Approaches to Describing Intelligence

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Gardner's Theory of Intelligence

• Systems model of intelligence attempts to combine the psychometric, biological and contextual approaches to develop a model that embraces all aspects of intelligence.

Gardner's Theory of Intelligence:

• The systems approach broadens the definition of intelligence to include a range of abilities and attempts to help understand how intelligence functions as a system.

• People can be stronger in some areas than others

LINGUISTIC: Ability to perceive and generate spoken or written language

LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL: Use numerical, abstract and logical reasoning

MUSICAL: Ability to create, communicate, and understand meanings made with sound

SPATIAL: Ability to perceive, modify, transform or create visual or spatial images

BODILY-KINAESTHETIC: Using all or part the body to solve problems or make something

NATURALISTIC: Ability to recognise, appreciate, and dispute others feelings, beliefs and intentions

INTERPERSONAL: Ability to recognise, appreciate and dispute others feelings, beliefs and intentions

INTRAPERSONAL: Ability to understand oneself- emotions, desires, strengths and weaknesses

• There are also two additional ones:

- Spiritual: Abstract concepts about consciousness and state of being

- Existential: The ability to think about oneself in relation to death, love and meaning of life within the physical and psychological worlds.

• Criticism - they are highly correlated - could just be different aspects of the same thing

• Criticism - not tested enough to be sure

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Information-Processing Theory

• Developed to explain how the mind works

• Focuses on understanding the specific cognitive processes that underlie intelligent behaviour

• Includes describing and measuring how we process information by examining speed of processing, knowledge base, and ability to learn and apply strategies.

SPEED OF PROCESSING

• Mental speed - related to intelligence by standard IQ tests

• Speed of processing correlates to measures of academic achievement in children and university students

• Improves during childhood, slows during later years of adulthood

• However, mental training can help improve speed of processing

KNOWLEDGE BASE

• The amount of information stored in short and long term memory relates to intelligence

• Differences in our knowledge base - including the volume of information and how it is organised and can be accessed for retrieval influences our intellectual functioning

• We store and process knowledge in particular knowledge domains.

•This enables us to encode, retrieve, and mentally manipulate relevant information to solve problems.

ABILITY TO LEARN AND APPLY MENTAL STRATEGIES

• Ability to acquire and apply cognitive strategies to solve problems or adapt to new situations is also a component of intelligence

• We become more efficient in using different mental strategies across our lifespan

CRITIQUES OF THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACH

• Advantage is that hypotheses can be tested under controlled experimental conditions.

• Disadvantage is that it is less focused than other contextual theories on understanding the influence of culture on intelligence

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Emotional Intelligence

• Suggests that emotions are valuable sources of information that can help people operation in a social context.

• Includes ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions in both ourselves and others.

ASPECTS OF EMOTIONS

Perceiving Emotions: The ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others, as well as in objects, art, stories, music, and other stimuli

Facilitating Thought: The ability to generate use and feel emotion as necessary to communicate feelings or employ them in other cognitive processes

Understanding Emotions: The ability to understand emotional information and how emotions combine and progress through relationship transitions and to appreciate such emotional meanings.

Managing Emotions: The ability to be open to feelings, and to modulate them in oneself and others so as to promote personal understanding and growth

• Several different modes

• Salovey and Mayer Model: Describes emotional intelligence as the ability to perceive, integrate emotions to facilitate thought, understand emotions, and regulate emotions to promote personal growth.

• They developed a test called the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test or MSCEIT

CRITIQUES OF THE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE APPROACH

• Could be just a part of general intelligence, which includes the ability to deal with life situations and emotions, and that is a skill rather than intelligence.

• Also developed on mainly self-report measures

• Do not have rigorous operational definitions - made it difficult for researchers to validate them in quantifiable research.