Psychology, 8th Edition – Myers
Chapter 11 – Intelligence
Intelligence
 Intelligence wars – Does each of us have an inborn general mental capacity (intelligence) and can we
quantify this capacity as a meaningful number?
What is Intelligence?
 Intelligence – mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use
knowledge to adapt to new situations.
o Concept, not a thing
o Reification of intelligence – to view intelligence (abstract) as a thing (an object) that exists in the
world
o Socially constructed by a culture
o In western cultures, intelligence is measured by success on cognitive tasks, usually “school
smarts”
Is intelligence a single ability or several specific abilities?
 People seem to be “intelligent” in different areas, therefore, can intelligence be quantified with a single
number from a single scale?
 Factor analysis – a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test;
used to identity different dimensions of performance that underlie one’s total score.
o Used to find out whether there might be a general ability factor that runs throughout our specific
mental abilities by studying how individual abilities relate to one another.
o Ex: people who do well on vocabulary items often do well on paragraph comprehension, a
cluster that helps define a verbal intelligence factor.
 General intelligence (g) – a general intelligence factor that underlies specific mental abilities and is
therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.
o The idea that a general mental capacity cab be expressed by a single intelligence score (g).
o Proposed by Charles Spearman
o Opposed by L.L. Thurstone – identified 7 clusters of primary mental abilities, no just one g.
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Contemporary Intelligence Theories
o Howard Gardener - Multiple Intelligences
 8 different intelligences
 Critics
o Without individual tests for each intelligence, this theory is difficult to
research and prove.
o Intelligence is mental abilities, while Gardener’s intelligences are more
like talents than intelligences. If people lack talent, do they lack
intelligence?
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Linguistic (T.S. Elliot, poet)
Logical-mathematical (Einstein)
Musical (Igor Stravinsky, composer)
Spatial (Picasso)
Bodily-kinesthetic (Martha Graham, dancer)
Intrapersonal (Freud)
Interpersonal (Gandhi)
Naturalist (Darwin)
Savant syndrome – a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has
an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.
 Often score low on intelligence tests but are brilliant in one specific area
 4/5 savants are male; many have autism however, AUTISM ≠ SAVANTISM
o Robert Sternberg – Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
 3 different intelligences
 Analytical intelligence – academic problem solving intelligence
 Creative intelligence – reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating
novel ideas
 Practical intelligence – intelligence in everyday tasks that require multiple
solutions
 Critics
 Sternberg’s intelligences are too much alike and have an underlying g factor.
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Sternberg and Gardner differ on the types of intelligences, but both agree that multiple types of
intelligences contribute to life success.
Intelligence Theory
Spearman’s general
intelligence (g)
Summary
A basic intelligence
predicts our abilities in
varied academic areas
Strengths
Different but similar
abilities do have some
tendency to correlate
Other Considerations
Human abilities are too
diverse to be encapsulated
by a single general factor
Thurstone’s primary
mental abilities
Gardner’s multiple
intelligences
Sternberg’s triarchic
theory
7 intelligence factors:
word fluency, verbal
comprehension, spatial
ability, perceptual speed,
numerical ability,
inductive reasoning, and
memory
8 intelligences: linguistic,
logical-mathematical,
musical, spatial, bodilykinesthetic, intrapersonal,
interpersonal, naturalistic
3 areas of intelligence:
analytical, creative, and
practical
A single g score is not as
informative as scores for
seven primary mental
abilities
Even Thurstone’s seven
mental abilities show a
tendency to cluster,
suggesting an underlying
g score.
Intelligence is more than
just verbal and
mathematical skills as
other abilities are equally
important
These three factors may
be reliably measured
Should all abilities be
considered intelligences?
Shouldn’t some of them
just be talents instead?
These three factors are
related and can have an
underlying g factor. Also,
additional testing is
needed to determine
whether these facets can
reliably predict success.
