Lecture 8.docx

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Lecture 8 What is intelligence? - Psychometric theories - Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences - Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence Psychometric theories - Use patterns of test performances as starting point to answer questions • If changes in performance on one test results in changes in others, then the tests measure the same attribute or factor - Spearman: test scores provide a measure of general intelligence (g) • Ageneral factor for intelligence is responsible for performance on all mental tests • Intelligence is a general ability to perform consistently regardless of task - Thurstone argued for specific intelligences (e.g., word comprehension) • Look for different categories of intelligence - Hierarchical theories such as Carroll’s are a compromise between general and specific theories of intelligence - Fluid intelligence: the ability to perceive relations among stimuli - Crystallized intelligence: comprises a person’s culturally influenced accumulated knowledge and skills, including understanding printed language, comprehending language, and knowing vocabulary Hierarchical view of intelligence **DON’T NEED TO MEMORIZE** - Top = general intelligence, middle = broad categories of intelligence Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences - Instead of using test scores, draws upon research in child development, brain-damaged adults, and exceptional talent - Proposes 9 intelligences: **KNOW NAMESAND DEFINITIONS** • Linguistic knowing the meaning of words, having the ability to use words to understand new ideas, and using language to convey ideas to others  Included in psychometric theory of intelligence  Develops much earlier than all others • Logical-mathematical understanding relations that exist among objects, actions, and ideas, as well as the logical or mathematical operations that can be performed on them  Included in psychometric theory of intelligence • Spatial perceiving objects accurately and imagining in the “mind’s eye” the appearance of an object before and after it has been transformed  Included in psychometric theory of intelligence  In right hemisphere of the brain • Musical comprehending and producing sounds varying in pitch, rhythm, and emotional tone  Unique to Gardner’s theory  Savants: people extremely gifted in one domain, but have mental retardation • Bodily-kinesthetic using one’s body in highly differentiated ways, as dancers, craftspeople, and athletes do  Unique to Gardner’s theory • Interpersonal identifying different feelings, moods, motivations, and intentions in others  Unique to Gardner’s theory  People who are more emotionally intelligence have more self-esteem and do better in the work place • Intrapersonal understanding one’s emotions and knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses  Unique to Gardner’s theory  People who are more emotionally intelligence have more self-esteem and do better in the work place • Naturalistic recognizing and distinguishing among members of a group (species) and describing relations between such groups  Unique to Gardner’s theory • Existential considering “ultimate” issues, such as the purpose of life and the nature of death  Unique to Gardner’s theory - Gardner believes that schools should foster all intelligences • Make the most of people’s strongest intelligences  Ex: teachers know students’strengths and weaknesses, so focus instructions on strengths - Emotional intelligence: the ability to use one’s own and others’emotions effectively for solving problems and living happily • Perceive emotions accurately, understand emotions, and regulate emotions Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence - Successful intelligence involves using one’s abilities skillfully to achieve personal goals - Three different kinds of abilities involved • Analytic ability: analyzing problems and generating different solutions • Creative ability: dealing adaptively with novel situations and problems (ex: ability to adapt) • Practical ability: knowing what solution or plan will actually work (which skills do you need to survive in your environment, aka, street smarts) - Cultural differences: • Adolescents navigate on the Pacific Ocean from New Guinea, yet they are not mathematicians • Boys in Brazil sell food, but they can’t identify numbers on money Measuring intelligence - Binet and the Development of Intelligence Testing - Do Tests Work? - Hereditary and Environmental Factors - Impact of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status Binet and the Development of Intelligence Testing - Binet used mental age to distinguish “bright” from “dull” children • Ex: bright = 6 year old with a MAof 9. Dull = 6 year old with a MAof 4 • Mental age: referred to the difficulty of the problems that children could solve correctly - Led to the Stanford-Binet, which gives a single intelligence score or ‘quotient’(IQ) • Assesses mental age from actual age. They should be equivalent • IQ = ratio of mental age to chronological age (CA) X 100  IQ = MA/CAX 100 - Average IQ = 100 • Children with IQ of 100 = average - WISC, devised in the 1930s, gives verbal and performance IQ scores and a combination of the two scores; the full-scale IQ • To determine where your score falls in relation to others’, and generate a percentage • Problem is that they assume we all have the same basic knowledge • Scores from 18-24 months old (not before) can predict later IQ scores • IQ scores are stable during childhood and adolescence Distribution of IQ Scores Sample items from WISC-II Do tests work? - Are they reliable? • In the short term, yes. In the longer term, less so • Infant tests do not reliably predict adult IQ, but scores obtained in childhood (around 5-6) do  If you see the same IQ across the lifespan, that means that environment has very little effect, and intelligence is mostly due to genetics • Self discipline predicts grades in school even better than IQ scores - Are they valid? • In part, at best - tests are reasonable predictors of success in school and the workplace, particularly for more complex jobs  Not a strong predictor because success in school is determined by a multitude of factors • IQ scores also predict occupational success • Validity can be increased with dynamic testing (measures learning potential)  Dynamic testing: measures a child’s learning potential by having the child learn something new in the presence of the examiner and with the examiner’s help  Dynamic testing is interactive and measures new achievement rather than past achievement  Based on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development learning potential estimated by amount of material learned during interaction with examiner • If the aim is to predict future levels of a child’s skill, knowing a child’s current level of skills (static testing) is valuable, as is knowing the child’s potential to acquire greater skill (dynamic testing). Correlation between Childhood andAdult IQ Hereditary and Environmental Factors - Effects of heredity shown in family studies • If genes influence intelligence, then family studies should reflect this • For fraternal twins, could predict that their test scores should be:  1. Less similar than scores for identical twins  2. Similar to scores of other siblings who have the same biological parents  3. More similar than scores of children and their adopted siblings • Identical twins more alike in IQ scores than fraternal twins, and f