Intelligence, factor theories, contemporary theories, piaget's theory of development, aptitude, achievement

1. INTELLIGENCE
- DR. UTKARSH MODI

2. Overview
 Introduction
 Factor theories
 Contemporary theories
 Piaget’s theory
 Aptitude
 Achievement

3. Introduction
 Intelligence is hard to define
 Two groups of psychologists
 Factor theories
 Process oriented theories of intelligence

4. Historical aspect
 First attempt to develop tests was made by Sir Francis Galton.
 He believed that some families are superior than others biologically.
 In 1881, French government made school compulsory for children.
Alfred Binet as given the responsibility of creating a test to detect
children who were too slow for regular school.
 Binet assumed that intelligence should be measured by tasks that
required reasoning and problem solving.
 Concept of mental age was critical to his method.

5. Factor theories
 The question for factor theorist is whether intelligence is a
single characteristic or a collection of distinguishable abilities.
 Many use statistical technique of factor analysis.
 It is a way of identifying groups of abilities or behaviors or traits
that are related to each other
 Factor analysis poses certain problems as different methods
can yield different results, hard to judge which factors are
best, and most basic is that it is a psychologist’s interpretation.

7.  Wechsler believed that ‘intelligence is the aggregate or
global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think
rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment’
(Wechsler, 1958)
 Binet also assumed intelligence to be a general capacity for
comprehension and reasoning that manifests itself in various
ways.

8.  G factor theory – By British psychologist Charles
Spearman (1927)
Proposed that a general intelligence factor lay beneath
the surface.
Person who score high on one test score high on others as
well
Each test taps both the general intelligence ‘G’, and the
specific ability ‘S’
Test which yield one score eg IQ, are a reflection of his
views.

9.  Multifactor theories
 In contrast to Spearman, they propose that intelligence has
multiple components.
 Certain cluster of test show higher correlation with each other.
 L. L. Thurstone (1938) devised the Primary Mental Abilities Test.
 He had a set of 56 tests
 Classified into verbal comprehension, word fluency, perceptual speed, memory,
numerical ability, spatial ability, and reasoning.
 J. P. Guilford (1967) gave three dimensional cubical model.
 120 factors of intelligence.
 His concept of intelligence includes divergent thinking as opposed to convergent
thinking.

11.  Hierarchical theories
 Some psychologists proposed to combine both G-factor
theories and multifactorial theories to form a hierarchical
theory.
 Intelligence is pictured as a sort of pyramid.
 G is at the top of the pyramid, underneath it is specific
abilities and at the bottom is highly specific abilities similar
to spearman’s S factors.

13. Contemporary theories
 Until the1960s, research had a factorial approach.
 Due to emergence of cognitive psychology, the
focus shifted to explain intelligence on the basis of
cognitive processes.
 Rather than factors, mental processes that underlie
intelligent behavior were explored.

14.  The information-processing approach asks:
 1. What mental processes are involved in the various
tests of intelligence?
 2. How rapidly and accurately are these processes
carried out?
 3. What types of mental representations of information
do these processes act upon?

15. Gardner’s theory of multiple
intelligences
 Gardner was struck by the variety of adult roles in different
cultures
 He defines an intelligence as the ‘ability to solve problems or
fashion products that are of consequence in a particular
cultural setting or community’ (1993b, p. 15)
 Gardener describes intelligence as a potential which allows
an individual access to forms of thinking appropriate to
specific kinds of content.

17. Anderson’s theory of intelligence
and cognitive development
 Differences in intelligence result from differences in the ‘basic
processing mechanism’ that implements thinking, which in
turn yields knowledge.
 Anderson notes, however, that there are some cognitive
mechanisms that show no individual differences. The
mechanisms that provide universal capacities are ‘modules’.
 According to Anderson, it is the maturation of new modules
that explains the increase of cognitive abilities in the course of
development.

18.  In addition to modules, according to Anderson, intelligence
includes two ‘specific abilities’ - propositional thought
(language mathematical expression) and visual and spatial
functioning.
 He suggests that the tasks associated with these abilities are
carried out by ‘specific processors’
 A high-speed processing mechanism enables a person to
make more effective use of the specific processors to score
higher on tests and accomplish more in the real world.
 Anderson’s theory of intelligence thus suggests two different
‘routes’ to knowledge.