Emotional Intelligence
 Social intelligence – the know-how involved in comprehending social situations and managing oneself
successfully
 Emotional intelligence – the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.
o Self-awareness
o Able to read others’ emotions and handle those emotions skillfully
o Often succeed in career, marriage, and parenting situations
o g factor supporters agree that higher emotional intelligence generally predicts life success
 Critics
o Gardener – emotional intelligence is stretching intelligence too far; stretch a word to include
everything we praise and it will lose its meaning
Intelligence and Creativity
 Creativity – the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
o Studies suggest that a certain level of aptitude is necessary but not sufficient for creativity.
o Exceptionally creative people score no higher than their noncreative peers on intelligence tests.
 Intelligence tests measure convergent thinking (a single answer), while creativity
demands divergent thinking (multiple solutions).
o Brain lesion studies have shown that injuries to the frontal lobe can leave reading, writing, and
arithmetic skills alone, while destroying imagination (necessary for creativity)
 5 components of creativity
o Expertise – a well developed knowledge base.
o Imaginative thinking skills – the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and
make connections
o A venturesome personality – accepts ambiguity and risk; willingness to persist after failure
o Intrinsic motivation – motivated by internal, not external, factors
o A creative environment – peers and support systems that collaborate to encourage and refine
creative ideas
Is Intelligence Neurologically Measurable?
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Brain size and complexity
o Do people with big brains have more intelligence? (Big brains – Lord Byron, Beethoven)
o Some studies have found a correlation between brain size and intelligence scores.
o More educated, therefore defined intelligent, people have more connections between neurons
(more synapses) than less educated people.
 Chicken or the egg question – does education produce more synapses, or do people with
more synapses seek more education?
o Einstein’s brain was 15% larger in the parietal lobe’s lower region – where mathematical and
spatial information is processed.
Brain function
o Frontal lobe is active for tasks like questions on intelligence tests.
o Perceptual speed
 Positive correlation of intelligence score and the speed at which perceptual information is
taken in
o Neurological speed
 EEG studies show that people who score higher on intelligence tests can register stimuli
quicker and with more complexity than others.
Assessing Intelligence
 Intelligence is whatever intelligence tests measure.
o Intelligence test – a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them
with those of others, using numerical scores.
Origins of Intelligence Testing
 Western societies began to attempt to assess intelligence about a century ago
 Individual scientists who study intelligence are affected by their own assumptions and attitudes
Alfred Binet: Predicting School Achievement
 Turn of 20th century – France passed a law requiring all children to attend school.
 Schools were overwhelmed with children with varied individual differences and abilities  need to find
a way to assess students’ abilities objectively
 Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and Theodore Simon assumed that all children develop intellectually in the
same way but some develop quicker; a “dull” child would score as a younger child would, while a
“bright” child would score as an older child.
o Mental age – a measure of intelligence; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to
a given level of performance.
 Ex: a child who does as well as the average 8 year old is said to have a mental age of 8.
 Assumed mental aptitude was a general capacity that showed up in various ways assessed by reasoning
and problem-solving questions that might predict school achievement
 Binet did not claim that intelligence was inborn, and simply stated that his test was designed only to
indentify students who needed special attention. He hoped the test would be used to improve education
for all students, but feared it would be used to label children and limit their opportunities.
Lewis Terman: The Innate IQ
 Stanford University profession Lewis Terman (1877-1956) found that Binet’s standards for Parisian
children did not apply well to Californian children.
 Terman revised the test adapted some questions, established new age norms, and extended the upper
end of the test’s range from teenagers to “superior” adults.
o Stanford-Binet – the widely used American revision of Binet’s original intelligence test
 From the original and revised Binet test, German psychologist William Stern developed the IQ.
o Intelligence quotient (IQ) – mental age divided by chronological age and then multiplied by
100
o Ex: a child who has a mental and chronological age of 8 would have an IQ of 100, while an 8
year old child with a mental age of 10 would have an IQ of 125
 Most intelligence tests (including the Stanford-Binet) no longer compute IQ because it works only with
children. These tests rely on comparing an individual’s results to that of their peers
 IQ is now used to describe someone’s score on an intelligence test.
 Historically, IQ tests have been used to label certain groups of people (immigrants, etc) as inferior.
Again, intelligence tests assess intelligence which is culturally defined (Terman had to adapt the French
test to fit the American culture), therefore it is no wonder immigrants did poorly on American
intelligence tests and were classified unfairly.
