INTELLIGENCE

ORIGINS OF INTELLIGENCE TESTING

• Origins are with French Psychologist Alfred Binet• Began assessing

intellectual abilities• Developed test that

assessed mental age• Predicted a child’s future

progress

IQ TEST• Lewis Terman believed

intelligence was inherited

• William Stern derived the Intelligence Quotient test: IQ test• Person’s mental age

divided by chronological age x’s 100

• Many of these test in early 20th used to show “inferiority” of certain groups and races

NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE

• People have specific abilities• Verbal and math

aptitudes• Debate• Whether General

Intelligence (g) factor runs through

• Factor Analysis • Identified several clusters of

mental abilities• There are instances of

people who excel in multiple clusters

DIFFERENT INTELLIGENCES

• There is academic intelligence (math, science, etc.) and there is emotional intelligence• Ability to perceive,

express, understand, and regulate emotions

• Often succeed in careers, marriages, and parenting

CREATIVITY AND INTELLIGENCE• People with high

intelligence scores do well on creativity tests• Beyond a score of 120 the

correlation disappears• Five Components of

Creativity• Expertise• Imaginative thinking skills• Venturesome personality• Intrinsic motivation• Creative environment

APTITUDE VS. ACHIEVEMENT TEST• Aptitude refers to ability to

learn• Aptitude test measures

person’s future performance• Achievement test measures

what a person has learned• Wechler Adult Intelligence

test Revised (WAIS) • Most widely used intelligence

test• Scored on verbal and non

verbal • Provides clues to cognitive

strengths

STANDARDIZATION

• Test scores form a normal distribution• Bell shaped that forms

normal curve• Creation of that curve• Pretest subjects create

the standards• Must represent those who

will be test in the future• Thus the controversy

because do they really represent the whole based on the few?

RELIABILITY VS. VALIDITY• Reliability refers to extent

in which a test yields consistent scores

• Validity refers to the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to• Content validity whether a

test truly samples behavior that is of interest

• Predictive validity is the correlation between test scores and criterion• What the test aims to assess

STABILITY OF TESTING• Stability of intelligence

test scores increase with age• Predicatability at 4yrs• Stability at 7 yrs

• Normal distribution is 70• Mental retardation means

a child must have both low test scores and difficulty adapting to normal demands of living INDEPENDENTLY

GIFTED• Gifted children are NOT

maladjusted• Nor should they be

segregated into “Gifted” classes• They do need to be

challenged and educators are responsible to meet the demands of both standard, below standard, and above standard children

GENETICS AND INTELLIGENCE• Studies show a

remarkable inheritability of intelligence• Adopted children scores

more resemble those of biological than adoptive parents

• Life experiences also determine intelligence scores• Neglect and enrichment

are reflected

GROUP DIFFERENCES

• African Americans on average score 10 pts below whites on intelligence tests and Asian out score North Americans on math tests• What facts can cause

this?

INTELLIGENCE TESTING AND CULTURAL BIAS

• They are biased because of sensitivity to cultural experiences• The stereotype threat

does exist, but the aim and results are not factors that go into intelligence tests