Personality & Social - Week 8 - Intelligence

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What is Intelligence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRMwp6S6CPs

Intelligence is not one thing

It is how you learn, adapt and apply knowledge

Views of Intelligence

1.

Entity / Deterministic view: single,

general ability (Western culture)

2. Incremental / Less deterministic view: range

of aptitudes, skills and talents (Eastern culture)

Eugenics – movement

that states intelligence is genetic so

government should encourage reproduction of those with high intelligence

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History of Intelligence

Galton (1869)

Individual

differences and eugenics

Movement

that argued for selective reproduction and immigration laws based

on IQ

Binet (1905, 1916)

Invented a scale to identify low-achieving students

Focused

on attention, memory and problem

solving

Binet

himself did

not believe that his psychometric instruments could be used to measure a

single, permanent and inborn level of intelligence

Stern (1920) "a general capacity of an

individual consciously to adjust his thinking to new requirements,...a general

mental adaptability to new problems and conditions of life."

Devised

the intelligent quotient

IQ =

mental age/chronological age x 100 - Found that this ratio maintained over time

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Historical Tests

Stanford – Binet

test (Terman,

1916)

IQ

(see Stern)Children

whose mental age and chronological age were equal would have an IQ of 100

(average intelligence) – performing at expected age

Wechsler Intelligence scales

(Wechsler, 1955) - We

still use Wechsler scale now as it is standardised

4

areas: Verbal

comprehension index, perceptual

reasoning index,

working

memory index,

processing

speed index

+ general

ability

index

(standardised)

à average is 100

2/3rd of all scores fall within 85-115 (normal scores)

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Modern Intelligence Tests

IQ scores are no longer calculated by

dividing mental age by chronological age

Summed

scores for each test are compared with those earned by other people (average 100)

Standardized

Good reliability - scores

don’t change largely across short periods of time

Validity - Degree to which a test actually measures what it’s meant to measure

Most

valid for

aspects related to schoolwork (abstract reasoning, verbal comprehension)

Thus

good predictability

of success in school

Fairness?

Vocabulary has cultural bias, tests today try to account for this

Wechsler

preschool and primary scale of intelligence test:

Black children IQ scores were 1SD lower than

those of white children

Adjustments for economic and social

differences eliminated differences

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What Raises IQ?

Nutrition

Vitamin and mineral supplements improve non verbal measures & concentration

Smaller family size

Music lessons See - Schellenberg,

2014

Those children who had either music or Kodaly lessons (rhythm) showed in increase in scores on IQ tests

Conclusion: Playing music includes aspects of memory,

sequencing, attention – the process of playing music could help you develop attention skills

What Doesn't?

There is no correlation between IQ and Motivation

see - Gagne and St Pere (2002)

Cognitive abilities were best predictor

of school achievement

(Flaws in this study - it didn't account for individual motivation anyway!)

What's Controversial?

Length of eduction - one study found link between length of eduction and IQ as predictive factor, more than age (Cahen & Cohen, 1989)

Infant Nutrition - link between breastfeeding and IQ

Breast

fed - 3.6 IQ points higher than not breast fed (Oddy

et al, 2004)

Nutrition

Severe

malnutrition

before birth and during early years of life can limit neurological development

and IQ

Toxic Substances: Prenatal

or early postnatal (alcohol, drugs, radiation, lead-based paint dust) affect IQ

(i.e. Neisser et

al., 1996)

School & Education

Western

societies: those who attend school early and regular have

higher IQ’s (5 points higher)

Scheduling

studies before sleep (Kurdziel et

al, 2013) - Makes you retain

information better

Training

of working memory (Rudebeck,

2012) - People

who practiced daily working memory exercises had higher ‘fluid

intelligence’ (not analytic problem solving)

Aptitude vs Achievement Tests

Aptitude: A person's capacity to learn

Achievement: What a person learned (Schools and employers like to administer)

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Views of intelligence

Catell's Fluid

and crystallised intelligence: both increase throughout childhood and

adolescence, fluid declines from age 30 or 40 – crystallise continues to grow specific to experience (see below)

Gardener's Multiple Intelligences: 8 sections (see slide one) interpersonal, mathematical, linguistic, musical, kinesthetic, naturalist, intrapersonal, visual/spacial

Sternberg's Triarchic view: 3 areas - analytic, creative and practical

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Social & Emotional Intelligence

Social intelligence: the know how in comprehending social situations and managing oneself accordingly (Edward Thorndike, 1930s)

Emotional intelligence: ( EQ, Salvey & Mayer, 1990s)

Understand emotions and why they arise

Regulate emotions - calm oneself and others down

Perceive emotions, e.g. through body language

Facilitate thought and guide attention, e.g. perspective taking

If you have a high EQ you are:

Less likely to be aggressive

More likely to be prosocial

Less likley to engage in tobacco / alcohol consumption

More likely to do better academically with English GCSE

Most importantly:

Actual

and perceived friendships are better

EQ in Leadership

Daniel Goleman (expert in EQ and leaderships) says leadership qualities include:

Self awareness

Emotional self management

Empathy (Women stronger)

Social skills

Self confidence (men usually stronger)

States that you find slight differences between men and women, but these tend to level out at the top positions with men improving on empathy and women improving in confidenceIn other words, as people develop they pick up strengths

in areas they need....

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Is Intelligence Innate?

Identical twin's IQ's more similar than fraternal twins

But there can be slight differences between twins raised in different homes suggesting an environmental influence

Children of poor parents who were adopted by middle class parents did better than their identical counterpart raised in poor environment

IQ adopted = 105 and IQ

non-adopted = 90

(Scarr

& Weinberg, 1976)

Criticism: they didn’t

know the IQ of the parents in the adopted group

A longitudinal

study – tested parenting influence on IQ and found a weak,

non-significant association (Beaver et al., 2014)

which lends support for genetic / deterministic view

He did find, specific to verbal intelligence, that certain habits like reading with children often

or having nightly

family dinners result in children who are smarter

than children whose parents do not do those things

Beaver et al. (2012) also:

Identified

genetic

markers associated

with academic

achievement

DAT1, DRD2,

DRD4

(regulate

the action of dopamine in the brain, linked to levels of motivation,

attention and intelligence in

other studies)

Young

people who possessed a particular version of

these three genes were more likely to finish high school and

go on to college

Dochotery et al. (2010) more genetic support:

Children

who carry 10

or more of the “risk” gene variants were twice as likely to perform

poorly in

maths.

Criticism:

influenced by many genes – generating small effects across the entire spectrum

of abilities

Support for the incremental View (Mangels et

al, 2006)

Studied Columbian

UG students - found out whether they had entity or incremental view

They took a computer test where they were allowed to correct errors

Those with an incremental

view paid more attention (measured by ERP- event-related potentials signal in the brain) and were more likely to answer correctly the second time

So

those with incremental view adjust for mistakes, take in more information and

adapt