The document discusses definitions and theories of intelligence. It defines intelligence as the ability to learn, reason, problem solve, and adapt. It summarizes theories including Spearman's general intelligence (g) factor theory, Thurstone's primary mental abilities theory, Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Sternberg's triarchic theory of practical, creative and analytical intelligence, and theories of fluid and crystallized intelligence. The document also provides a brief history of intelligence testing beginning with Galton and the development of tests such as the Binet-Simon scale and the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.

1. INTELLIGENCE AND ITS MEASURMENT
How many uses of these pins can you think of ?

2. What Is Intelligence?
 It might seem useless to define such a simple word. After all, we have all heard this word
hundreds of times and probably have a general understanding of its meaning. However, the
concept of intelligence has been a widely debated topic among members of the psychology
community for decades.
 Intelligence has been defined in many ways: higher level abilities (such as abstract
reasoning, mental representation, problem solving, and decision making), the ability to
learn, emotional knowledge, creativity, and adaptation to meet the demands of the
environment effectively.
 Psychologist Robert Sternberg defined intelligence as "the mental abilities necessary for
adaptation to, as well as shaping and selection of, any environmental context
 It can be defined as the ability to act purposefully, think rationally and deal globally with
environment.

3. A Brief History of Intelligence
 The study of human intelligence dates back to the late 1800s when Sir Francis Galton (the
cousin of Charles Darwin) became one of the first people to study intelligence.
 Galton was interested in the concept of a gifted individual, so he created a lab to measure
reaction times and other physical characteristics to test his hypothesis that intelligence is a
general mental ability that is a produce of biological evolution (hello, Darwin!).
 Galton theorized that because quickness and other physical attributes were evolutionarily
advantageous, they would also provide a good indication of general mental ability (Jensen,
1982). Thus, Galton operationalized intelligence as reaction time.
 Operationalization is an important process in research that involves defining an unmeasurable
phenomenon (such as intelligence) in measurable terms (such as reaction time), allowing the
concept to be studied empirically (Crowthre-Heyck, 2005).
 Galton’s study of intelligence in the laboratory setting and his theorization of the heritability
of intelligence paved the way for decades of future research and debate in this field.

4. Theories of Intelligence
 Some researchers argue that intelligence is a general ability, whereas others
make the assertion that intelligence comprises specific skills and talents.
Psychologists contend that intelligence is genetic, or inherited, and others
claim that it is largely influenced by the surrounding environment.
 As a result, psychologists have developed several contrasting theories of
intelligence as well as individual tests that attempt to measure this very
concept.

5. Spearman’s General Intelligence (g)
 General intelligence, also known as g factor, refers to a general mental ability that, according to Spearman,
underlies multiple specific skills, including verbal, spatial, numerical and mechanical.
 Charles Spearman, an English psychologist, established the two-factor theory of intelligence back in 1904
(Spearman, 1904). To arrive at this theory, Spearman used a technique known as factor analysis.
 Factor analysis is a procedure through which the correlation of related variables are evaluated to find an
underlying factor that explains this correlation.
 In the case of intelligence, Spearman noticed that those who did well in one area of intelligence tests (for
example, mathematics), also did well in other areas (such as distinguishing pitch; Kalat, 2014).
 In other words, there was a strong correlation between performing well in math and music, and Spearman
then attributed this relationship to a central factor, that of general intelligence (g).
 Spearman concluded that there is a single g-factor which represents an individual’s general intelligence
across multiple abilities, and that a second factor, s, refers to an individual’s specific ability in one particular
area (Spearman, as cited in Thomson, 1947).

6. Together, these two main factors compose Spearman’s two-factor theory.

7. Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities
 Thurstone (1938) challenged the concept of a g-factor. After analyzing data
from 56 different tests of mental abilities, he identified a number of
primary mental abilities that comprise intelligence, as opposed to one
general factor.
 The seven primary mental abilities in Thurstone's model are verbal
comprehension, verbal fluency, number facility, spatial visualization,
perceptual speed, memory, and inductive reasoning (Thurstone, as cited in
Sternberg, 2003).

