items and extending the age range into adulthood.

Terman also tested many California residents to develop new norms, that is, new information about how people typically performed on the test.

The result was the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.

William Stern added a way of scoring of the Stanford-Binet test known as the Intelligence Quotient.

Binet reported scores as simply one’s mental age; a 10 year old with below average intelligence might have a mental age of 8.

Q: What IQ score do we get for

Binet used the term mental age to describe the level of intellectual functioning. The average five-year-old should pass most items on a test designed for that age.

Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.) is a measure that compares mental age with physical age. A seven-year-old child with a mental age of eight will have an IQ of 114.

Mental Age

Flynn EffectFlynn Effect

In the past 60 years, intelligence scores have In the past 60 years, intelligence scores have risen steadily by an average of 27 points. This risen steadily by an average of 27 points. This

phenomenon is known as the phenomenon is known as the Flynn effectFlynn effect..

What do scores mean?

Lewis Terman, of Stanford University, began with a different assumption than Binet; Terman felt that intelligence was unchanging and innate (genetic).

Later, Terman saw how scores can be affected by people’s level of education and their familiarity with the language and culture used in the test.

What to do if you score low on an IQ test?

Binet

Terman

Study, and develop self-discipline and

attention span.

Remove your genes from the

population

IQ

SAT scores (verbal + quantitative)

Aptitude vs. Achievement Achievement tests measure what you already have learned.

Examples include a literacy test, a driver’s license exam, and a final exam in a psychology course.

Aptitude tests attempt to predict your ability to learn new skills. The SAT, ACT, and GRE are supposed to predict your ability to do

well in future academic work.

If the SAT is an aptitude test,

should it correlate with IQ?

Wechsler’s Tests: Intelligence PLUSThe Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) measure “g”/IQ. Challenges include: Describing similarities

and differences Timed math problems Vocabulary knowledge Re-sequencing and

recall of letters and numbers

Arranging blocks to produce designs

In order for intelligence or other psychological tests to generate results that are considered useful, the tests (and their scores) must be:

standardized.

Principles of Test Construction

reliable.

valid.

Many intelligence tests generate a raw score based on the number of answers correct. Can we turn this into a number that tells us how smart/capable a person is compared to the general population? Yes: by Standardizing.

Standardization: How we know whether your IQ score is average.

Standardization: defining the meaning of scores based on a comparison with the performance of others who have taken the test before.

The current method for generating an IQ score is to determine where your raw score falls on a distribution of scores by people of your chronological age. (Next slide).

Standardization: How “Normal” is Your Score?

If we stacked a bunch of intelligence tests in piles ordered by raw score (#of test items correct), there would be a few very high scores and a few low scores, and a big pile in the middle; this bell-shaped set of scores is called the normal curve. Standardization: Calling the average raw score “IQ 100.”

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Comparing your score to this standard set of

scores: if you score higher than 50

percent of people, you your IQ is 100.

If your score is higher than 98 percent of the

population, your IQ is around what

number?

A test or other measuring tool is reliable when it generates consistent results.

Reliability and Validity of Measures

Split-half reliability: two halves of the test yield the same results.

Test-retest reliability: the test gives the same result if administered again.

Example: If your height was measured with a ruler made of stretchy dough.

A test or measure has validity if it accurately measures what it is supposed to measure.

Content validity: the test correlates well with the actual trait being measured

Predictive validity: the test accurately predicts future performance .

Example: If your height was measured with a yardstick on which the “inches” varied in size.

Stability of Intelligence during Aging: Based on this chart, at what

age might you do best at completing a crossword puzzle completely? Quickly?

Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

Fluid intelligence: the ability to think quickly and abstractly. This type of intelligence tends to be strongest in youth.

Crystallized intelligence: accumulated wisdom, knowledge, expertise, and vocabulary.These stay strong into old age.

Extremes of Intelligence

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale is set so that about 2 percent of the population is above 130 and about 2 percent of the population is below 70.

Very High Intelligence,

GiftedIntellectual Disability

Extremes of Intelligence

“Intellectual disability” refers to people who have an IQ around 70 or below.have difficulty with adaptive skills, such as:

conceptual skills (literacy and calculation). social skills, including making safe social choices. practical daily living skills such as hygiene, occupational skills, and

using transportation.

Although some people with high intelligence test scores can seem socially delayed or withdrawn, most are “successful.”

“Gifted” children, like any children, learn best with an appropriate level of challenge.

Segregated, “tracked” programs, however, often unfairly widen achievement gaps.

What we are born with, what we can changeHeritabilityResults from Twin and Adoption StudiesEnvironmental Influences: Early Childhood and SchoolGroup Differences in Intelligence Scores: Due to Genes or Environment? Gender Similarities and Differences in IQ scoresRacial/Ethnic Similarities and Differences in IQ scoresThe Effect of Stereotype threat on IQ scoresTwo Meanings of “Bias” in test design: group harm vs. predictive effectiveness

Influences on Intelligence: Genes and Environment

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence(Nature and Nurture)

Even if we agree for argument’s sake that “success” in life is caused in part by some kind of intelligence, there is still a debate over the origin of that intelligence. – Are people “successful” because of inborn talents?– Or are they “successful” because of their unequal

access to better nurture? Information to tease out the answers can be found in

some twin and adoption studies.

