9—Intelligence

1. 9—Intelligence • The Concept of Intelligence • The Development of Intelligence • The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Summary

2. The Concept of Intelligence • What Is Intelligence? – Intelligence • The ability to solve problems and to adapt to and learn from experiences. • It can only be evaluated indirectly.

3. The Concept of Intelligence • Intelligence Tests • Individual Tests • Sir Frances Galton, the father of mental tests, believed that sensory, perceptual, and motor processes were the key dimensions of intelligence.

4. The Concept of Intelligence • Intelligence Tests (continued) • Binet tests: Devised by Alfred Binet at the request of the French Ministry of Education to determine which students would not profit from typical school instruction. • Mental Age (MA): An individual’s level of mental development relative to others. • Intelligent Quotient (IQ): A term coined by William Stern (1912) to derive a score from an individual’s mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100: (IQ = MA/CA x 100).

5. The Concept of Intelligence • Intelligence Tests (continued) • The Stanford-Binet Tests • Revised at Stanford University for use in the United States to analyze individual responses in verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract/visual reasoning, and short-term memory. • Scores approximate a normal distribution: A symmetrical, bell-shaped curve appears, with a majority of the cases falling in the middle of the possible range of scores and few scores appearing toward the extremes of the range.

6. The Concept of Intelligence The Normal Curve and Stanford-Binet IQ Scores • Refer to Figure 9.1

7. The Concept of Intelligence • Intelligence Tests (continued) • The Wechsler Scales • The Wechsler scales not only provide an overall IQ score, but also yield scores on six verbal and five nonverbal measures, allowing examiners to see areas in which the individual is below average, average, or above average. • Group Tests of Intelligence • Though more economical and convenient than individual tests, group tests have some significant disadvantages.

8. The Concept of Intelligence Sample Subscales of the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) • Refer to Figure 9.2

9. The Concept of Intelligence • The Use and Misuse of Intelligence Tests • The effectiveness of psychological tests depends on the knowledge, skill, and integrity of the user. • Real-world applications: Predict school and job success. • Periodic assessment is required because they only measure current academic performance. • They are moderately correlated with work performance, but correlations decrease the longer people work at a job, and tests ignore motivation, physical and mental health, and social skills.

10. The Concept of Intelligence • Multiple Intelligences • Factor Approaches • Two-factor theory: Spearman’s theory that individuals have both general intelligence (g) and a number of specific abilities (s). • Factor analysis: A statistical procedure that correlates test scores to identify underlying clusters (factors); used by Spearman to show that general intelligence and specific abilities account for a person’s performance on an intelligence test.

11. The Concept of Intelligence • Factor Approaches (continued) • Multiple-factor theory: Thurstone’s theory that intelligence consists of seven primary mental abilities: verbal comprehension, number ability, word fluency, spatial visualization, associative memory, reasoning, and perceptual speed.

12. The Concept of Intelligence • Multiple Intelligences (continued) • Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences(IQ tests only measure a few of these): • Verbal skills • Mathematical skills • Spatial skills • Bodily-kinesthetic skills • Musical skills • Interpersonal skills • Intrapersonal skills • Naturalist skills

13. The Concept of Intelligence • Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (continued) • Everyone has varying degrees of all eight intelligences. • There is considerable interest in applying Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences to children’s education to help them discover and explore their domains of natural curiosity and talent. • Each day every student is exposed to materials that are designed to stimulate a whole range of human abilities.

14. The Concept of Intelligence • Multiple Intelligences (continued) • Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory • There are three main types of intelligence: • Analytical: Traditional concept of intelligence as analytical thinking and abstract reasoning. • Creative: Unique thinking that might not conform to teachers’ expectations. • Practical: Social skills and common sense. • Most tasks require a combination of all three intelligences.

15. The Concept of Intelligence • Multiple Intelligences (continued) • Emotional Intelligence • The ability to perceive and express emotion accurately and adaptively, to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, to use feelings to facilitate thought, and to manage emotions in oneself and others.

16. The Concept of Intelligence • Multiple Intelligences (continued) • Do Children Have One Intelligence or Many Intelligences? • Although controversy exists over whether intelligence is a general ability, specific abilities, or both, multiple intelligence theories have stimulated us to think more broadly about what makes up people’s intelligence and competence. • Multiple intelligence theories have also motivated educators to develop programs that instruct students in different domains.