8. Mental Abililty Description
Word Fluency Ability to use words quickly and fluency in performing such
tasks as rhyming, solving anagrams, and doing crossword
puzzles.
Verbal
Comprehension
Ability to understand the meaning of words, concepts, and
ideas.
Numerical Ability Ability to use numbers to quickly computer answers to
problems.
Spatial
Visualization
Ability to visualize and manipulate patters and forms in space.
Perceptual Speed Ability to grasp perceptual details quickly and accurately and to
determine similarities and differences between stimuli.
Memory Ability to recall information such as lists or words,
mathematical formulas, and definitions.
Inductive
Reasoning
Ability to derive general rules and principles from presented
information.

9.  Although Thurstone did not reject Spearman’s idea of general
intelligence altogether, he instead theorized that intelligence consists
of both general ability and a number of specific abilities, paving the
way for future research that examined the different forms of
intelligence.

10. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
 Following the work of Thurstone, American psychologist Howard Gardner
built off the idea that there are multiple forms of intelligence.
 He proposed that there is no single intelligence, but rather distinct,
independent multiple intelligences exist, each representing unique skills
and talents relevant to a certain category.
 Gardner (1983, 1987) initially proposed seven multiple intelligences:
linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal, and he has since added naturalist
intelligence.

11.  Gardner holds that most activities (such as dancing) will involve a
combination of these multiple intelligences (such as spatial and
bodily-kinesthetic intelligences). He also suggests that these
multiple intelligences can help us understand concepts beyond
intelligence, such as creativity and leadership.
 And although this theory has widely captured the attention of the
psychology community and greater public, it does have its faults.
 There have been few empirical studies that actually test this theory,
and this theory does not account for other types of intelligence
beyond the ones Gardner lists (Sternberg, 2003).

13. Intelligence Type Characteristics
Linguistic intelligence
Perceives different functions of language, different sounds and meanings of
words, may easily learn multiple languages
Logical-mathematical
intelligence
Capable of seeing numerical patterns, strong ability to use reason and logic
Musical intelligence
Understands and appreciates rhythm, pitch, and tone; may play multiple
instruments or perform as a vocalist
Bodily kinesthetic
intelligence
High ability to control the movements of the body and use the body to perfor
various physical tasks
Spatial intelligence Ability to perceive the relationship between objects and how they move in sp
Interpersonal intelligence Ability to understand and be sensitive to the various emotional states of othe
Intrapersonal intelligence
Ability to access personal feelings and motivations, and use them to direct
behavior and reach personal goals
Naturalist intelligence
High capacity to appreciate the natural world and interact with the species wi
it
Multiple Intelligences

14. Is Intelligence Nature or Nurture?
 Intelligence has both genetic and environmental causes, and these have been systematically studied through
a large number of twin and adoption studies (Neisser et al., 1996; Plomin, DeFries, Craig, & McGuffin,
2003). These studies have found that between 40% and 80% of the variability in IQ is due to genetics,
meaning that overall genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among
individuals (Plomin & Spinath, 2004). The IQs of identical twins correlate very highly (r = .86), much
higher than do the scores of fraternal twins who are less genetically similar (r = .60). And the correlations
between the IQs of parents and their biological children (r = .42) is significantly greater than the correlation
between parents and adopted children (r = .19). The role of genetics gets stronger as children get older. The
intelligence of very young children (less than 3 years old) does not predict adult intelligence, but by age 7 it
does, and IQ scores remain very stable in adulthood (Deary, Whiteman, Starr, Whalley, & Fox, 2004).
 But there is also evidence for the role of nurture, indicating that individuals are not born with fixed,
unchangeable levels of intelligence. Twins raised together in the same home have more similar IQs than do
twins who are raised in different homes, and fraternal twins have more similar IQs than do nontwin siblings,
which is likely due to the fact that they are treated more similarly than are siblings.

15. Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
 Just two years later, in 1985, Robert Sternberg proposed a three-
category theory of intelligence, integrating components that were
lacking in Gardner’s theory. This theory is based on the definition of
intelligence as the ability to achieve success based on your personal
standards and your sociocultural context.
 According to the triarchic theory, intelligence has three aspects:
analytical, creative, and practical (Sternberg, 1985).

16. Sternberg’s theory identifies three types of intelligence: practical, creative,
and analytical.
 Practical intelligence, as proposed by Sternberg, is sometimes compared
to “street smarts.” Being practical means you find solutions that work in
your everyday life by applying knowledge based on your experiences.
This type of intelligence appears to be separate from traditional
understanding of IQ; individuals who score high in practical intelligence
may or may not have comparable scores in creative and analytical
intelligence (Sternberg, 1988).

