DEFINITIONS AND NATURE OF

INTELLIGENCE
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
• The word intelligence has been derived from a Latin verb “Intelligere” which
means to understand.

DEFINITIONS

1. David Wechsler: “Intelligence is the aggregate or global capacity of an

individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his
environment.”

2. L .M. Terman: “An individual is intelligent in the proportion that he is able to

carry on abstract thinking.”

• 3. William Stern: “Intelligence is a general capacity of an individual consciously

to adjust his thinking to new requirements. It is the general mental adaptability to
new problems and conditions of life.”
4. E .L .Thorndike: “Intelligence is the power of good responses from the point of
view of truth or fact.”

• Individuals’ abilities to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the

environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning,
to overcome obstacles by careful thought.
Theoretical Views
1. Two Factor Theory: Charles spearman
(1927)

• g’ Factor (general factor): General factor

shares with all intellectual activities.

• ‘s’ Factor (specific factor): ‘s’ factoris a

particular type of mental activity or specific
intellectual factor.
• Such a factor is unique to the activity itself.
2. Triarchic Theory of Intelligence : Robert Sternberg (1985)
3. Theory of Multiple Intelligence: Howard Gardner (1983)
4. Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence: Raymond Cattell
 Nature Vs. Nurture Debate in Intelligence

Why some people are more intelligent than others?

Why siblings from the same family have a different aptitude and
intelligence level?
Nature:
Genetic factors that we have
inherited from our parents, such
as height or skin colour.

Nurture:
Those environmental factors
that can impact us, such as
rearing process, family,
socioeconomic conditions,
social support, cultural factors,
and anything that does not
come from within the person.
Nativists Vs. empiricists taken by different approaches of psychology.
 NATURE (CHARACTERSITICS) OF INTELLIGENCE

1. Intelligence is an innate natural endowment of an individual.

2. Intelligence is the ability of an individual that helps in maximum learning in

minimum period of time.

3. Intelligence is the ability of an individual to take advantage of his/her previous

experiences.

4. Intelligence is the ability of an individual to predict or foresee the future and plan
accordingly.

5. Intelligence is the ability of an individual that helps him/her to face the future
with compliance.

6. Intelligence is the ability of an individual to acquire knowledge.

7. Intelligence is the ability of an individual to learn from one’s experiences.

8. Intelligence is the ability of an individual to use one’s resources effectively in

solving problems or in adapting to new situations.

9. Intelligence is the ability of an individual to develop a sense of discrimination

between right or wrong.

10. There is a minor difference between boys and girls with respect to the
development of intelligence.

11. There are individual differences between boys and girls with regard to the
intelligence.

12. The developmental period of intelligence is from birth to adolescence.

13. Intelligence is mostly determined by heredity but suitable environment is

necessary to improve it.
CONCLUDE

Thus, it can be said that intelligence is the ability of an individual to acquire

knowledge, learn from one’s experiences, use one’s resources effectively in solving
problems or in adapting to new situations, a sense of discrimination between right
or wrong and the involvement of both heredity and environment in the
development of it.
INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT (IQ)
• Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon were attributed with the first attempt to measure
intelligence scientifically.
• In 1905, they developed first intelligence test known as Binet-Simon Intelligence
Scale.
• Later in 1908, they coined a term Mental Age (MA) to measure the intellectual
ability of a person in comparison to his or her fellow age group, and Chronological
Age (CA) refers to a person’s biological age.
• According to Binet, if a child has MA more than her/his CA, then she/he will be
classified as bright.
• If the child scores two MA years below than her/his CA, then she/he should be
identified with intellectual disability.
• In 1912, William Stern suggested the concept called Intelligent Quotient (IQ). It
referred to a score derived by dividing MA with CA and multiplying the result
with 100.
• It can be expressed by a mathematical formula as follows.

MA/CA×100
• According to the above formula MA is a measure of intellectual development of a
person relative to individuals of his/ her age group.
• The mental age of 10 means that an individual’s performance on an intelligence test
is equal to the average performance level of age group of 10-year olds.
• CA or Chronological age is a biological age of a person from birth.
• A bright child’s MA is more than his/her CA but for a dull child, MA is below the
CA.
• The number 100 is used as a multiplier to avoid the decimal point.

• When the MA is equal to the CA, the IQ equals 100.

If the MA is more than CA, the IQ is more than 100. IQ becomes less than the 100 when the
MA is less than the CA.

• For instance, a 10-year-old child with a mental age of 12 would have an IQ of 120
(12/10×100), whereas the same child with an MA of 7 would have an IQ of 70
(7/10×100).