17. The Concept of Intelligence Comparison of Gardner’s, Sternberg’s, and Salovey/Mayer/Goleman’s Views of Intelligence • Refer to Figure 9.3

18. The Concept of Intelligence • The Influence of Heredity and Environment • Genetic Influences • Arthur Jensen (1969) argued that intelligence is primarily inherited and environment plays a minimal role. • Adoption studies suggest that though the educational levels of biological parents are better predictors of children's IQ scores than are the IQs of adoptive parents, environments nonetheless play an important role.

19. The Concept of Intelligence • Genetic Influences (continued) • Heritability: The fraction of the variance in a population that is attributed to genetics. • Heritability refers to groups (populations), not to individuals (Okagaki, 2000). • Researchers have found that the heritability of intelligence increases from childhood to adulthood (McGue et al., 1993).

20. The Concept of Intelligence Correlation between Intelligence Test Scores and Twin Status • Refer to Figure 9.4

21. The Concept of Intelligence • The Influence of Heredity and Environment (continued) • Environmental Influences • For most people, modifications in environment can change their IQ scores considerably. • Among the environmental factors that influence intelligence are socioeconomic status, parental communication with and support of children, quality of neighborhoods, and quality of schools. • The rapid increase in IQ scores around the world suggest the effects of education rather than heredity.

22. The Concept of Intelligence The Increase in IQ Scores from 1932 to 1997 • Refer to Figure 9.5

23. The Concept of Intelligence • Group Comparisons • Cross-Cultural Comparisons • Cultures vary in the way they define intelligence. • Western cultures view intelligence in terms of reasoning and thinking skills, Eastern cultures see intelligence as a way for members of a community to engage in social roles successfully.

24. The Concept of Intelligence • Group Comparisons (continued) • Cultural Bias in Testing • Early intelligence tests favored people from urban rather than rural environments, middle-socioeconomic status rather than low-socioeconomic status, and whites rather than African Americans. • Culture-fair tests: Intelligence tests that are intended not to be culturally biased; however, people with more education still score higher than those with less education because tests reflect what the dominant culture thinks is important.

25. The Concept of Intelligence Sample Item from the Ravens Progressive Matrices Test • Refer to Figure 9.6

26. The Concept of Intelligence • Group Comparisons (continued) • Ethnic Comparisons • In the U.S., children from African American and Latino families score below children from white families on standardized intelligence tests. • As African Americans have gained social, economic, and educational opportunities, the gap between African Americans and whites on standardized intelligence tests has begun to narrow. • Stereotype threat: The anxiety that one’s behavior might confirm a negative stereotype about one’s group.

27. The Concept of Intelligence • Group Comparisons (continued) • Gender Comparisons • The average scores of males and females do not differ on intelligence tests, but variability in their scores does differ (Brody, 2000), with males showing greater extremes in range. • Although there is extensive overlap in scores, gender differences exist in some intellectual areas: • Males score better on spatial reasoning tasks. • Females score better in some verbal areas.

28. Learn and Reflect:Learning Goal 1 • Explain the nature of intelligence

29. Learn and Reflect:Learning Goal 1 • Review • What is intelligence? • What are the main individual tests of intelligence? What are some issues in the use of group tests of intelligence? • What theories of multiple intelligences have been developed? Do people have one intelligence or many intelligences? • What evidence indicates that heredity influences IQ scores? What evidence indicates that environment influences IQ scores? • What is known about the intelligence of people from different cultures and ethnic groups? To what extent are there differences in the intelligence of females and males?

30. Learn and Reflect:Learning Goal 1 • Reflect • A CD-ROM is being sold to parents for testing their child’s IQ. What are some potential problems with parents giving their child an IQ test and interpreting the results?

31. The Development of Intelligence • Tests of Infant Intelligence • Arnold Gesell (1934) developed a measure that served as a clinical tool to help sort out potentially normal babies from abnormal ones. • Developmental quotient (DQ): An overall developmental score that combines subscores in the motor, language, adaptive, and personal-social domains of the Gesell assessment of infants.

32. The Development of Intelligence • Tests of Infant Intelligence (continued) • Bayley Scales of Infant Development • Widely used scales for assessing infants from 1 to 42 months of age to diagnose developmental delays and plan intervention strategies. • The scale has three main components: a Mental Scale, a Motor Scale, and the Infant Behavior Profile. • Scores on the Gesell Bayley scales do not correlate highly with IQ scores obtained later in childhood.

