PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Spatial Ability, Theory Of Multiple Intelligences, Inductive Reasoning

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: victor emerson

Document Summary

Intelligence is a socially constructed concept, not a thing. As noted in the textbook (p. 386): Intelligence is a mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. Specific examples of intelligence will differ from one culture to another. For example, a farmer will have different challenges than a city-dweller. In the first half of the 20th century, spearman believed that we have one general intelligence (g), although he agreed that individuals could also have specific abilities. Spearman was instrumental in developing factor analysis, a statistical tool that can be used to identify clusters of related items. Spearman noticed that people who got high scores in one area (e. g. , math) typically scored above average in other areas (e. g. , verbal). As a result, he posited the existence of the g factor, which in his view underlies all of our reasoning ability.