THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE

EDWARD THORNDIKE (1874-1949)

Stimulus-response (S-R) theories are central to the principles of conditioning. They are based
on the assumption that human behaviour is learned.  Thorndike would place a cat inside the
puzzle box and then place a piece of meat outside the box. He would then observe the animal's
efforts to escape and obtain the food. He recorded how long each animal took to figure out how
to free itself from the box.
The law of effect principle developed by Edward Thorndike suggested that: "responses that
produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that
situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in
that situation (Gray, 2011, p.
Louis L. Thurstone (1887-1955)

Louis Leon Thurstone made significant contributions in many areas of psychology, including
psychometrics, statistics, and the study of human intelligence. He developed methods for
scaling psychological measures, assessing attitudes, and test theory, among many other
influential contributions. He is best known for the development of new factor analytic techniques
to determine the number and nature of latent constructs within a set of observed variables.
Using his new approach to factor analysis, Thurstone found that intelligent behavior does not
arise from a general factor, but rather emerges from seven independent factors that he
called primary abilities: word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial visualization, number
facility, associative memory, reasoning, and perceptual speed (Thurstone, 1938). 

Raymond B. Catell (1905-1998)

The Cattell-Horn theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence suggests that intelligence is

composed of different abilities that interact and work together to produce overall
individual intelligence. One of the key theories of psychometric research is factor analysis.
Raymond Cattell helped to advance this statistical method in the 1920s as a way to improve
current models of measurement in psychology. Factor analysis is a method to find underlying
correlations in large groups of data. It is a great tool for simplifying very large amounts of data to
find common characteristics within.
Alfred Binet (1857-1911)

Binet developed a series of tests designed to assess mental abilities. Rather than focus on
learned information such as math and reading, Binet instead concentrated on other mental
abilities such as attention and memory.

The test was later revised by psychologist Lewis Terman and became known as the Stanford-
Binet. While Binet's original intent was to use the test to identify children who needed additional
academic assistance, the test soon became a means to identify those deemed "feeble-minded"
by the eugenics movement. 

Theodore Simon (1875-1961)

Theodore Simon developed highly influential scales for the measurement of intelligence of
children. Theodore Simon, colleague of Alfred Binet in Paris, helped develop and coauthor a
test to roughly estimate intelligence. The principal conclusion from their work was that the test
could measure the intellectual development of young children between the age of three and
twelve years old. Simon also believed that their method was practical, convenient, and rapid.

Charles Spearman (1863-1945)

Charles Spearman, an English psychologist, established the two-factor theory of intelligence
back in 1904 (Spearman, 1904). To arrive at this theory, Spearman used a technique known as
factor analysis. Factor analysis is a procedure through which the correlation of related variables
are evaluated to find an underlying factor that explains this correlation.

Lewis Madison Terman (1877-1956)

Terman is most well remembered for his accomplishments in intelligence and achievement
testing and for his classic longitudinal research on gifted children. Terman's interest in scientific
measurement was also exemplified in his lesser known development of scales of masculinity, of
femininity, and of marital happiness. He used such scales to address research issues such as
the development of masculinity and femininity over time, links between the degrees of
masculinity or femininity and various occupations, and factors contributing to marital happiness.