17.  This story about the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings illustrates both high and low
practical intelligences. During the incident, one student left her class to go get a soda
in an adjacent building. She planned to return to class, but when she returned to her
building after getting her soda, she saw that the door she used to leave was now
chained shut from the inside. Instead of thinking about why there was a chain around
the door handles, she went to her class’s window and crawled back into the room. She
thus potentially exposed herself to the gunman. Thankfully, she was not shot. On the
other hand, a pair of students was walking on campus when they heard gunshots
nearby. One friend said, “Let’s go check it out and see what is going on.” The other
student said, “No way, we need to run away from the gunshots.” They did just that. As
a result, both avoided harm. The student who crawled through the window
demonstrated some creative intelligence but did not use common sense. She would
have low practical intelligence. The student who encouraged his friend to run away
from the sound of gunshots would have much higher practical intelligence.

18.  Analytical intelligence is closely aligned with academic problem solving and
computations. Sternberg says that analytical intelligence is demonstrated by an
ability to analyze, evaluate, judge, compare, and contrast. When reading a classic
novel for literature class, for example, it is usually necessary to compare the
motives of the main characters of the book or analyze the historical context of the
story.
 In a science course such as anatomy, you must study the processes by which the
body uses various minerals in different human systems. In developing an
understanding of this topic, you are using analytical intelligence. When solving a
challenging math problem, you would apply analytical intelligence to analyze
different aspects of the problem and then solve it section by section.

19. Creative intelligence is marked by inventing or imagining a
solution to a problem or situation. Creativity in this realm can
include finding a novel solution to an unexpected problem or
producing a beautiful work of art or a well-developed short
story. Imagine for a moment that you are camping in the woods
with some friends and realize that you’ve forgotten your camp
coffee pot. The person in your group who figures out a way to
successfully brew coffee for everyone would be credited as
having higher creative intelligence.

21. Emotional Intelligence
 Emotional Intelligence is the “ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s
emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately,
and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour” (Salovey and
Mayer, 1990).
 Emotional intelligence is important in our everyday lives, seeing as we experience one
emotion or another nearly every second of our lives. You may not associate emotions
and intelligence with one another, but in reality, they are very related.
 Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to recognize the meanings of emotions and
to reason and problem-solve on the basis of them (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999).
The four key components of emotional Intelligence are (i) self-awareness, (ii) self-
management, (iii) social awareness, and (iv) relationship management.

22. In other words, if you are high in emotional intelligence,
you can accurately perceive emotions in yourself and
others (such as reading facial expressions), use emotions
to help facilitate thinking, understand the meaning behind
your emotions (why are you feeling this way?), and know
how to manage your emotions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).

24. Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence
The Cattell-Horn (1966) theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence suggests that intelligence
is composed of a number of different abilities that interact and work together to produce overall
individual intelligence
 For example, if you are taking a hard math test, you rely on your crystallized intelligence to
process the numbers and meaning of the questions, but you may use fluid intelligence to
work through the novel problem and arrive at the correct solution. It is also possible that
fluid intelligence can become crystallized intelligence.
 The novel solutions you create when relying on fluid intelligence can, over time, develop
into crystallized intelligence after they are incorporated into long-term memory.
 This illustrates some of the ways in which different forms of intelligence overlap and
interact with one another, revealing its dynamic nature.

25.  Raymond Cattell (1963) first proposed the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence
and further developed the theory with John Horn.
 Fluid intelligence is the ability to problem solve in novel situations without referencing
prior knowledge, but rather through the use of logic and abstract thinking. Fluid
intelligence can be applied to any novel problem because no specific prior knowledge is
required (Cattell, 1963). As you grow older fluid increases and then starts to decrease in the
late 20s.
 Crystallized intelligence refers to the use of previously-acquired knowledge, such as
specific facts learned in school or specific motor skills or muscle memory (Cattell, 1963).
As you grow older and accumulate knowledge, crystallized intelligence increases.

