Intelligence: The Use and Misuse of IQ

General Intelligence

How much you know?

How quickly you learn new information or skills?

How fast you can solve a new problem?

Factors of intelligence (WISC-V)

verbal reasoning

spatial reasoning

fluid reasoning

working memory

processing speed

IQ tests

Stanford-Binet

Wechsler (WISC-V)

Verbal Comprehension

vocabulary, similarities, information

Visual Spatial Processing

The ability to analyze visually presented information and assembling pieces to make a whole

Fluid Reasoning

Grouping things based on a line of reasoning (all living things, all tools)

Working Memory

digit span

Processing Speed

Coding: Under each square, put a plus. Under each circle,

put a minus. Under each triangle, put an X

Symbol search: Does the figure to the left of the vertical

line also appear to the right of the vertical line?

Why do we measure intelligence/IQ?

Individual differences (Binet): Gatekeeper for educational resources

"Predictor of important outcomes": Achievement, SAT, Income

Historically: Support for segregation and oppression

(Terman) Stanford-Binet revision of Binet's test

Classification: education, careers

Focus on racial differences: aimed to prove racial differences included intelligence

Josiah Morse (1879-1946)

Testing Black and White children to compare IQ

Proposed that degree of intelligence proportional to amount of white blood

Behavior Genetics of IQ

Heritability = 52%

Environmental sources: 48%

Flynn Effects

The rise in average IQ scores over generations

"Logic" faulty in three ways

1. Variation in IQ is ~50% due to environmental differences

2. Heritability explains individual differences in one

population, not generalizable

3. Cultural (in)validity of the IQ test

Tester rapport (Herman Canady)

Systematic study of cross-racial effects in IQ testing

Tendency of black children to not want to

share about themselves with white adults