Intelligence and Individual

Differences
Chapter :10
What is Intelligence?
SO, what did you get on your SATs? Jane said she
got a 1350…that means she’s really smart, right?

Does it?

Objectives:
What is intelligence?
How do we measure intelligence?
Who are the children whose intelligence
sets them apart from their peers?
Think on Your Own…

HOW DO YOU DEFINE

INTELLIGENCE?
Is it the ability to use reason and logic?
Is it the ability to write and speak clearly?
Is it limited to one’s performance in school?
Is it behavior in social situations?
How about knowing when you’re wrong?

Not that simple, right?

There are many psychological theories about
intelligence that we will examine in this module
How do we know intelligence even
exists?

Psychometricians
specialize in measuring psychological
characteristics for intelligence and
personality. By using patterns of test scores,
they have found evidence for general
intelligence as well as for specific abilities
What is Intelligence?
Intelligence is an inferred process that humans use to
explain the different degrees of adaptive success in
people’s behavior
◦ The mental abilities that enable one to adapt to,
shape, or select one’s environment
◦ The ability to judge, comprehend, and reason
◦ The ability to understand and deal with people,
objects, and symbols
◦ The ability to act purposefully, think rationally, and
deal effectively with the environment
 Intelligence
•A combination of abilities that enable a person
to learn from experience ,to think abstractly
and to adapt successfully to the environment.

•It is a capacity to understand the world, think

rationally, and effective use of resources when
faced with challenges.
Intelligence include:
capacity to acquire knowledge,
problem solving ability,
abstract thinking, or reasoning,
adapting to one’s environment
Creativity,
general knowledge,
Linguistic and mathematical competence,
memory,
Achievement
Motivation
Goal directedness
 Theories of intelligence

The two factor theory by C Spearman (1904)

 Spearman’s two-factor theory says that
intelligence has two factors: a general
mental ability factor, g, which represents
what different cognitive tasks have in
common,
plus many specific factors, s, which include
specific mental abilities
(mathematical, mechanical, or verbal skills).
 Spearman’s Psychometric Approach -
Intelligence
as a Single Trait

Psychometric Approach
◦ The measurement (metric) of individual differences in
behaviors and abilities

George Spearman reported findings supporting the

idea that performance on any test of mental ability
was based on a single general ability factor that he
termed “g”
Spearman also believed that performance on any test
of mental ability required the use of a specific ability
factor that he termed “s”
Contemporary theoreticians have suggested

Two different kinds of intelligence.

1.Fluid intelligence reflects reasoning, memory, abstraction ,and
information processing capabilities.
2. Crystallized Intelligence is the information,
skills and strategies that people have learned through experience
and that they can apply in problem solving situation.
 Cattell’s View of Intelligence -
Intelligence as a Few Basic Abilities
Fluid Intelligence
◦ The ability to think on the spot and solve novel problems
◦ The ability to perceive relationships
◦ The ability to gain new types of knowledge

Crystallized Intelligence
◦ Factual knowledge about the world
◦ The skills already learned and practiced
◦ Examples
◦ Arithmetic facts
◦ Knowledge of the meaning of words
◦ State capitals
Broader Theory of Intelligence
Howard Gardener proposed a theory of multiple
intelligences, in which he identified 9 distinct types of
intelligence.
The first three intelligences are included in
psychometric theories of intelligence:
◦ Linguistic intelligence
◦ Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
◦ Spatial Intelligence
Gardner's Multiple intelligences

•Linguistic: spoken and written language skills

•Logical–mathematical: number skills
•Musical: performance or composition skills
•Spatial: ability to evaluate and analyze the visual
world
•Bodily-kinesthetic: dance or athletic abilities
 Three-Stratum Theory
of Intelligence - John Carroll
 Carroll’s hierarchal theory is
essentially a compromise between
general and distinct abilities view of
intelligence

SOME CRITICS STILL FIND IT

UNSATISFACTORY BECAUSE IT IGNORED THE
RESEARCH AND THEORY ON COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Few Geniuses
6 Historical Geniuses With Autism
Newton, Michelangelo, Mozart - what's common between them?
They were geniuses, yes. But did you know they were autistic too?
Written by Shraddha Rupavate |Updated : February 23, 2015 6:06
PM IST
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is perhaps the most complex and
controversial neurological disorder because each person with
autism is different from the other. People with autism do not have
learning disability but lack a lot of other skills which are needed for
leading a fulfilling life in a society.
Characteristic features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) include
lack of socializing skills, repetition of some action or behavior,
coordination problems and strong visual skills. ASD was not known
until the 20th century, but researchers suspect that a lot of
geniuses in the past could have suffered from the disorder.
Ali Nawaz-ish from Rawalpindi broke a world
record when he passed 23 A-levels in subjects
including pure mathematics, travel and tourism,
and sociology. The 18 year old received 21 A
grades and a B and a C, and will be a part of
the Guinness Book of World Records for his
achievement.
What Do These Intelligences
Examine?
Linguistics - sensitivity to the meanings and sounds of words,
mastery of syntax, appreciation of the ways language can be
used

