Approaches to Intelligence
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HD FS 631: Intelligence
November 11, 2002
Susan M. Hegland
History
Psychometric Approach
Information Processing Approaches
Piagetian Approach
Sternberg’s Triarchic Intelligence
Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Ceci’s Bioecological Theory of Intelligence
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History: Measure and Mismeasure
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Issues to consider:
• Binet & eugenics movement
• Army Alpha & immigration laws
• Sir Cyril Burt & heritability in twins
• Hunt and Head Start
• Jensen & compensatory education
• Herrnstein & Murray: affirmative action
Social Policy applications are inevitable!
• How is the study of intelligence related to
public policy?
• Is intelligence a single factor? Or multiple
factors?
• How modifiable is intelligence? See chapter
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• Which theory do you find most useful in
describing, explaining, predicting intelligent
behavior?
see Kamin, Gould
– Binet? Guilford? Sternberg? Gardner? Ceci?
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Psychometric Approach
• Factor analysis (Guilford; Thurstone) vs
Spearman’s g
• Cattell’s fluid vs crystallized abilities
• positive manifold
1. Discuss the psychometric
approach to intelligence.
Include a discussion of
various psychometric
approaches and how these
views differ.
– high correlations among ECT’s
– Higher among low -IQ persons! (Detterman &
Daniel)
– Minimum level of domain-general g required
for individual abilities to operate?
• IQ tests: Wechsler, Stanford-Binet, Bayley
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Sternberg’s Triarchic
Intelligence
• Contextual subtheory
– Cultural relativism
2. Compare and contrast
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of
intelligence and Gardner’s
theory of multiple
intelligences.
• Experiential subtheory
– Ability to deal with novelty
– Automatization
• Componential subtheory
– Metacomponents (monitoring)
– Performance components (encoding, retrieval)
– Knowledge Acquisition (attending, etc.)
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Gardner’s Theory of Multiple
Intelligences
Seven Frames of Mind:
• linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal
Criteria:
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Potential isolation by brain damage
Existence of savants & prodigies
Identifiable core operation / set of operations
Distinct developmental history;
definable set of expert end-state performances
• Evolutionary history & plausibility
• Support from psychometric findings
• Susceptibility to encoding in a system
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3. Discuss the importance of
context to intelligence. How
important is context in the
psychometric, Piagetian, and
information processing
theories? How important is
context in the theories of
Sternberg, Gardner, & Ceci?
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Information Processing
Approaches
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Piagetian Approach
Strategies (Campione)
Knowledge Base (Schneider)
• Experts vs Novices
• Differences in rate of development
(Keating)
• Discrepant findings: Keating vs Kuhn
– Chunk information differently
– Attend to different features
Speed of Information Processing (Kail)
• Similar RT’s across variety of tasks
• Efficiency of retrieval from LT memory
Metacognition (Borkowski; Pressley)
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Ceci’s Bioecological Theory of
Intelligence
Can a test of intelligence be
culture-free? Culture-fair?
• Knowledge
• Motivation to try hard
• Communication skills
• Rapport with adult
• Familiarity with testing situation
Are schools culture free? Culture fair?
• Intelligence is multifaceted set of abilities
• Significance of context in determining
intellectual functioning
– physical, social, mental, & historical
• Domain specificity exists
• Performance influenced by motivation,
expectations, and background knowledge
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