Intelligence and its theories

Intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses
many related activities such as the capacity to reason, to plan, to solve the problem, to think
abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language and to learn. There are several ways to
define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity,
personality, character, knowledge or wisdom.

Definition by David Weschler:

Intelligence is the aggregate or the global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to
think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.

Spearman’s Two Factor Theory

One of the earliest and most influential factor theories was proposed by Charles
Spearman. He is credited with discovery of general intelligence; which he reported in his
1904 American Journal of Psychology, article entitled “General Intelligence- Objectively
determined and measured”.

According to Spearman, every different intellectual activity involves a general factor called
G-factor, which is shared with all intellectual activities, and a specific factor donated by ‘S’,
which shares with none. He suggested that there is something which might be called
“General Intelligence”- a sort of general mental energy running through all different tasks.
But in addition to these, general factor, there are Specific abilities which make an individual
able to deal with particular types of problems.

For eg: an individual performance in Hindi is partly due to his general intelligence and
partly due to some kind of specific ability. And the ability in language is due to some
specific ability, that is G+S1 and in mathematics, G+S2 etc.

The total ability or intelligence of such an individual symbolized as ‘A’, thus will be
expressed by the following

A=G+S1+S2+S3…..

Thurstone’s Two Factor Theory or Theory of Primary Mental Abilities

The theory of primary mental abilities, a model of human intelligence, challenged

Spearman’s unitary concept of intelligence. Thurstone denied the mathematical
procedures of intelligence, which is he argued that G is a mathematical product. Thurstone
stated that the biological function of intelligence is to protect the organisms from the bodily
risks and satisfy its needs with the least possible chance of recording failure on the
environment. With this in his mind, he found several primary mental abilities. As expected,
these abilities are those that the individual uses in order to survive and succeed in society.
He proposed nine independent factors that are called primary abilities. They are:

a) Verbal Factor (V): it concerns comprehension of verbal relations, words and ideas
b) Spatial Factor (S): involved in any tasks in which the subject manipulates an object
imaginatively in space.
c) Numerical Factor(N): it is the ability to do numerical calculations rapidly and
accurately.
d) Memory Factor (M): involving the ability to memorize in a rapid manner.
e) Word Fluency Factor (W): involved whenever the subject is asked to think of the
isolated words at a rapid rate.
f) Inductive Reasoning (RI): it is an ability to draw inferences on the basis of specific
instances.
g) Deductive Reasoning (RD): it is an ability to make use of generalized results.
h) Perceptual factor (P): it is ability to perceive objects accurately.
i) Problem solving Factor (PS): it is the ability to solve problems with independent
efforts.

Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

In 1963, Raymond B Cattell reached to a different conclusion from Spearman and

Thurston that is, there are two major clusters of mental abilities exist, what he termed as
fluid and crystallized intelligence.

Fluid intelligence refers to our largely inherited abilities to think and to reason, in a sense
the hardware of our brain that determines the limits of our information processing
capabilities.

In contrast, crystallized intelligence refers to the accumulated knowledge, information we

store over a life time of experience plus the skill. The application of skills and knowledge to
solve specific problems.

In a sense, crystallized intelligence is the outcome of experience acting on our fluid

intelligence. The speed with which one can analyze information is an example of fluid
intelligence while the breadth of one’s vocabulary, that is how many words one can put to
use illustrates crystallized intelligence. So the fluid intelligence seems to decrease slowly
with age. But crystallized intelligence will increase as age increases.

Triarchic theory of intelligence

It was proposed by Robert J Sternberg. This theory attempts to find the cognitive process
involved in problem solving. According to this theory, there are three sub factors of
intelligence.
 a) Componential Factor
b) Experiential Factor
c) Contextual Factor

Componential deals with the internal mental mechanisms that result in intelligent
behavior. Three components of intelligence perform three different functions.

i. Meta-components: it is the process involved in problem solving, observing progress

and providing mental and external resources for problem solving.
ii. Performance component: it is the process involved in performance of a task or
solving a problem.
iii. Knowledge component: involved in the process of learning.

Experiential factor focuses on the relationships between a person’s internal mental world
and external outer world. It is concerned with the effect of intelligence or person’s
experience and person’s interaction with the environment. This particular factor adds up
the concept of creativity to the universal concept of intelligence.

Contextual factor deals with how a person modifies his environment, how he adapts to his
environment and makes most out of the available resources. It is also refers to as ‘street
smart’. It is the effective management of the self and the practical management of the
everyday business of life.

Multiple Intelligence Theory

It was proposed by Howard Gardner. This theory is based on three principles

i. Intelligence is not a single entity. There exist multiple intelligences. Each distinct
from the others.
ii. Those intelligences are independent of each other. That is if a person is good in one
type of intelligence, it cannot be predicted how bad or good he would be on the
other.
iii. Different types of intelligence interacted with each other or they work together to
solve a problem.

