Psych 125
Human Development
Christopher Gade
Office: 1031-G
Office hours: Tu 12-1:30 and by apt.
Email: gadecj@gmail.com
Class: T 1:30-4:20 Room 2210
Intelligence
The Intelligence Challenge
• In today’s class, we’re going to discuss the topic of
intelligence.
• However, when looking at intelligence, we run
into a problem that we haven’t run into during
previous topics; Namely, what does it mean to be
“intelligent”?
• Group activity:
– In groups of 3 to 4, please list 5 different situations
where people can display actions that are “intelligent”
AND “dull” and detail what an “intelligent” and “dull”
action would be in these situations.
Defining Intelligence
• As our examples
• Intelligence – the ability
revealed, intelligence is to solve problems and
multifaceted.
adapt and learn from
the environment
• When studying the
– There is debate about the
topic, we often consider
other theoretical aspects
of intelligence that exist
multiple aspects of
• Creativity?
intelligence and try to
• Interpersonal skills?
incorporate as many of
• Memory capacity?
them into the definition
• Vocabulary?
of the term as we can.
So How Can We Test This?
• If we’re going to measure how intelligence grows
and changes with development, we need to find a
way to objectively measure intelligence.
– Intelligence tests – established techniques that allows
researchers to
compare an
individual to their
age and culture
equivalent peers in
order to determine
how much more or
less “intelligent”
he/she is.
The First Intelligence Test – Alfred Binet
• One of the first psychologists to
scientifically explore intelligence
• In 1904, he was tasked by the French Ministry of
Education to find a way to detect children that
would never “profit” from traditional schools
• To do this, he designed a series of tests
– These tests began by looking at basic skills in children
(“point to your toes”) and moved on to more complex
skills when comparing adolescents (“define justice”)
• Mental age (MA)– the age that the child’s responses were
most indicative of
• Chronological age (CA)– the actual age of the child
• Intelligence Quotient (IQ) = MA/CA x 100
The New IQ Tests
• Since Piaget, researchers have attempted to expand his
tests and measure both adults and “regular” individuals
• Stanford-Binet IQ test – a new IQ tests that measure
multiple facets of intelligence across a large range of ages
– Normally distributed with different calculations (average = 100)
– Measures fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning,
visual-spatial reasoning, and working memory
– Note: This revised test was created by Lewis Terman at
Stanford. Hence the name. They were originally said to
measure a person’s inborn ability to learn. Terman’s initial goal
was to use the tests to promote his push for eugenics.
The Wechsler Scales
• David Wechsler developed a series of
questions and tasks that allowed
researchers to look at intelligence in:
– Different subscales (verbal skills and performance/
non-verbal skills, working memory, and processing
speed)
– Different age groups (WAIS – Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale, and WISC – Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children(up to 16))
Processing Speed Example
X
O
O
O
X
O
O
O
X
O
O
X
X O X X O O X O X X O O O X X O O X X
O O O O X X X O X O X O X O O O X O X
O O X X X O X O X X O X O O X X X O X
X O X X O X O X O X O X O X O X O O X
X X X O X O O X O O X XX X O X X O O X
X X O O O X X O O X X O O O O O X X X
X O X O X O O O X O X O O O X X XO O
O X X X O X O X O X O O O X O X O O O
XO O X X XO O O O X X X O X O X O X
O O X O X O O X O X X O XO X O X O O
X X XO O O O X X X O X O X O X O O O
O X O O O X XO O X X XO O O O X X X
Other Ideas About Intelligence
• Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
(16:54)
– verbal, mathematical, spatial, movement, musical,
interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential
• Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence
– Analytical, creative, practical
• Salvoy & Mayer’s emotional intelligence (EQ)
• Spearman’s general intelligence (g)
– Could be the result of an outside factor (health)
• Fluid and crystallized intelligence
– Fluid – intelligence based on the ability to learn across
all areas of interest (peaks at 20)
– Crystallized – intelligence that is obtained through
experience over the lifespan (peaks near end of life)
– Note: this doesn’t address multiple intelligences
Where does this lead us in a
developmental class?
