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Testing and Individual
Differences
Intelligence
AP Psychology
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What is Intelligence?
Some Key Terms
 Intelligence
is our ability to learn from
experience, solve problems, and use
knowledge to adapt to new situations
 Intelligence
test – a method for assessing a
person’s mental abilities through the
comparison of others.
 Psychometric
approach is a method of
studying intelligence that emphasizes the
score of an IQ test.
+ Early Theories of
Intelligence
Spearman, Thurstone, Cattell
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Charles Spearman—2 Factor
Theory
 Charles
Spearman postulated
two types of intelligence that
account for test scores:
 general intelligence or g
 special intelligences, or s,
which are the specific skills
and knowledge needed to
answer the questions on a
particular test.
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Charles Spearman: G Factor
 Developed
the g
factor, which
stood for general
intelligence,
 He
believed that
this single g factor
was responsible for
each type of mental
ability.
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Charles Spearman
 Spearman
did not believe in separate
intelligences like musical or analytical, but just
one overall general intelligence.
 If
you received a score of 120 on an IQ test then
this would be your indicative of your g factor.
 Since
your g factor is high, then no matter what
profession or career you chose you would be
successful.
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Discounting Spearman’s Theory
 Most
people know a person who may be intelligent
in math, but struggle with verbal abilities.
 In
other words, even people that are intelligent in one
area may struggle in another area, which proved
Spearman’s theory wrong
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Discounting Spearman’s Theory
 People
who are diagnosed
with Savant Syndrome,
which are individuals who
are mentally challenged,
but have one unique ability
like good memory, also
disproved Spearman’s
theory
 according to Spearman
since their g factor
(intelligence test score)
was low they should
struggle with everything
they mentally perform).
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L.L. Thurstone: Factor Analysis
 L.L. Thurstone
used a factor
analysis,
 A statistical procedure that
identifies relationships or
clusters of mental abilities
he called factors.
 Through
this process he
found 7 primary
independent mental abilities
that are interrelated
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L.L. Thurstone: Factor Analysis
 Spatial
ability
 perceptual
 numerical
 verbal
speed
ability
meaning
 Memory
 word
 and
fluency
reasoning
 Thurstone
believed that the
average taken
from these 7
types of mental
abilities would
equal a number
similar to
Spearman’s g
factor
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R.B. Cattell—Fluid and
Crystallized
 Identified
two clusters of mental abilities
 Crystallized
intelligence includes abilities such as
reasoning and verbal skills
 Fluid intelligence includes skills such as spatial
and visual imagery, rote memory, and the ability
to notice visual details
 While
education can increase crystallized
intelligence, it was not thought to have any
effect on fluid intelligence
+ Contemporary
Intelligence Theories
Gardner, Sternberg
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Howard Gardner: Multiple
Intelligences
 He
believed that a
person’s intelligence
included separate
abilities. A person may
excel in math, but struggle
in verbal/ reading
 Brain
damage may
diminish one type of
ability but not others.
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Howard Gardner: Multiple
Intelligences
 Gardner
proposes
eight types of
intelligences and
speculates about a
ninth one
 Existential
intelligence: The
ability to think about
the question of life,
death and existence.
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Robert Sternberg—Triarchic
Theory of Intelligence
 Robert
Sternberg developed
the Triarchic theory of
intelligence- identifying 3
types of intelligence
To remember that Sternberg
identified 3 types of
intelligence; creative,
analytical, and practical- think
of Sternberg wearing a
thinking CAP- creative,
analytical, practical
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Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence
 Creative
intelligenceusing previous
information in new
situations
 Ex: Application of
material- what job
employers are looking
for employees to do
when they get hired
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Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence
 Analytic
intelligenceanalyzing, comparing,
evaluating
 Ex: School work, ACT
and SAT score
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Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence
 Practical
intelligenceapplying, adapting to
the environment
 Ex: Street smarts/
common sense
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The Triarchic Model
Robert Sternberg must
have a fetish for
triangles because he is
also famous for his
triangular theory of
love (in social
psychology chapter).
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John Mayer: Emotional Intelligence
(Not the singer…although that’s a great way to
remember him!)

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the
ability to perceive, control and evaluate
emotions.

Some researchers suggest that
emotional intelligence can be learned
and strengthened, while others claim it
is an inborn characteristic.

Salovey and Mayer proposed a model
that identified four different factors of
emotional intelligence
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The Four Branches of Emotional
Intelligence
 Perceiving
Emotions: The first
step in understanding
emotions is to accurately
perceive them.
 In many cases, this might
involve understanding
nonverbal signals such as
body language and facial
expressions.
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The Four Branches of Emotional
Intelligence
 Reasoning With
Emotions: The next step
involves using emotions
to promote thinking and
cognitive activity.
 Emotions help prioritize
what we pay attention
and react to; we
respond emotionally to
things that garner our
attention.
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The Four Branches of Emotional
Intelligence
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Understanding Emotions: The
emotions that we perceive can
carry a wide variety of meanings.
 If someone is expressing angry
emotions, the observer must
interpret the cause of their
anger and what it might mean.
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For example, if your boss is acting
angry, it might mean that he is
dissatisfied with your work; or it could
be because he got a speeding ticket
on his way to work that morning or
that he's been fighting with his wife.
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The Four Branches of Emotional
Intelligence
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Managing Emotions: The
ability to manage
emotions effectively is a
key part of emotional
intelligence.

Regulating emotions,
responding appropriately
and responding to the
emotions of others are all
important aspect of
emotional management.
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Theories: Comparison
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Diversity in Cognitive
Abilities
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Creativity
 Creativity
is often assessed by tests of divergent
thinking, which measure the ability to generate many
different but plausible responses to a problem.
 The
correlation between IQ scores and creativity is not very
high. IQ tests measure convergent thinking, whereas
creativity is characterized by divergent thinking.
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Unusual Cognitive Abilities: Mental
Retardation
 This
label is applied to people
whose IQs are 70 or below and
who fail at daily living skills.
 Mental retardation
sometimes has very specific
causes, such as Down
syndrome.
 retardation and associated
physical disorders caused
by an extra chromosome in
one’s genetic makeup
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Unusual Cognitive Abilities: Mental
Retardation
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Children with mild retardation differ
from other children in three ways:
 they perform certain mental
operations more slowly,
 they know fewer facts about the
world,
 and they are not very good at
using particular mental strategies
in learning and problem solving.
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In general, children with mental
retardation are deficient in
metacognition.
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Unusual Cognitive Abilities:
Giftedness
 Those
with extremely
high IQs
 do not necessarily
become creative
geniuses.
 They
do, however,
usually become very
successful in this
society or culture.
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Unusual Cognitive Abilities:
Learning Disabilities
 People
with learning disabilities have
academic performance that doesn’t
measure up to their measured
intelligence.
 People with dyslexia see letters as
distorted or jumbled.
 Dysphasia is difficulty in
understanding spoken words.
 In dysgraphia a person has trouble
writing,
 In dyscalculia a person has trouble
with arithmetic.
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Tracking
 From
early age students are often tracked into “gifted”
programs and “remedial” programs… what’s a potential
problem with this?
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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
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