Intelligence

1. Intelligence Unit 8

2. What is intelligence • Intelligence: ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations • Concept, not thing….hmmmmm how do we measure concepts? • When we consider someone’s intelligence as an object that we are committing reification • She has an IQ of 120 versus Her score on the intelligence test was 120.

3. Aptitude versus Ability • Aptitude: ability to acquire knowledge; capacity to learn • Aptitude is an ability: the ability to learn • Ability: capability • Natural gift • Intelligence • Competence • Is intelligence an aptitude or an ability???

4. Cultural Variations in Intelligence • Socially constructed concept • Intelligence=whatever characteristics that enable success in said culture

5. Intelligent Controversies on Intelligence • Is intelligence a single overall ability or several specific abilities? • Can we locate and measure intelligence?

6. Theories of Intelligence Is intelligence a single overall ability or several specific abilities?

7. General Intelligence • Factor analysis: measure clusters of items to see if traits run together or certain abilities predict other abilities • General Intelligence=g factor (Spearman) • People who score high in one factor often score high in other factors • General intelligence is correlated with abilities to solve novel problems

8. Multiple Intelligences • Different abilities help us solve different problems • Savant Syndrome: someone with limited mental ability exhibits an exceptional specific skill • Correlated with being male and having autism • Examples: Rain Man, A Beautiful Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wkFGXqJxas

9. Gardner Multiple (Independent) Intelligences • Linguistic • Logical-mathematical • Musical • Spatial • Bodily-kinesthetic • Intrapersonal • Interpersonal • Naturalist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wkFGXqJxas

10. Triarchic Theory (Sternberg) • Analytical (academic problem-solving) Intelligence • Measured by intelligence tests • Creative Intelligence • Demonstrated by reacting to novel situations or creating novel ideas • Practical Intelligence • Required for everyday tasks (poorly defined, many solutions) • Do these share a general intelligence?

13. Types of Intelligence Emotional, Creative

14. Social Intelligence (Cantor, Kihlstrom) • Social intelligence: understanding social situations and managing oneself effectively • Emotional intelligence is a subset of social intelligence • Helps to explain why high-aptitude people are not always more successful • Emotional intelligence: ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJhfKYzKc0s&feature=player_embedded

16. Measuring Emotional Intelligence • Perceive Emotion: recognize emotions in faces, music, stories • Understand Emotion: predict emotions and how they change/blend • Manage Emotion: know how to express emotions in various situations • High scorers have better relationships, less stress, and tend to be slightly more successful than low scorers

17. Brain and Emotional Intelligence • Brain damaged patients case study • Elliot: normal intellect and memory • Brain tumor was removed and he lost his emotions • Lost his job, went bankrupt, 2x divorced, couldn’t live alone… • This might suggest that emotional intelligence is completely distinct from other intelligences

18. Validity of Emotional Intelligence • High emotional intelligence show modestly better • Job performance • Ability to set long term goals • Successful interpersonal relationships • Gardner argues emotion is important but separate (same with creativity and motivation)

19. Creativity • Fermat’s Last Theorem • Wiles struck with insight and creativity! • Solved the $2 mil. problem • Creativity: ability to produce novel and valuable ideas • Correlation between intelligence and creativity • There is a correlation: high scoring IQ people also tend to score high on creativity tests. • Limit: IQ score of 120

20. Types of Thinking • Convergent Thinking • Thinking which requires a single correct answer • Focus on a problem and use resources to answer it • Measured by most intelligence tests • Divergent Thinking • Thinking which has potentially many solutions • Focus on different solutions to a problem

21. Components of Creativity • Expertise • Imaginative Thinking Skills • Venturesome Personality • Intrinsic Motivation • Creative Environment

22. Expertise • Expertise: well developed base of knowledge • More tools/facts/info we have the more combinations we can make • 2 types of bread, 2 types of meat, 2 types of vegetables=fewer sandwich combinations than 5 types of each.

23. Imaginative Thinking • New perspective • Recognize patterns • Make connections • Ex. Copernicus: paradigm shifting!

24. Venturesome Personality • Almost like adventurous • These individuals tolerate personality and risk • Overcome obstacles • Seek new experiences • Ex. Tough Mudder, Thomas Edison

25. Intrinsic Motivation • Creativity is usually a product of internal not external motivation • People assigned to do a task which requires out of the box thinking tend to preform worse if there are external motivators • Insight often comes with lots of thinking (maybe even obsession)

26. Environment • Social environment must support creativity • Individuals should feel mentored, challenged, and supported • Fear of judgment limits creativity • Do we think brainstorming encourages creativity?

27. Biology of Intelligence

28. Brain Anatomy: Size • There is a positive correlation between brain size and intelligence • Controlling for animal size • Fun fact: as you age IQ drops and brain size decreases • Rats raised in a stimulating environment have thicker and heavier cortexes.

29. Anatomy: Neurons • People who are highly educated have about 17% more synapses • Which comes first? Education or synapses? • Intelligence correlates with neural plasticity (ability to adapt and grow new neural connections • Intelligence correlates with gray matter (cell bodies, versus white matter=axon/dendrites) in areas involved with memory, attention, and language

30. Brain Function: Speed • Modest positive correlation between intelligence score and processing speed of perceptual info • Perceived with greater complexity as well • We don’t know why the correlation exists • Ideas? Perhaps faster processinggreater accumulation

31. Assessing Intelligence

32. Alfred Binet • Sought a way to differentiate between students • Assumed intelligence correlated with age (older=more intelligent, younger=less intelligent) • Mental Age • Suggested mental orthopedics to improve mental age

33. Lewis Terman • Stanford Prof • Found that Parisian norms did not apply to California norms • Revised the test to work for US students, established new age norms, and extended the upper end of the test • Stanford-Binet Test • Originally hoped IQ tests would aid eugenics • Only upper spectrum would reproduce

34. Intelligence Quotient • Devised by William Stern • IQ=(Mental Age/Chronological age)*100 • (10/10)*100=100 (aha! Average!) • How does this work with adults? • (20/50)*100=50… uhhh what?! • IQ today does not really equal quotient…just carried over terminology

35. Modern IQ Tests • Aptitude Tests: capabilities • Achievement Tests: learned skills • Separating aptitude and achievement is very difficult • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (followed by WISC and WPPSI) • Overall score and component score

36. Principles of Test Construction • Standardization • Reliability • Validity • Bias

37. Standardization • The process of defining meaningful scores by comparing the performance of a pretested standardization group