Intelligence (Part 1) – PT10603 Personality and Individual Differences

Vocabulary flashcards covering major theorists, concepts, models, and findings related to intelligence from Dr. Teoh Jia Long’s lecture.

Intelligence (general definition)

A general mental ability that develops mainly in the first five years of life, remains relatively stable thereafter, and is inferred from the link between test scores (e.g., IQ) and real-world performance.

Observable behaviour (in intelligence)

The outward actions and performances from which an individual’s intelligence is inferred.

Sternberg’s six aspects of intelligence

Practical problem-solving, verbal ability, intellectual balance & integration, goal orientation & attainment, contextual intelligence, and fluid thought.

Practical problem-solving ability

Capacity to resolve everyday challenges effectively; one aspect in Sternberg’s model.

Verbal ability (Sternberg)

Skill in understanding and using language; part of Sternberg’s six aspects.

Intellectual balance & integration

Ability to coordinate diverse mental operations into coherent thought processes.

Goal orientation & attainment

Setting objectives and effectively achieving them; included in Sternberg’s conception of intelligence.

Contextual intelligence

Skill in adapting to, shaping, and selecting real-world environments.

Fluid thought (Sternberg)

Capacity for flexible, innovative reasoning and novel idea generation.

Sir Francis Galton

Victorian scientist who argued genius is hereditary, pioneered statistical study of individual differences, and is considered a forefather of intelligence testing.

Hereditary Genius (1869)

Galton’s book asserting that high intelligence is transmitted genetically and follows a normal distribution.

James McKeen Cattell

U.S. psychologist who coined the term “mental test” and created instruments to measure sensory and basic psychological functions.

Mental test

Cattell’s term for procedures that quantify individual differences in basic psychological processes such as tactile or auditory discrimination.

Alfred Binet

French psychologist who, with Theodore Simon, produced the first practical intelligence test in 1905.

Binet–Simon Scale

A series of 30 graded tasks used to estimate a child’s mental age relative to peers.

Mental age

The developmental level at which a child performs intellectually, compared with typical performance for a given chronological age.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

A score obtained by dividing mental age by chronological age and multiplying by 100; term introduced by William Stern.

Standard deviation (in IQ testing)

Statistical unit used since the 1960s to express how far an IQ score lies from the population mean.

Bell curve

Graph of a normal distribution; commonly illustrates the spread of IQ scores in a population.

Charles Spearman

British psychologist who proposed the general intelligence factor (g) and the two-factor theory of intelligence.

Positive manifold

Spearman’s observation that performance on different cognitive tests tends to correlate positively.

General intelligence (g)

A broad mental energy underlying performance on diverse cognitive tasks, extracted statistically from test correlations.

Specific abilities (s)

Distinct skills required for particular tasks in Spearman’s two-factor theory.

L. L. Thurstone

Psychometrician who argued that intelligence comprises several primary mental abilities rather than a single factor.

Primary mental abilities

Thurstone’s seven independent capacities: associative memory, number, perceptual speed, reasoning, space, word fluency, and verbal comprehension.

Associative memory

Ability for rote recall of paired information; one of Thurstone’s primary abilities.

Number (ability)

Skill at performing accurate mathematical operations quickly.

Perceptual speed

Capacity to detect details, anomalies, and similarities rapidly in visual material.

Reasoning (Thurstone)

Inductive and deductive thinking proficiency.

Space (spatial visualisation)

Ability to mentally manipulate spatial figures.

Word fluency

Facility in generating numerous words or letter combinations.

Verbal comprehension

Understanding written or spoken language, including analogies and reading.

Raymond B. Cattell

Psychologist who divided general intelligence into fluid (Gf) and crystallised (Gc) components.

Crystallised intelligence (Gc)

Acquired knowledge and skills influenced by culture; measured by vocabulary and general-knowledge tests.

Fluid intelligence (Gf)

Innate reasoning ability to solve novel, abstract problems independent of cultural learning.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

Social standing based on income, education, and occupation; correlated with but not necessarily causal for intelligence differences.

Linda Gottfredson

Researcher who argued that g is a fundamental cause of social and economic inequalities, often outperforming SES as a predictor.

Twin studies (intelligence)

Research comparing identical and fraternal twins that demonstrates higher IQ similarity for identical twins, supporting genetic influence.

Adoption studies (intelligence)

Studies showing adopted children’s IQs correlate more with biological than adoptive parents, indicating heredity’s role.

Jean Piaget

Developmental psychologist who described four universal stages of intellectual development in children.

Sensorimotor stage

Piaget’s 0–2 yr phase where intelligence is expressed through motor interaction; no mental representation of unseen objects.

Preoperational stage

Piaget’s 3–7 yr phase where symbolic thought emerges but logical deduction is not yet possible.

Concrete operations stage

Piaget’s 8–12 yr phase marked by deductive reasoning, conservation of number, and perspective-taking.

Formal operations stage

Piaget’s 13–15 yr phase characterised by the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically.

Guilford’s Structure-of-Intellect model

Framework proposing up to 150 intellectual abilities based on operations, products, and content dimensions.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III)

Comprehensive test battery with 13 subtests whose positive correlations support the existence of g.

John Carroll’s Three-stratum theory

Hierarchical model where a single g factor underlies broad abilities (e.g., Gf, Gc, memory) and many specific skills.

Processing speed

Rate at which cognitive operations are executed; a broad ability in Carroll’s hierarchy.

Positive correlations among WAIS subtests

Empirical evidence that different cognitive tasks tend to rise or fall together, underpinning the g factor concept.