PSY 1102 Lecture : 3. Intelligence.docx

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Christine Mountney

Document Summary

Intelligence (in all cultures) is the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use our knowledge to adapt to new situations. In research studies, intelligence is whatever the intelligence test measures. The idea that general intelligence (g) exists comes from the work of charles spearman (1863-1945) who helped develop the factor analysis approach in statistics. Spearman proposed that general intelligence (g) is linked to many clusters that can be analyzed by factor analysis. For example, people who do well on vocabulary examinations do well on paragraph comprehension examinations, a cluster that helps define verbal intelligence. Other factors include a spatial ability factor, or a reasoning ability factor. Howard gardner (1983, 1999) supports the idea that intelligence comes in multiple forms. Gardner notes that brain damage may diminish one type of ability but not others. Gardner proposes eight types of intelligences and speculates about a ninth one existential intelligence.