AP Psych: Key Intelligence Figures

Sir Francis Galton

• Nature

  • heritability

• Eugenics

  • improving a human population by controlled breeding

Charles Spearman

• g factor (General Intelligence)

• Responsible for overall performance on mental ability tests

L.L. Thurstone

• Believed intelligence was not a ranking of general aptitude (g)

• Attributed to seven distinct factors (primary mental abilities)

• Accidentally proved Spearman’s theory

Robert Sternberg

• Triarchic Theory

  • Analytic Intelligence

    • Mental steps or “components” used to solve problems

  • Creative Intelligence

    • Use of experience in ways that foster insight

  • Practical Intelligence

    • Ability to read and adapt to the contexts of everyday life

Howard Gardner

• Multiple Intelligences

Alfred Binet

• Created first modern intelligence assessment (Binet-Simon)

• Hoping to identify children likely to have difficulty in school

• Mental age (level of performance typical of chronological age)

William Stern

• Famous formula for I.Q

• IQ= mental age/chronological age x 100

• IQ 100 considered average

Lewis Terman

• Stanford University used Binet’s research to construct the modern IQ test in US

• Stanford-Binet Test

David Wechsler

• Test to measure “real world” intelligence, not just verbal skills

• Consists of 15 subtests→gives an overall IQ score and scores for the subtest areas

• WAIS (for adults)

• WISC (for children)