Gardner was proposed 8 types of intelligences. Every individual doesn’t possess it in the
same proportion.

a) Linguistic: it includes the ability to read, write, talk, listen, and understand. Poet
exhibits this ability better than others.
b) Logical-mathematical: it is the ability for abstract reasoning and to manipulate
mathematical symbols exhibited by scientific work.
 c) Spatial: it is used while navigating in space and forming, transforming and using
mental images. Exhibited by engineers, sailors surgeons etc.
d) Musical: people with intelligence in music are sensitive to tone and pitch required
for singing, play instruments and appreciating music.
e) Bodily –kinesthetic: it is the skill and ability to coordinate bodily movements such as
those required for dancing, athletics etc.
f) Interpersonal intelligence: it requires understanding the motives, feelings and
emotions of other people. Politicians, teacher, counselors etc have high
interpersonal intelligence.
g) Intrapersonal intelligence: it is the ability to look within ourselves and develop a
sense of identity.
h) Naturalistic intelligence: it is related to recognizing the flora and fauna and making
distinctions in the natural world. It is possessed by hunters, farmers etc.

Concept of IQ
It was coined by William Stern in 1912. It represented the ratio of a child’s mental age to
his or her chronological age. To get rid of fractions, the ratios are multiplied by 100. This
means that for any chronological age, the average IQ was 100. Obviously, if a child’s mental
age was greater than the chronological age, the IQ would be greater that is above 100. If the
mental age was lower than the chronological age, IQ will be below 100.

IQ= Mental Age÷ Chronological Age×100

IQ Score Interpretation:

Over 140: they are genius or almost genius

120-140: very superior or gifted

110-119: superior intelligence

90-109: average or normal intelligence

80-89: dullness

70-79: borderline or deficiency in intelligence

Under 70: feeble mindedness

Extremes of intelligence
Intelligence like other traits seems to be distributed in the population in such a way that
most people make scores in the middle range, while a few on the high and low range.
Mental retardation:

It is defined by significally sub-average levels of intellectual functioning along with deficits

in adaptive behavior. The levels of retardation include mildly retarded (IQ 55-69),
moderately retarded (IQ 40-54), severely retarded (IQ 25-39) and profoundly retarded (IQ
below 25). The most frequent causes of retardation are:

1. Down Syndrome: a disorder caused by an extra chromosome that is responsible for

some causes of mental retardation.
2. Familial influences: some forms of retardation have a genetic basis and can be
passed through families.

Giftedness:

The intellectually gifted have IQ above 130 and comprised 2.4% of the population. People
with high intelligence are known as intellectually gifted. They are generally more socially
adaptive than those with a lower IQ.

Emotional Intelligence
It was proposed by Daniel Goleman. Emotional Intelligence is a form of intelligence
relating to the emotional side of life such as the ability to understand and manage one’s
own and others’ emotions, to motivate oneself and to handle interpersonal relationships
effectively. It is important for personal success and for having a happy, productive life.

Components:

Goleman (1995) suggests that emotional intelligence consists of five major parts:

(1) Self awareness: recognizing one’s own feelings as they occur is an essential
component of Emotional Intelligence. The ability to monitor feelings from
moment to moment is the key to psychological insight and self-understand.
Being aware of one’s own emotions make one, more confident when making
important personal decisions.
(2) Managing our emotions: the ability to modulate negative effects such as
anxiety, anger and depression is a crucial emotional skill.
(3) Motivating ourselves: being able to focus on a goal is essential for a range of
accomplishments. Individual who can harness their emotions and maintain
hope and optimism despite frustrations are generally more productive and
effective.
(4) Recognizing the emotions of others: those individuals who could well
understand what others feel are more successful in personal and
professional relationships.
 (5) Handling relationships: the art of relationship requires skill in managing
others’ emotions. Such skills as being able to coordinate the efforts of several
people, to solve complex interpersonal problems, and to form relationships
with others—often by being a good “team player.”

Determinants of Intelligence
i. Heredity
ii. Environment

Studies of twins and adopted children and of children raised in enriched or neglectful
environment indicate that genes and environment both interact to produce measured
levels of intelligence. Among the environmental factors that tend to influence intelligence is
nutrition, emotional climate of the house etc. It has also found in studies done only in
mentally abnormal that, some mentally retarded individuals are the product of biological
or genetic factors but most cases of mental retardation result from unfavorable
combinations of a number of factors. Thus family-cultural retardation, no physical defect is
identifiable but retardation results from inheritance of low intelligence accelerated by
impoverished living conditions. On the other hand, a mentally defective child usually has
some brain damage resulting from material infections during pregnancy, birth trauma,
genetic defects such as Down syndrome or other disorders.

Our psychological development is constantly being shaped by forces in our environment.

Different physical environments foster different characteristics even among people with
similar inheritance. Our socio-cultural environment influences our intellectual
development a lot more dramatically. Through our contact with it, we learn the
competencies necessary for dealing with life problems. To sum up, both hereditary factors
and environmental factors influence the intellectual development.