PSY 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: David Wechsler, Lewis Terman, Mental Age
Charlie Kent
Psy 111
Summer 2017
General Psychology
Intelligence
● Concept or construct that refers to the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason
effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment
Intelligence in Historical Perspective
● Sir Francis Galton
○ Showed through study of family trees that eminence and genius seemed to occur
across generations with certain families
○ Exhibited belief bias, and dismissed fact that successful people often came from
privileged environments
○ Approach to mental skills measurement fell into disfavour because measures of
nervous system efficiency proved unrelated to socially relevant measures of
mental ability
● Alfred Binet
○ Developed test to help identify children who require educational help at early age
○ Made two assumptions about intelligence:
■ Mental abilities develop with age
■ Rate at which people gain mental competence is a characteristic of the
person and is fairly constant over time
○ Tests would result in score called mental age (age at which a child can solve
problems for)
○ William Stern provided a relative score called intelligence quotient
■ IQ = (Mental age / Actual age) x 100
○ Problem is that increases in mental age begin to slow down dramatically around
age 16
○ Deviation IQ – modern score that represents how much standardized distance a
score is above or below the mean of a particular sample
● The Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Scales
○ Lewis Terman revised Binet’s test, creating the Stanford-Binet test
○ David Wechsler developed intelligence tests for adults (WAIS), children (WISC),
and preschoolers (WPPSI)
■ Most widely used intelligence tests
■ Consists of series of subtests that fall into verbal tests and performance
tests
● Group tests of aptitude and achievement
○ Using written tests for selective purposes highlights an issue Binet faced:
■ Should university applicants be given an achievement test (how much they
have learned in high school) or an aptitude test (measure applicant’s
potential for future learning and performance)?
Scientific Standard for Psychological Tests
Document Summary
Concept or construct that refers to the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment. Alfred binet across generations with certain families. Showed through study of family trees that eminence and genius seemed to occur. Exhibited belief bias, and dismissed fact that successful people often came from. Approach to mental skills measurement fell into disfavour because measures of privileged environments nervous system efficiency proved unrelated to socially relevant measures of mental ability. Developed test to help identify children who require educational help at early age. Rate at which people gain mental competence is a characteristic of the person and is fairly constant over time problems for) Tests would result in score called mental age (age at which a child can solve. William stern provided a relative score called intelligence quotient. Problem is that increases in mental age begin to slow down dramatically around.