Logical-Mathematical - Understanding of objects and symbols

and of actions that be performed on them and of the relations
between these actions, ability to identify problems and seek
explanations

Spatial - capacity to perceive the visual world accurately, to

perform transformations upon perceptions and to re-create
aspects of visual experience in the absence of physical stimuli
Intelligence Tests and Basic Abilities

Fluid intelligence on tests is measured by:

◦ The ability to assemble novel puzzles
◦ The ability to determine the next entry in a series of
numbers
◦ The ability to identify which one of four objects is related to
the others

Children who do well on one test of fluid intelligence

usually do well on other tests of fluid intelligence
◦ They may no necessarily perform well on tests of
crystallized intelligence
Tests of Intelligence
Standford-Binet Weschler Scales
◦ Binet-Simon Scale ◦ WAIS-R (Adult)
◦ “IQ” ◦ WISC-III (5-16)
◦ Ages 2-23 ◦ WPPSI (3-7)

Four Subscales Two Subscales

◦ Verbal ◦ Verbal
◦ Abstract/Visual ◦ Performance
◦ Quantitative
◦ STM

Other Tests: Raven Matrices, K-ABC

 Stanford-Binet IQ Test
This test measures things that are necessary for school success
 Understanding and using language, memory, the ability to
follow instructions, and computational skills
Binet’s test is a set of age-graded items
 Binet assumed that children’s abilities increase with age
 These items measure the person’s “mental level” or “mental
age”
Adaptive Testing
 Determine the age level of the most advanced items that a
child could consistently answer correctly
 Children whose mental age equal their actual or
chronological age were considered to be of “regular”
intelligence
 Sample Stanford-Binet Test Items
Name objects from memory; complete analogies (fire is hot; ice is ______); identify
4
objects of similar shape; Answer simple questions (Why do we have schools?)

Define simple words; Explain differences (between a fish and a horse); identify
6
missing parts of a picture; count out objects

Answer questions about a simple story; explain similarities and differences among
8
objects; tell how to handle certain situations (finding a stray puppy)

Define more difficult words; Give explanations (about why people should be quiet in
10
a library); List as many words as possible; repeat 6-digit numbers

Identify more difficult verbal and picture absurdities; repeat 5-digit numbers in
12
reverse order; define abstract words (sorrow); fill in a missing word in a sentence

Supply several missing words for incomplete sentences; Repeat 6-digit numbers in
Adult reverse order; Create a sentence using several unrelated words; Describe similarities
between concepts
Current and Future Skills
Aptitude Tests
◦ SAT ??
◦ GRE ??
◦ Intelligence Tests

Achievement Tests
◦ AP tests
◦ Regency tests
◦ Iowa Achievement tests
Issues in Measurement
Reliability
◦ Split-Half
◦ Test-Retest

Validity
◦ Content
◦ Criterion
◦ Concurrent
◦ Predictive
Other Things to Consider
Nature v. Nurture

Cultural and Gender Differences

Extremes of Intelligence
Creativity
Area of problem solving
novel and useful
solutions
see relationships among
remote ideas
interaction of multiple
factors
How is Intelligence Measured?
What is IQ?
Lewis Terman revised Simon and Binet’s test and
published a version known as the Stanford-Binet
Test in 1916.

Performance was described as an intelligence

quotient (IQ) which was imply the ratio of mental
age to chronological age multiplied by 100:

◦ IQ=MA/CA x 100
The first Intelligence test was
created by Binet and Simon using
simple tasks to distinguish children
who would do well in school from
those who wouldn’t

BINET AND SIMON USED

MENTAL AGE TO DISTINGUISH
“BRIGHT” FROM “DULL”
CHILDREN
Measuring Intelligence
At any age, children who are average will have an IQ of
100 because their mental age equals their chronological
age.