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence

Studies of Twins Raised Apart

Findings from these studies indicate that both nature and nurture affect intelligence test scores.

What explains this difference?

What explains this difference?

Heritability When you see variation

in intelligence between two or more people, the heritability of that trait is the amount of variation that is apparently explained by genetic factors.

This does NOT tell us the proportion that genes contribute to the trait for any one person.

Clarifying HeritabilityIf three people had exactly the same education, nutrition, and experiences, some psychologists speculate that genes might be responsible for perhaps 40 percent of their intelligence; nurture certainly made a big impact.However, such identical nurturing (which is actually impossible) could not create differences in intelligence.With identical nurture, the heritability of intelligence would be virtually 100 percent.

Genetic Influences on Intelligence

Identical twins seem to show similarity in specific talents such as music, math and sports.

The brains of twins show similar structure and functioning.

There are specific genes which may have a small influence on ability.

Adoption Studies With age, the intelligence test scores of adoptees looks more and more like that of their ____________ parents.

In another study, heritability of intelligence test scores continued to increase beyond age 16.

(adoptive? birth/biological?)

Schooling and Intelligence Preschool and elementary

school clearly have at least a temporary impact on intelligence test scores.

College can have a positive impact on intelligence test scores if students have:– motivation and incentives. – belief that people can

improve.– study skills, especially the

willingness to practice.

Understanding Group Differencesin Test Scores

Now, let’s look at: gender differences.“racial” differences.understanding the impact of environment.within-group differences and between-group differences. the impact of test bias and stereotype threat on performance.

Male-Female Ability Differences

Male/female difference related to overall intelligence test score.

Boys are more likely than girls to be at the high or low end of the intelligence test score spectrum.

Girls tend to be better at spelling, locating objects, and detecting emotions.

Girls tend to be more verbally fluent, and more sensitive to touch, taste, and color.

Boys tend to be better at handling spatial reasoning and complex math problems.

It is a myth that boys generally do better in math than girls. Girls do at least as well as boys in overall math performance and especially in math computation.

Male-Female Ability Differences

Ethnic/Racial Differences in Intelligence Test Scores

If Blacks scored at IQ 100 on average and members of the Green race scored 85 on average, there are still lots of Greens with higher IQ than the average Black.There are issues test bias and other factors affecting scores for people who are part of minority ethnic and racial groups.

White Americans, on average, have in past decades scored higher on intelligence tests than other groups. Still, as we can see below, it is incorrect to use race as a basis to prejudge the intelligence of an individual.

But first…

Understanding Group Differences: Within-group vs. Between-group Group differences, including intelligence test score differences between racial groups, can be caused by environmental factors.Below: the difference between groups is caused by poor soil (environment).

The “Racial” Intelligence Test Score Gap Racial categories are not distinct

genetically and are unscientific. Both “whites” and “blacks” have

higher intelligence test scores than “whites” of the 1930s.

“Whites” may have more access to “fertile soil” for developing their potential, such as:

schools and educational opportunities. wealth, nutrition, support,

and educated mentors. relative freedom from

discrimination.

Two Problems Called “Bias”

Are Tests Biased? Let’s use the two definitions:Bias #1: In the popular sense of the word, intelligence tests are often biased. Often, tests have questions which rely on knowledge of “mainstream” culture, which not everyone will be equally familiar with. Bias #2: Aptitude tests seem to predict future achievement equally well for various ethnic groups, and for men and women.

Test makers must prevent “bias” in the popular sense of the word: making it easier for one group than another to score high on a test. Test makers also strive to prevent the scientific form of bias: making it easier for one group than for another to have their abilities accurately assessed, and their future performance predicted.

The Effect of Stereotype Threat

Study result: Women did worse on math tests than men, except when they are told first that women usually do as well as men on the test. Why?

Study result: Blacks/African-Americans did worse on intelligence tests when reminded of their racial/ethnic identification right before the test. Why?

Study result: Blacks/African-Americans scored higher when tested by Blacks rather than being tested by Whites. Why?

The Power of Expectations Stereotype threat: a feeling

that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

Stereotype threat may interfere with performance by making people use their working memory for worrying instead of thinking.

This worry, then, is self-confirming/fulfilling: worrying about a negative evaluation leads to a negative evaluation.

Is discriminating among college or job applicants based on test scores better than discriminating based on appearance?

Can test scores be used as Alfred Binet suggested: to identify those who would benefit from educational interventions?

Can a person’s worth and potential be summed up in one intelligence test score?

Issues Related to Intelligence Tests