• The average IQ in the population is 100, irrespective of age.

• The frequency distribution for the IQ scores tends to approximate a normal

distribution curve, i.e., that only few people have either very high or very low
scores but the scores of most people tend to fall in the middle range
Figure: Normalised distribution of IQ with the mean of 100 and stranded deviation 15
Classification of people based on the IQ is given in the below table
Types of Intelligence Tests
1. Individual and Group Intelligence Tests

A) Individual Tests: one that is administered to one individual at a time.

• Examples, Stanford-Binet Scale, Wechsler Intelligence Scales, etc.

B) Group Tests: one that can be administered to more than one person at the same
time. Thus, making the tests quick in administration.

Examples, Raven’s Progressive Matrices, Cognitive Abilities Test, etc.

2. Verbal and Nonverbal Tests

A)Verbal Tests: Verbal intelligence is the ability to use and solve problems using
language-based reasoning. Verbal tests are those which require the use of
language for successful performance in it.

• Examples, Wechsler Scales, the Stanford-Binet, etc.

B) Non-Verbal Tests: measures one’s ability to analyze visual information and

solve problems without necessarily using words. Nonverbal tests are also known
as performance tests as they generally require a construction of certain patterns.

• Examples, Koh’s Block Design Test, Cube Construction Tests, Pass along Tests
3. Culture-Fair Tests and Culture-Biased Tests
A) Culture-Fair Tests: Every culture is unique in terms of their values, language,
expectations, demands and environmental experiences. A child reared in the US
will be very different in many respects with a child been brought-up in Indian sub-
urban area.
• Due to this reason, for assessing individual belonging to different cultures,
psychologists came up with tests which are free from any cultural biases.
• Examples, The Cattell Culture Fair Test, Goodenough Draw-a-Man Test, etc.

B) Cultural-Biased Tests: Many psychologists have attempted to develop culture-fair

intelligence tests by making it non-verbal in nature. However, it was realized that the
impact of culture cannot be eliminated completely from these tests even after making
it nonverbal completely.
• Due to this reason, only the term ‘culture fair’ is used in place of ‘culture free’ tests.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence: The Feeling Side of Intelligence

A cluster of traits or abilities relating to the motional side of life-abilities such as

recognizing and managing one’s own emotions, being able to motivate oneself
and restrain one’s impulse, recognizing and managing others’ emotions, and
handling interpersonal relationships in an effective manner (Daniel Goleman,
1995, 1998).
• In contemporary research emotional intelligence is treated as ability as well as a
personality trait.
• Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey (2000) have considered it as ability to process
information about one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. They have
developed Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale to measure it.
• In contrast Baron (1997) has developed a personality model consisting of five
components, i.e., intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, stress management, and
mood.
Major Components of Emotional intelligence: Goleman (1995) suggests that
emotional intelligence consists of five major parts:

(1) knowing our own emotions

(2) managing our emotions
(3) motivating ourselves
(4) recognizing the emotions of others
(5) handling relationships
Measuring emotional intelligence
• A large number of measures of EI have been developed in recent years, and they
can generally be divided into tests of Ability EI and Trait EI:
A. Ability EI tests: aim to assess how well people perform on tasks that have
objectively correct answers. People who tend to make the correct responses are
judged to be more emotionally intelligent, just as people who tend to make correct
responses on an IQ test are assessed as highly intelligent.
• Examples Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) with 141
items divided into eight tasks that measure facets of the four branches of EI:
1. The tasks assess emotion perception (in faces and in landscapes)
2. Using emotions (in facilitating thought)
3. Understanding emotions (in relation to emotion blends and changes in emotions
over time)
4. Managing emotions (in oneself and in relationships)
B. Trait EI tests, in contrast, ask people to rate themselves on the extent to which they
behave in emotionally intelligent ways.
• Example, Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Petrides & Furnham, 2003) with
144 items assessing subscales including the following:
1. Adaptability (e.g., ‘I usually find it difficult to make adjustments in my lifestyle’
[reverse scored])
2. Emotional expression (e.g., ‘Others tell me that I rarely speak about how I feel’ [reverse
scored])
3. Emotion regulation (e.g., ‘When someone offends me, I’m usually able to remain
calm’)
4. Empathy (e.g., ‘I find it difficult to understand why certain people get upset with
certain things’ [reverse scored])
5. Self-esteem (e.g., ‘I believe I’m full of personal strengths’)
6. Stress management (e.g., ‘I’m usually able to deal with problems that others find
upsetting’).
THANK YOU