INTELLIGENCE

Intelligence can be defined informally as intellectual ability. A person who solves a difficult
crossword puzzle quickly or gives the right answer to a tricky mathematical problem or gets a
high score on an IQ (intelligence quotient) test is showing intelligent behavior, and it is
reasonable to infer that such a person is intelligent. Someone who does badly at the same tasks
is not showing intelligent behavior and may have a low intelligence, but the inference is
uncertain in this case because other explanations are possible. Poor performance, even on an
IQ test, might be due to tiredness, lack of interest or motivation, test anxiety, or many other
causes apart from low intelligence.

Until fairly recently, psychologists who devised IQ tests, tended to base their definitions of
intelligence on their own preconceptions about intellectual ability and the types of behavior
associated with it. By the early 1920s there were almost as many different definitions of
intelligence in the psychological literature as there were psychologists writing about
intelligence.

DEFINITIONS

L.M. Terman: The ability to carry out abstract thinking.

E.L. Thorndike: The ability to give responses that are true or factual.

L.L.Thurstone:The capacity to inhibit instincts, coupled with analytical ability and perseverance.

H. Woodrow: The ability to acquire abilities.

W.F. Dearborn: The ability to learn or to profit by experience.

R. Pinter: The ability to adjust oneself to relatively new situations in life.

S.S. Colvin: The ability to adjust oneself to the environment.

V.A.C. Henmon: The capacity for knowledge and knowledge possessed.

Prof. A. R. Somroo
Department of Education
Govt. Emerson College, Multan