• Understanding that there are many different
types of intelligence forces researchers looking at
development study changes in multiple versions
of intelligence
• Understanding the different goals and findings of
intelligence researchers also lets us look closer at
development related problems in intelligence that
we find
• Understanding these theories also helps us better
understand the concept of heritability when we
examine its relationship with intelligence
Understanding the Extremes
of Intelligence: Giftedness
• Individuals that measure having IQ’s
above 130 are arbitrarily defined as
“gifted”
• Gifted individuals usually excel only in
one or two specific areas of intelligence
• Despite the stereotypes, gifted
individuals do not generally appear to
display social or personality deficits
– Savant syndrome exception
• Giftedness has been liked to both
genetics and environment
Understanding the Extremes of
Intelligence: Mental Retardation
• Mental retardation is defined as a limited mental
ability
• Mentally retarded individuals are identified
before the age of 18
• There are many classifications of mental
retardation, based on IQ scores
• To be defined as mentally retarded, individuals
must:
– Have an IQ below 70
– Have difficulty adapting
to everyday life
More on Mental Retardation
• IQ’s below 50 are usually the product of genetic deficits (we
discussed this in one of the first classes)
• Individuals with IQ’s between 50 and 70 are defined as
having cultural-familial retardation (based on early
experience and low stimulation environments)
• Treatment for mental retardation varies based on an
individual’s IQ
• Heritability – the proportion of a
characteristic that can be attributed
to the genetic makeup of parents
– Nature – the amount of a characteristic
(in this case, intelligence) that can be
attributed to our genes
– Nurture – the amount of a
characteristic that can be attributed to
our environment
• Sibling studies have revealed a very
high level of genetic heritability in
the area of intelligence
– This is particularly true when we look
at adult intelligence
Returning
to
Heritability
Some New Outlooks on Heritability
• Recent studies have led us to conclude that
environments, especially ones that are
significantly different, can also play a big role in
intelligence
– Schooling lapses and decline in intelligence findings
– The Flynn effect – worldwide increases in intelligence
over the past few decades
– Intervention studies (low IQ, SES, & comm. styles)
Another look at these effects…
• The context of culture on how we measure
intelligence
– video
More Developmental Concerns:
Predictability and Stability
• Considerable research has shown
that intelligence levels of infants
are constantly fluctuating
• Once reaching childhood,
intelligence becomes more stable
• We have also found in numerous
studies that our intelligence (IQ’s)
at these ages is very predictive of
our intelligence (IQ’s) throughout
our lives
– a note on individual differences
A Final Concern: Change
• Just like physical change and other cognitive
changes that we’ve seen before, we see that
intelligence follows a set path with respect to
aging as well
Reexamining a past idea to
understand a new one
• Remember the Flynn effect?
• When taking this into account, researchers have
come up with some interesting new conclusions
about old age and changes in intelligence
Late Increases in Crystallized Intelligence
• Late crystallized intelligence has sometimes been
called “wisdom” or “pragmatic knowledge”
– Wisdom – expert knowledge about the practical
aspects of life that permits excellent judgment about
important matters
– Note: “wisdom” has been theoretically linked to age,
but we the statistical links that we would expect
• Wisdom is rare in the elderly, and everyone for that matter
• Early adulthood and late adolescence is when “wisdom”
seems to emerge
• Experience and personality factors (openness to experience
and creativity) seem to be better predictors of “wisdom”
Wrapping Up Intelligence
• When looking at development and
intelligence, we see that
intelligence measures actually
came from our early attempts to
understand development
• We see in our research that our intelligence based
abilities grow with age in our early years
• We also see that our intelligence levels are usually
fairly consistent throughout life
• And finally, we see that some intelligence based
responses decline in the later years, but others
might even improve
Onto Language
• In the next class we’ll be looking at how our
language skills change throughout our lifetime
• Read chapter 9 by the next class
• Also, papers are due at the beginning of class next
week
• Email me if you have any questions about any of
this