Kathleen Stassen Berger
Part VII
Chapter Twenty-one
Adulthood: Cognitive Development
What is Intelligence?
Selective Gains and Losses
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield
Tattoon, M.A.
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Adulthood: Cognitive Development
Do people get smarter or dumber as
they get older?
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What is Intelligence?
– general intelligence
• the idea that intelligence is one basic
trait, underlying all cognitive abilities
– according to this concept people have
varying levels of this general ability
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Cross-Sectional Research
– a research designed that compares
groups of people who differ in age but
are similar in other important
characteristics
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Cross-Sectional Research
– in the first half of the twentieth century,
psychologists used this method of
research; convinced that intelligence
rose in childhood, peaked in
adolescence, and then declined
gradually
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Longitudinal Research
– a research design that follows the same
individuals over time, repeatedly assessing
their development.
– Bailey retested another group of adults who
had been tested as children and who were
then 36-years-old and concluded that the
“intellectual potential for continued learning is
unimpaired through the first 36 years of life”
and probably beyond
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• The Flynn Effect
– a trend toward increasing average IQ
found in all developed nations during the
twentieth century
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Cross-Sequential Research
– a hybrid research method in which
researchers first study several groups of
people of different ages (a crosssectional approach) and then follow
those groups over the years (a
longitudinal approach) (also called
cohort-sequential or time-sequential
research)
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Cross-Sequential Research
– Seattle Longitudinal Study
• the first cross-sequential study of adult
intelligence—this study began in 1956;
the most recent testing was conducted in
2005
– this study confirmed and extended what
others had found—people improve in most
mental abilities during adulthood
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Components of Intelligence: Many and
Varied
– developmentalists look at patterns of
cognitive gains and losses over the
adult years
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Two Clusters: Fluid and Crystallized
– Fluid intelligence
• those types of basic intelligence that make learning of all
sorts quick and thorough—abilities such as short-term
memory, abstract thought, and speed of thinking are all
usually considered part of fluid intelligence
– Crystallized intelligence
• those types of intellectual ability that reflect
accumulated learning--vocabulary and general
information are examples—some developmental
psychologists think crystallized intelligence
increases with age, while fluid intelligence declines
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Three forms of intelligence: Sternberg
– analytic intelligence
• a form of intelligence that involves such mental
processes as abstract planning, strategy
selection, focused attention, and information
processing, as well as verbal and logical skill
– creative intelligence
• a form of intelligence that involves the capacity
to be intellectually flexible and innovative
– practical intelligence
• the intellectual skills used in everyday problem
solving
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Eight (brain-based) Intelligences: Gardner
1. linguistic
2. logical-mathematical
3. musical
4. spatial
5. bodily-kinesthetic
6. naturalistic
7. social-understanding
8. self-understanding
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Diversity and Intelligence
– analytic intelligence,
• valued in high school and college
– students are expected to remember and analyze ideas
– creative intelligence,
• prized if life circumstances change and new
challenges arise
– which makes it much more valued in some cultures
and eras than others
– practical intelligence,
• useful after college days are over
– when the demands of daily life are omnipresent
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• An Example of Practical Intelligence
– from rural Kenya
• a smart child is one who knows which
herbal medicines cure which diseases,
not one who excels in school
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Research on Age and Intelligence
• Which Intelligence is Valued?
– cultural and historical context often emphasize
one form of intelligence over others
– cultural assumptions affect concept of
intelligence
– intelligence tests and school curriculums
reflect assumptions about the construct being
measured
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Selective Gains and Losses
• aging neurons, cultural pressures,
past education, current life events all
affect intelligence—none of these is
under direct individual control
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Optimization and Compensation
– selective optimization with compensation
• the theory, developed by Paul and Margaret Baltes, that
people try to maintain a balance in their lives by looking
for the best way to compensate for physical and cognitive
losses and to become more proficient in activities they
can already do well
– selective expert
• someone who is notably more skilled and knowledgeable
than the average person about whichever activities are
personally meaningful to them
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Expert Cognitive
– an expert is notably more skilled,
proficient, and knowledgeable at a
particular task than the average person
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Expert Cognitive
– intuitive
• novices follow formal procedures and
rules
• experts rely more on their past
experiences and on immediate contexts
their actions are therefore more intuitive
and less stereotypic
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Automatic
– elements of expert performance are automatic
– complex actions and thoughts become routine,
making it appear the task is performed
instinctively
– experts process incoming information more
quickly and analyze it more efficiently than
nonexperts,
– their efforts appear nonconscious
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Selective Gains and Losses
• strategic
– experts have more and better strategies,
especially when problems are
unexpected
– strategies may be the most crucial
differences between a skilled person
and an unskilled one
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Selective Gains and Losses
• flexible
– because they are intuitive, automatic,
and strategic, experts are also more
flexible
– they enjoy the challenges when things
don’t go as planned
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Expertise and Age
– the relationship between expertise and
age is not straightforward
– time is essential
– not everyone becomes an expert as he
or she grows older
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Older Workers: Experts or Has-Beens?
– research on cognitive plasticity confirms
that experienced adults often use selective
optimization with compensation
– apparent in the everyday workplace
– best employees may be the older ones—if
motivated
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Selective Gains and Losses
• Human Relations Expertise.
– the most important skill for people of every
age to learn is how to get along with other
people, understanding their emotional needs,
and helping them function well
– the most common test of expert human
relations occurs with parenting—a parent is
patient, good humored and consistent—traits
that become more common with age
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