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Theories of Intelligence
What is Intelligence?
How would you know that someone
is intelligent? List the characteristics
or behaviours that you associate with
intelligence.
Definitions (continued)
Wechsler (1939)
- the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment Sternberg (1985)
- the mental capacity to automatize information processing and to emit contextually appropriate behaviour in response to novelty; intelligence also includes metacomponents, performance components, and knowledge-acquisition components Gardner (1986)
- the ability or skill to solve problems or to fashion products which are valued within one or more cultural settings
Cultural Differences in Views of Intelligence
China (Yang & Sternberg, 1997)
- Emphasis on benevolence & doing what is right
- Importance of humility, freedom from conventional standards of judgment, knowledge of oneself
Lay vs. Expert Conceptions of Intelligence
Sternberg et al. (1981) Contacted people
- In a train station
- Entering a supermarket
- Studying in a university library Asked them to list behaviours characteristic of an intelligent person then took this list and had both lay- persons & psychologists rate the importance of each of the behaviours in describing the “ideally intelligent” person
Results
Galton & the Brass Instruments Era of Psychology
“the only information that reaches us
concerning outward events appears
to pass through the avenues of our
senses; and the more perceptive the
senses are of difference, the larger is
the field upon which our judgment
and intelligence can act” (Galton,
Spearman & the “ g ” factor
Proposed that intelligence consisted
of 2 kinds of factors: a single
“general” factor, g , and numerous
specific factors ( s1, s2, s3, etc.)
g factor was the most important; s
factors were very specific to
particular tests
Thurstone (continued)
problem – primary mental abilities correlated with one another Vernon, more recently, said g was the single factor at the top of a hierarchy that included two major group factors:
- verbal-educational
- practical-mechanical-spatial-physical
- under these were the primary mental abilities Recent research provides some support for the factor idea of intelligence; if there were just one g factor, then all the different abilities Thurstone said were separate should decline at the same rate; this doesn’t happen; things like verbal comprehension, word fluency, inductive reasoning, decline much more slowly than space and number abilities
Cattell: Fluid & Crystallized Intelligence
Also used factor analysis, discovered
2 major factors:
Fluid Intelligence: Non-verbal & culture-free form of intelligence Related to a person’s inherent capacity to learn & solve problems Used in adapting to new situations
Crystallized Intelligence: What one has already learned through the investment of fluid intelligence in cultural settings Highly culturally dependent Used for tasks which require learned or habitual response
Biological Theories
Average Evoked Potential (AEP), assessed by noting the patter of brain waves that occurs in the quarter second or so after a light is flashed in a subjects eyes is presumably a measure of electrical activity of the brain certain measures of brain wave activity correlate as high as .77 with published IQ scores other measures of brain activity (e.g., glucose metabolic rates, measured by PET scans) show less brain activity for intelligent people than less intelligent people
Triarchic Theory
Sternberg
- Analytic – ability to judge, evaluate, compare, contrast
- Creative – ability to invent, discover, imagine
- Practical – ability to apply knowledge to practice
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
- Linguistic – sensitivity to language, grasp new meanings easily
- Musical – sensitivity to speech and tone
- Logical-Mathematical – abstract reasoning & manipulation of symbols
- Spatial – relations among objects, re-create visual images
- Bodily-kinesthetic – represent ideas in movement
- Personal – sensitivity and understanding of self and others feelings
- Social – sensitivity to motives, feelings, and behaviors of others