◦ Roughly two-thirds of children will have an IQ score

between 85 and 115

◦ Approximately 95% will have scores between 70 and

130
Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

This summary is used to indicate a child’s intelligence

relative to others of the same age
IQ tests measure an individual’s probable performance in
school and similar settings
An IQ test measures performance… but an IQ test does
not explain performance
Examples: A Five-Minute IQ Test
1.Water lilies double in area every 24 hours. At the beginning of
the summer, there is one water lily on a lake. It takes 60 days for
the lake to become covered with water lilies. On what day is the
lake half-covered?
2.A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 break through a hole in the
fence and wander away. How many are left?
3.If you have black socks and brown socks in your drawer, mixed in
a ratio of 4 to 5. How many socks will you have to take out in
order to have a pair of the same color?
4.With a 7-minute hourglass, and an 11-minute hourglass, how
can you time the boiling of an egg for 15-minutes?
5.Washington is to one as Lincoln is to:
Five --or-- Ten --or-- Fifteen --or-- Fifty
 How did you do?
1. On day 59. Remember, it doubles every day.
2. Nine sheep. It is just a matter of careful reading.
3. Three socks. The ratio information is irrelevant.
4. Allow both glasses to drain simultaneously. As soon as the
7-minute glass empties, flip it over (7 minutes have
expired). Then, flip it over again after the 11-minute glass
empties (11 minutes have expired). Fifteen minutes will
have passed when the 7-minute glass empties.
5. The answer is five. The task here is to realize that the
relation is no the sequence of their presidency but which
denomination of bill upon which each face appears.
Do Intelligence tests work?

TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION WE

MUST EXAMINE RELIABILITY AND
VALIDITY
How Stable is IQ?
Research suggests that intelligence is relatively stable
from early childhood on

IQ scores tend to be fairly stable

◦ IQ test at 4 and a second at 17 - 13 points up or down
◦ IQ test at 8 and a second at 17 - 9 points up or down
◦ IQ test at 12 and a second at 12 - 7 points up or down

The closer together in time that IQ tests are given… the

more consistent (stable) the scores.
 Do tests scores really measure
intelligence?

This is a question of validity. Does the test

measure what it claims to measure?
Most test developers argue that their tests
are valid measures of intelligence by showing
that test scores are related to children’s
grades in school
Culture-Fair Intelligence
Tests
Raven’s Progressive Matrices

◦ A “culture-fair” or culture-reduced test that would make

minimal use of language and not ask for any specific facts

◦ These matrices progress from easy to difficult items --

measures abstract reasoning

Even on culture-fair tests, Euro-American and African-

American children still differ

◦ One reason - culture can influence a child’s familiarity with the

entire testing situation
Factors that Influence
Intelligence
Factors Influencing Intelligence
The Child’s Influence
◦ Genetics
◦ Genotype–Environment Interaction
◦ Gender

The Immediate Environment’s Influence

◦ Family Environment
◦ School Environment

The Society’s Influence

◦ Poverty
◦ Race/Ethnicity
Gender
Boys and girls tend to be equivalent in most aspects of
intelligence
◦ The average IQ scores of boys and girls is virtually identical
◦ The extremes (both low and high ends) are over-
represented by boys
Girls as a group:
◦ Tend to be stronger in verbal fluency, in writing, in
perceptual speed (starting as early as the toddler years)
Boys as a group:
◦ Tend to be stronger in visual-spatial processing, in science,
and in mathematical problem solving (starting as early as
age 3)
 Schooling
Attending school makes children smarter
◦ Children from families of low SES and those from families of
high SES make comparable gains in school achievement during
the school year
What about during summer break?

◦ Children from families of low SES have a drop in achievement

scores
◦ Children from families of high SES have achievement scores that
stay constant or rise slightly
Poverty
The more years children spend in poverty, the
lower their IQs tend to be
◦ Children from lower- and working-class homes average
10-15 points below their middle-class age mates on IQ
tests
In many countries, children from wealthier homes
score better on IQ test than children from poorer
homes
◦ The greater the gap in wealth in a country the greater the
difference in IQ scores
Poverty Continued…
Chronic inadequate diet can disrupt brain development

Chronic or short-term inadequate diet at any point in life

can impair immediate intellectual functioning

Reduced access to health service, poor parenting, and

insufficient stimulation and emotional support can impair
intellectual growth
Race and Ethnicity
The average IQ score of Euro-American children is 10-15
points higher than that of African-American children

The average IQ score of Latino and American-Indian

children fall somewhere in between those of Euro-
American and African-American children

The average IQ score of Asian-American children tend to

be higher than any other group in the US
 Race and Ethnicity Continued…
:
◦ Better on tAmerican-Indian childrenhe performance part than the
verbal part of an IQ test
Latino children:
◦ Better on the performance part than the verbal part of an IQ test
Asian-American children:
◦ Better on the performance part than the verbal part of an IQ test
African-American children:
◦ Better on the verbal part than the performance part of an IQ test

Overall - differences in IQ scores of children from different racial and

ethnic groups describes children’s performance ONLY in the
environments in which the children live