27. Intelligence Testing/Assessment
Binet-Simon Scale
 During the early 1900s, the French government enlisted the help of
psychologist Alfred Binet to understand which children were going to be
slower learners and thus require more assistance in the classroom (Binet et
al., 1912).
 As a result, he and his colleague, Theodore Simon, began to develop a
specific set of questions that focused on areas such as memory and
problem-solving skills.

28.  They tested these questions on groups of students aged three to twelve to help
standardize the measure (Binet et al., 1912). Binet realized that some children
were able to answer advanced questions that their older peers were able to answer.
 As a result, he created the concept of a mental age, or how well an individual
performs intellectually relative to the average performance at that age (Cherry,
2020).
 Ultimately, Binet finalized the scale, known as the Binet-Simon scale, that became
the basis for the intelligence tests still used today.
 The Binet-Simon scale of 1905 comprised 30 items designed to measure
judgment, comprehension, and reasoning which Binet deemed the key
characteristics of intelligence. Example;

30. Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
 When the Binet-Simon scale made its way over to the United States,
Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman adapted the test for American students,
and published the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale in 1916 (Cherry, 2020).
 The Stanford-Binet Scale is a contemporary assessment which measures
intelligence according to five features of cognitive ability, including fluid
reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and
working memory. Both verbal and nonverbal responses are measured.

31.  This test used a single number, referred to as the intelligence quotient (IQ) to
indicate an individual’s score.
 The average score for the test is 100, and any score from 90 to 109 is
considered to be in the average intelligence range. Score from 110 to 119 are
considered to be High Average. Superior scores range from 120 to 129 and
anything over 130 is considered Very Superior.
 To calculate IQ, the student’s mental age is divided by his or her actual (or
chronological) age, and this result is multiplied by 100. If your mental age is
equal to your chronological age, you will have an IQ of 100, or average. If,
however, your mental age is, say, 12, but your chronological age is only 10,
you will have an above-average IQ of 120.

33. WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) and WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale )
 Just as theories of intelligence build off one another, intelligence tests do too. After Terman created
Stanford-Binet test, American psychologist David Wechsler developed a new tool due to his
dissatisfaction with the limitations of the Stanford-Binet test (Cherry, 2020).
 Just like Thurstone, Gardner, and Sternberg, Wechsler believed that intelligence involved many
different mental abilities and felt that the Stanford-Binet scale too closely reflected the idea of one
general intelligence.
 Because of this, Wechsler created the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and the
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in 1955, with the most up-to-date version being the
WAIS-IV (Cherry, 2020).
 The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), developed by David Wechsler, is an IQ test
designed to measure intelligence and cognitive ability in children between the ages of 6 and 16. It
is currently in its fourth edition (WISC-V) released in 2014 by Pearson.

34. WISC-IV Sample Test Question

35.  The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), is an IQ test designed to measure
cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents, including verbal comprehension,
perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
 The latest version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) was
standardized on 2,200 healthy people between the ages of 16 and 90 years (Brooks
et al., 2011).
 The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of people at
different ages in order to compute the average score on the test at each age level
 The overall IQ score combines the test takers’ performance in all four categories
(Cherry, 2020). And rather than calculating this number based on mental and
chronological age, the WAIS compares the individual’s score to the average score at
that level, as calculated by the standardization process.

36. Aptitude vs. Achievement Tests
 Other tests, such as aptitude and achievement tests, are designed to
measure intellectual capability. Achievement tests measure what
content a student has already learned (such as a unit test in history or
a final math exam), whereas an aptitude test measures a student’s
potential or ability to learn (Anastasi, 1984).
 Although this may sound similar to an IQ test, aptitude tests
typically measure abilities in very specific areas.

37. Social and Environmental Factors
 Another important part of the puzzle to consider is the social and environmental context in which an
individual lives and the IQ test-related biases that develop as a result.
 These might help explain why some individuals have lower scores than others. For example, the threat of
social exclusion can greatly decrease the expression of intelligence.
 A 2002 study gave participants an IQ test and a personality inventory, and some were randomly chosen to
receive feedback from the inventory indicating that they were “the sort of people who would end up alone
in life” (Baumeister et al., 2002).
 After a second test, those who were told they would be loveless and friendless in the future answered
significantly fewer questions than they did on the earlier test.
 And these findings can translate into the real world where not only the threat of social exclusion can
decrease the expression of intelligence but also a perceived threat to physical safety.
 In other words, a child’s poor academic performance can be attributed to the disadvantaged, potentially
unsafe, communities in which they grow up.

