Intelligence unit psych
Unit 5 Reading Guide
Chapter 11
Testing and Individual Differences
Module 60: Introduction to Intelligence (pg. 606-616)
Intelligence: Mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations
Intelligence Test: a method for assessing an individuals mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others using numerical scores
Spearman’s “g” General Intelligence: a general intelligence factor that according to spearman and others underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test
Why is Spearman’s single intelligence score controversial?
because it was expressed by a single intelligence score
Savant Syndrome: a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing
What disorder do many people with Savant Syndrome also have?
Autism
Summarize Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory.
Gardner Argues that we have multiple intelligences including the verbal and mathematical aptitudes
What are Gardner’s 8 intelligences? (Figure 60.1)
Naturalist, linguistic, mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal,
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of intelligences includes what three things?
He agrees that there is more than one intelligence but he proposes the trithatic theory of three, analytical, creative, and practical intelligence
Social Intelligence: a persons ability to understand and manage interpersonal relationships
Emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions
Do people with bigger brains have bigger smarts? What lobes specifically?
there is no direct correlation between brain size and intelligence research indicates that the frontal lobe is mostly related to intelligence
What do brain scans of smart people reveal about efficiency?
they have increase neural efficiency
Module 61: Assessing Intelligence (pg. 617-624)
What kinds of things did Galton test as a measure of intelligence?
reaction time, sensory acuity, head size, and muscle grip
Binet’s Mental Age: a measure of intelligence test performance devied by binet; the chronoclogical age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance.
A child has a mental age of 10. What does that mean?
their cognitive abilities are equivalent to the abilities of a 10 year old child
Did Binet believe that children are slow because of genes (nature) or environment (nurture)?
He leaned towards environment
Terman’s Stanford-Binet:
the widely used american revision of binet’s original intelligence test
Intelligence Quotient (IQ): defined originally as the ratio of mental age ot chronological age multiplied by 100. the average performance for modern tests for a given age is assigned a score of 100
If a child has a mental age of 10 and a chronological age of 12, what is their IQ?
83.3
Is IQ still calculated like this today?
no, on contemporary intelligence tests the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100 with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average
What does the term IQ represent today?
What was Terman’s goal for the use of intelligence tests?
ultimately result in curtailing the reproduction of feeble mindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime and industrial inefficiency -- classify children and put them on the appropriate job track
Achievement Test: a test designed to assess what a person has learned
Example: the SAT and ACT
Aptitude Test: a test designed to predict a persons future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn
Example: Like the college entrance exam or an AP Test
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS): the wais is the most widely used intelligence test contains verbal and performance subtests
What are four difference parts to the most recent WAIS?
verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning index, working memory index, and processing speed index
Principles of Test Construction
To be widely accepted, psychological tests must meet three criteria:
standardized, reliable, and valid
Standardization: defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group
Normal Curve: the symmetrical bell shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical attributes most scores fall near the average and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes
Looking at the normal curve, what percentage of scores are within one standard deviation of the mean?
95%
What is the Flynn Effect?
intelligence test performance increasing
Reliability: the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test on alternate forms of the test or on retesting
Validity: the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to
Content Validity: the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest
Example: a driver license test
Predictive Validity: the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and criterion behavior
Example: college entrance exams
Module 62: The Dynamics of Intelligence (pg. 625-631)
In cross-sectional studies, what did they find about intelligence over time?
older adults give fewer correct answers on intelligence tests than younger adults
In longitudinal studies, what did they find about intelligence over time?
until in late life intelligence remained stable
So, does intelligence decline with age?
no
Crystallized Intelligence: our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills tends to increase with age
Increase or decrease with age?
increase
Fluid Intelligence: our ability to reason speedily and abstractly
Increase or decrease with age?
tends to decrease during late adulthood
Extremes of Intelligence
Intellectual disability: a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life
What did this used to be called?
mental retardation
Down Syndrome: a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21
What are people with extremely high intelligence usually called, at least in school?
gifted
Module 63: Studying Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence (pg. 632-637)
One of the biggest debates about intelligence is the nature vs. nurture debate. What kind of political implications does that have?
showing that peoples socioeconomic standing will correspond to their inborn difference making them believe that their intellectual birthright justifies their social positions peoples standing will result from their unequal opportunities
Heritability: the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied
What is the heritability of intelligence?
around 50%
Are there specific genes for genius?
No nothing in specific but a combination of many genes.
What do twin studies show about the environmental contribution to IQ scores?
twin studies show environmental contribution to iq scores variation among top scorers
What becomes more dominant as we age—genes or environment?
genes tend to become more dominant as we age
After reading this whole section—what do you think about yourself. Do you think Intelligence is more due to nature or nurture in you? Why?
I think its more in nurture because a lot of people can become extremely more knowledgeable based on life experiences such as someone who was traumatized from a young age may be way more emotionally intelligent than another person who has grown up with no issues
Module 64: Group Differences and the Question of Bias (pg. 638-645)
What kinds of intelligences are girls better at?
linguistics, locating objects, detecting emotion, and more sensitive to touch taste and color
What kinds of intelligences are boys better at?
boys are better at spatial ability and complex math problems
Racial groups differ in their average intelligence test scores. Why? (this is a complicated question, so be sure to read the whole section before answering)
genetics are alike but the environment in which people of different races are raised in greatly impacts it
When do psychologists consider a test to be biased?
if it detects not only innate differences in intelligence by also performance differences caused by cultural experiences.
In the psychologist definition of bias, are intelligence tests biased?
yes because they reflect on education and experiences
What is the scientific meaning of bias?
wether it predicts future behavior only for some groups of test takers
In the scientific meaning of bias, are intelligence tests biased?
they are not biased because the prediction applies to all equally
Stereotype threat: a self confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype
What happened to black students who were reminded of their race just before taking a verbal aptitude test?
they performed worse