Modern Tests of Mental Abilities
 Aptitude tests – designed to predict a person’s future performance as aptitude is the capacity to learn.
o Ex: SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test, formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test – seeks to
predict your ability to do well in college)
 Achievement tests – designed to assess what a person has learned.
o Ex: EOC (End of Course exam – seeks to assess what you learned in the course)
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) – developed by David Wechsler, the most widely used
intelligence test; contains both verbal and nonverbal subtests
o 11 subtests
o Yields an overall intelligence score, and also scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual
organization, working memory, and processing speed.
o Results are important to identify learning disabilities or brain disorders (important for teachers,
employers, and therapists)
Also created the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and a later test for preschoolers
Principles of Test Construction
 To be accepted, an psychological test must meet 3 criteria:
o Standardization –have defined and uniform procedures for administration of test and define
meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested standardization group
 When a test is standardized, the results when graphed typically form a normal curve –
symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many psychical and
psychological attributes; most scores fall near the average and fewer and fewer scores lie
near the extreme.
 On an intelligence test, the average score is 100.
 68% fall between 1 standard deviations of the average (85-115)
 95% fall between 2 standard deviations of the average (70-130)
 Tests need to be constantly restandardized to properly assess different generations –
Flynn effect = intelligence scores have been rising over time.
o Reliability – the extent to which a test yields consistent results
 Measured by 2 test halves, alternate forms, or retesting
 People should generally score the same when the test is taken multiple times
o Validity – the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to
 Content validity – the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest
 Ex: a driving test assess driving tasks
 Predictive validity – the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to
predict
 Criterion – the behavior a test is designed to predict
 Ex: the SAT is designed to predict future college performance which is the
criterion
The Dynamics of Intelligence
 The stability of intelligence scores increases with age. Young children’s scores fluctuate greatly,
however, by age 7, scores become fairly stable and consistent.
Extremes of Intelligence – the small percentages at the low and high end of the bell curve
The Low Extreme
 Intelligence scores 70 and below
 Mental retardation – a condition of limited mental ability , indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or
below and difficult in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound.
o Only about 1% of the population; mostly males
o Most individuals with mental retardation can live in mainstream society with some support.
 Mental retardation can sometimes have a physical cause – Down syndrome – a condition of retardation
and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one’s genetic makeup.
 Many with intelligence scores just below 70 have been integrated into regular education classrooms and
mainstream society  more happiness and dignity
The High Extreme
 Intelligence score 130 and above
 Some extraordinarily intelligent children are more isolated and introverted, but most thrive and continue
on to higher education
 Controversy over gifted children programs: not as many children labeled as gifted are actually
extraordinarily gifted
 “Tracking” children of different abilities can cause them to live up or down to a perception of their
intelligence/abilities (self-fulfilling prophecy)
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence
 Intelligence seems to run in families, but is this genetically or socially influenced?
Genetic Influences
 Twin studies show that identical twins reared together have almost identical intelligence scores 
genetic factor in intelligence
 Adoptive children’s intelligence scores tend to resemble those of their birth parents rather than adoptive
parents.
Environmental Influences
 Intelligence score of identical twins raised apart is less similar than scores of pairs raised together.
 Other studies have shown that children raised in impoverished or enriched environments or different
cultures show that experiences influence test performance.
Gender Similarities and Differences
 Girls: better spellers, more verbally fluent and can remember more words, better at nonverbal memory,
more sensitive to touch, taste, and color, better at math computation, higher emotional intelligence
 Boys: better at math problem solving, more underachievers
The Question of Bias
 An intelligence test measures your developed abilities, therefore also tests in part your education and
experiences  people of different cultures and experiences will score differently on intelligence tests.
 Scientific bias – however, intelligence tests, like the SAT, are not biased in the fact that they are less
valid for some groups.
o The predictive validity of the SAT (as in whether it accurately predicts future behaviors) is the
same for men and women, blacks and whites, and the rich and poor.
 Stereotype threat – the self-confirming belief that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.
o Ex: women are deemed less competent at math than men, when women take math tests without
men present, they tend to score higher.
 Are intelligence tests discriminatory?
o Yes – they are designed to distinguish individuals apart from their peers.
o No – they are not designed to distinguish individuals based on political, racial, or ethnic
backgrounds