38. Criticism of Intelligence Testing
 Criticisms have ranged from the claim that IQ tests are biased in favor of white, middle-class people.
Negative stereotypes about a person’s ethnicity, gender, or age may cause the person to suffer stereotype
threat, a burden of doubt about his or her own abilities, which can create anxiety that result in lower scores.
 Cultural Specificity; There are issues with intelligence tests beyond looking at them in a vacuum. These
tests were created by western psychologists who created such tools to measure euro-centric values.
 But it is important to recognize that the majority of the world’s population does not reside in Europe or
North America, and as a result, the cultural specificity of these tests is crucial.
 Different cultures hold different values and even have different perceptions of intelligence, so is it fair to
have one universal marker of this increasingly complex concept?
 For example, a 1992 study found that Kenyan parents defined intelligence as the ability to do without being
told what needed to be done around the homestead (Harkness et al., 1992), and, given the American and
European emphasis on speed, some Ugandans define intelligent people as being slow in thought and action
(Wober, 1974

39.  Stereotype threat is a phenomenon in which people feel at risk of conforming to
stereotypes about their social group. Negative stereotypes can also create anxiety
that result in lower scores.
 In one study, Black and White college students were given part of the verbal section
from the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), but in the stereotype threat condition, they
told students the test diagnosed intellectual ability, thus potentially making the
stereotype that Blacks are less intelligent than Whites salient.
 The results of this study revealed that in the stereotype threat condition, Blacks
performed worse than Whites, but in the no stereotype threat condition, Blacks and
Whites performed equally well (Steele & Aronson, 1995).
 And even just recording your race can also result in worsened performance.
Stereotype threat is a real threat and can be detrimental to an individual’s
performance on these tests.

40. Requirements for a good test
 Standardization; The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of people at different ages in
order to compute the average score on the test at each age level and interpret the scores It is important to regularly
standardize an intelligence test because the overall level of intelligence in a population may change over time this
phenomenon is known as the Flynn effect which refers to the observation that scores on intelligence tests
worldwide increase from decade to decade (Flynn, 1984).
 Reliability; Reliability simply means that test scores are consistent over time. In other words, if you take a test at
two different points in time, there will be very little change in performance or, in the case of intelligence tests, IQ
score.
 Construct Validity; intelligence tests also reveal strong construct validity, meaning that they are, in fact,
measuring intelligence rather than something else.
 Validity; this refers to how well a test measures what it is intended to measure it has the following;
i. Content validity; attest has a high content validity if the items represent the information the test is meant to
measure.
ii. Construct validity; this is the correspondence of the task measurement to a theoretical construct.
iii. Predictive validity; this is the ability of a tests score to predict real world performance.

42.  Nature; How much does our intelligence depend on our genes? For more than a century, researchers have
been studying how much our genetic legacy influences our intelligence. After all that time, they've
determined that our genes do influence intelligence and IQ. (40-80%)
 our brain structure and functionality -- both biological factors -- contribute to our level of intelligence.
Using brain imaging, neuroscientists have identified differences in brain structure, specifically differences in
our parieto-frontal pathways that seem to affect our intelligence positively (or negatively, depending on the
brain). Well- functioning pathways correlate to better brain functioning, brain efficiency and information
processing, which all point to better IQ scores.
 Early Nutrition; As it turns out, you really are what you eat. And what your mum ate during her pregnancy.
Prenatal and early nutrition are linked to brain structure, behavior and, yes, intelligence. The greater nutrition
in the foods we eat, especially for males in the weeks just after birth, the greater the size of the caudate --
that's the part of our brain that specializes in learning and memory -- and the greater our verbal IQ scores.
And the effects also seem to apply to babies whose prenatal diets were rich in long-chain polyunsaturated
fatty acids, such as DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). When pregnant and lactating women have diets rich in
these fatty acids, their offspring are more likely to score higher on intelligence and achievement tests at ages
4 and 7.

43.  Nature versus nurture affects; human intelligence is a long-studied and
long- debated topic. The term "nature" refers to how genetics and
heritability influence our intelligence, and "nurture" describes how certain
environmental factors affect our intelligence. These factors include
everything from our family's parenting style and home environment to how
we're educated and the experiences we have throughout our lives.