33. The Development of Intelligence • Tests of Infant Intelligence (continued) • The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence • Focuses on the infant’s ability to process information. • Elicits similar performances from infants in different cultures. • Correlates with measures of intelligence in older children. • Measures of habituation and dishabituation predict later intelligence.

34. The Development of Intelligence • Stability and Change in Intelligence through Adolescence • There is a strong relation between IQ scores obtained at the ages of 6, 8, and 9 and IQ scores obtained at the age of 10. • However, intelligence test scores can fluctuate dramatically across the childhood years; intelligence is not as stable as the original intelligence theorists envisioned.

35. Review and Reflect:Learning Goal 2 • Discuss the development of intelligence • Review • How is intelligence assessed during infancy? • How much does intelligence change through childhood and adolescence? • Reflect • As a parent, would you want your infant’s intelligence tested? Why or why not?

36. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Mental Retardation • A condition of limited mental ability in which the individual has a low IQ, usually below 70, has difficulty adapting to everyday life, and first exhibits these characteristics by age 18. • There are several ways to classify degrees of mental retardation; the one adopted by most school systems uses IQ scores to categorize retardation as mild, moderate, severe, or profound. • Mental retardation may have an organic cause, or it may be social and cultural in origin.

37. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity Classification of Metal Retardation Based on IQ • Refer to Figure 9.7

38. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity Classification of Mental Retardation Based on Levels of Support Needed • Refer to Figure 9.8

39. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Giftedness • People who are gifted: • Have a high IQ (130 or higher) or a superior talent in a certain area. • Although many gifted people throughout history experienced emotional distress, they are the exception, not the rule. • Recent studies conclude that gifted people tend to be more mature and have fewer emotional problems than others.

40. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Giftedness (continued) • Characteristics of children who are gifted: • Precocity • Marching to their own drummer • A passion to master • Life course of the gifted: Early on they have innate ability, strong family support, and years of training and practice. • Deliberate practice: Appropriate level of difficulty, corrective feedback, opportunities for repetition. • The gifted become experts, but not major creators.

41. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Creativity • The ability to think about something in novel and unusual ways and come up with unique solutions to problems. • Creativity and intelligence are not the same thing—though most creative people are intelligent, not all intelligent people are creative.

42. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Creativity (continued) • Creativity requires divergent thinking: • Divergent thinking: Thinking that produces many answers to the same question; characteristic of creativity. • Convergent thinking: Thinking that produces one correct answer; characteristic of the type of thinking required on traditional intelligence tests.

43. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Creativity (continued) • Guiding Children’s Creativity • Have children engage in brainstorming—a technique in which children are encouraged to come up with creative ideas in a group, play off each other’s ideas, and say practically whatever comes to mind—and come up with as many ideas as possible. • However, some children are more creative when they work alone.

44. The Extremes of Intelligence and Creativity • Guiding Children’s Creativity (continued) • Provide children with environments that stimulate creativity. • Don’t overcontrol. • Encourage internal motivation. • Introduce children to creative people.

45. Review and Reflect:Learning Goal 3 • Describe the characteristics of mental retardation, giftedness, and creativity • Review • What is mental retardation and what are its causes? • What makes children gifted? • What makes people creative?

46. Review and Reflect:Learning Goal 3 • Reflect • If you were an elementary school teacher, what would you do to encourage students’ creativity?

47. Summary • Intelligence consists of the ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from everyday experiences. • Sir Frances Galton is the father of mental tests. Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence test and created the concept of mental age. William Stern developed the concept of IQ for use with the Binet test.

48. Summary • When used by a judicious examiner, tests can be valuable tools for determining individual differences in intelligence. • Factor analysis is a statistical procedure that compares various items or measures and identifies factors that are correlated with each other. • Spearman (two-factor theory of g and s) and Thurstone (multiple-factor theory) used factor analysis in developing their views of intelligence.

49. Summary • Gardner believes there are eight types of intelligence: verbal skills, mathematical skills, spatial skills, bodily-kinesthetic skills, musical skills, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, and naturalist skills.

50. Summary • Sternberg’s triarchic theory states that there are three main types of intelligence: analytical, creative, and practical. • Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and express emotion accurately and adaptively, to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, to use feelings to facilitate thought, and to manage emotions in oneself and others.