INTELLIGENCE

CHAPTER 8
MODULE 8.1
INTELLIGENCE: DETERMINING
INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHS
How do you define intelligence?
Intelligence is the capacity to understand the world,
think with rationality, and use resources effectively
when faced with challenges (Wechsler, 1975)
Intelligence Benchmarks
A major challenge for researchers is to differentiate intelligent from
unintelligent behavior

•Binet's Test
– Pragmatic approach to construction of intelligence tests
– Focus on linking intelligence and school success
– Development of assigning intelligence test score to a mental age
– Mental age and chronological age
– Intelligence quotient (IQ) = (MA x 100) / CA
IQ Scores
Present Day Approaches
 Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
 Young children  everyday activities
 Older people  solve analogies, describe similarities between
groups of words

 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)

 Separate measures of verbal and non-verbal performance and
total score
 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

 Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, 2nd Edition (KABC-II)

 Measures of ability to simultaneously integrate different kinds of
stimuli
 Culturally-fair IQ Tests
 Designed to overcome
potential for cultural bias

 Raven Progressive Matrices

Test

 No cultural group will be more

or less acquainted with
content
 Reliability and Validity

To assess intelligence accurately, IQ tests must be

reliable and valid

•Reliability  test measures consistently what it reports to

measure

•Validity  test actually measures what it is supposed to

measure
• More controversial
IQ and School Achievement
 IQ as a predictor of school performance
 Intelligence tests  to identify students with
difficulties
 Learning difficulties  difficulties in acquisition and
use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning,
or mathematical abilities
 Dyslexia, ADD/ADHD
 IQ scores fail to detect learning difficulties
What IQ Tests Don't Reveal
 Vygotsky  not only looking at fully developed
cognitive processes, but also processes in
development

 Assessment tasks should include cooperative

interaction, a process called dynamic
assessment

 Intelligence  how children perform on their own

and how they perform when helped by adults
Smart Thinking: Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence (Sternberg)

Intelligence is made up of three major components

–Componential aspects
– Mental components involved in analyzing data, and in solving
problems, especially problems involving rational behavior
– Selecting and using formulas, choosing problem-solving
strategies
– Traditional IQ tests focus on this aspect
– Analytical intelligence
Smart Thinking: Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence (Sternberg)

– Experiential component
– The relationship between intelligence, people's prior
experience, and their ability to cope with new situations
– Creative intelligence

– Contextual component
– The degree of success people demonstrate in facing the
demands of their everyday, real-world environments
– Practical intelligence
Practical and Emotional Intelligence
Creativity: Novel Thought
 The combination of ideas in novel ways
 Which one is related to being more creative?
 More knowledge or less knowledge
 Early adulthood
 Many of professional problems are novel
 Few consistent developmental patterns
 What is creativity?
 Willing to take risks
 Flexible enough to move away from tried and true ways of
doing things and to consider new approaches
MODULE 8.2
CONTROVERSIES INVOLVING
INTELLIGENCE
 What Is Infant Intelligence?

Table 8.1 Approaches Used to Detect Differences in Intelligence During Infancy

Gesell: Developmental Scales

• To distinguish between normally-developing and atypically-

developing babies  for purposes of adoption

– Developmental quotient (DQ)

– Performance compared at different ages for significant
variation from norms of given age
– Four domains: motor skills, language use, adaptive
behavior, personal-social
Bayley: Developmental Scales

• Primarily used to evaluate infant development from 2 to 30

months in mental and motor abilities

– Bayley Scales of Infant Development

– Developmental Quotient
– 2 to 42 months
– Mental scale  senses, perception, memory, learning,
problem solving, and language
– Motor scale  fine and gross motor skills
Are developmental scales
useful?
Information Processing Approaches
Relationship between information processing efficiency and
cognitive abilities
How quickly infants lose interest in stimuli that they have previously
seen
Their responsiveness to new stimuli
•Correlate with later measures of intelligence
•More efficient information processing during the 6 months following
birth  higher intelligence scores between 2 and 12 years of age

Visual-recognition memory
•The memory and recognition of a stimulus that has been previously
seen, also relate to IQ.
•The more quickly retrieving a representation of a stimulus from
memory  the more efficient information processing
What about the multimodal
approach?
Cross-modal transference
•Ability
to identify a stimulus previously experienced through only one
sense by using another sense is associated with intelligence

Two issues about IP and multimodal approach

Other factors, such as the degree of environmental stimulation
Mostly academic success, but does not mean successful life in
general
Achievement and Aptitude Tests:
How Do They Differ from
Intelligence Tests?
• Intelligence tests  to measure overall, general ability

• Achievement tests  to determine an individual's level of

knowledge in a given subject area

• Aptitude tests  to predict ability in a particular subject

area or line of work
Group Differences in IQ
A “jontry” is an example of a ______________.

a. rulpow
b. flink
c. spudge
d. bakwoe
Racial Differences in IQ
How to interpret differences between the IQ test scores of different
cultural groups is a major controversy in child development
•Ifintelligence is mostly hereditary and therefore largely fixed at birth,
attempts to alter cognitive abilities, such as schooling, will have limited
success

•Ifintelligence is largely environmentally determined, modifying social and

educational conditions is a more promising strategy to increase cognitive
functioning

•Absolutedegree to which intelligence is influenced by genetic and

environmental factors?
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
Cross-sectional studies showed that older subjects
did not score as well as younger subjects on
traditional IQ tests

•Intelligence
peaks at 18, stays steady until mid-20s,
and declines till end of life
•Cohort effect
•Underestimate intelligence in older subjects
Cognitive Development in
Adulthood
Longitudinal studies, revealed different developmental
patterns in intelligence

Stable and even increasing IQ scores until mid-30s and

some to mid-50s, then declined
Practice effect
Attrition

Overestimate intelligence in older subjects

 Healthier, more stable, more psychologically positive
group of people
Kinds of Intelligence
Changes in Crystalized and Fluid Intelligence
Recent Conclusions about
Adult Intelligence
Schaie used sequential methods
Some abilities gradually decline starting around age 25
while others stay relatively steady

On average some cognitive decline are found in all

abilities by age 67, but they are minimal until around age
80

Significant individual differences occur

Environmental and cultural factors play a role

Changes in Intellectual Functioning
Competence vs. Cognitive Abilities