19. Sternberg’s triarchic theory
 Robert Sternberg’s triarchic theory addresses experience and
context as well as basic information-processing mechanisms
 His theory has three parts or subtheories:
 the componential subtheory, which deals with thought processes;
 experiential subtheory, which deals with the effects of experience on
intelligence;
 contextual subtheory, which considers the effects of the individual’s
environment and culture.
 The most highly developed of these subtheories is the componential
subtheory.

20.  The componential theory considers the components of thought.
 It has three components :
 Metacomponents are used to plan, control, monitor, and evaluate
processing during problem solving.
 Performance components carry out problem-solving strategies.
Sternberg (1985) now calls these creative abilities.
 Knowledge-acquisition components encode, combine, and compare
information during the course of problem solving. Sternberg (1985) now
calls these practical abilities
 A series of experiments with analogical problems led Sternberg to
conclude that the critical components were the encoding process
and the comparison process.

21.  The experiential subtheory is needed to account for the role of
experience in intelligent performance.
 An individual’s experience with a task or problem thus falls
somewhere along a continuum that extends from totally novel to
completely automatic
 A person’s exposure to particular concepts depends to a large
extent on the environment. This is where the contextual subtheory
comes in.
 It focuses on three mental processes: adaptation, selection, and
shaping of real-world environments.

22. Ceci’s bioecological theory
 Ceci’s bioecological theory proposes that there are ‘multiple
cognitive potentials’, rather than a single underlying general
intelligence or G.
 These multiple abilities, or intelligences, are biologically based and
place limits on mental processes.
 According to Ceci, everyday or real-world intellectual performance
cannot be explained by IQ alone, instead, it depends on the
interaction between multiple cognitive potentials with a rich, well-
organized knowledge base

23.  Context is essential for demonstration of cognitive abilities. By
context he means, domains of knowledge as well as factors like
personality, motivation and education.
 Contexts can be physical, mental or social.
 ‘The bottom line . . . Is that the ecological niche one occupies,
including individual and historical development, is a far more potent
determinant of one’s professional and economic success than is IQ’
 Longitudinal study of high IQ children by Lewis Terman.

24. Theory Decription
Gardner’s theory Intelligence is an ability to solve problems or create
products that are of value in a particular culture.
Anderson’s theory Intelligence is a basic processing mechanism, along
with specific processors that deal with propositional
thought and visual and spatial functioning.
Sternberg’s triarchic
theory
It consists of three subtheories: the componential theory,
which looks at internal information-processing
mechanisms; the experiential subtheory, which takes
into account the individual’s experience with a task or
situation; and the contextual subtheory, which explores
the relationship between the external environment and
the individual’s intelligence.
Ceci’s bioecological
theory
Intelligence involves multiple cognitive potentials that
are biologically based, but their expression depends on
the knowledge an individual has amassed in a
particular domain.

25. Emotional Intelligence
 Daniel Goldman popularized the term.
 Based on Mayer and Salovey, who suggest that there are 4
components to emotional intelligence.
 Accurate perception and expression
 Ability to access and generate emotions
 Understanding emotions and emotional meanings
 Emotional regulation
 Increasing evidence that emotional intelligence is important for
success and well-being. Eg, psychotherapies, cardiac patients,
managerial training.

26. Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development
 Piaget became interested in the relationship between the child’s
naturally maturing abilities and his or her interactions with the
environment.
 He viewed children as ‘inquiring scientists’
 Construct schemas
 Assimilate
 Accommodate
 Four stages –Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete
operational and Formal operational

27.  Sensorimotor stage (birth–2 years)
 Infants are busy discovering the relationships between their actions
and the consequences of those actions.
 Object permanence - the awareness that an object continues to
exist even when it is not present.
 Not until about 1 year of age will a child consistently look for an
object where it was last seen, regardless of what happened on
previous trials.

28.  The preoperational stage (2–7 years)
 The child does not yet comprehend certain rules or operations.
 An operation is a mental routine for separating, combining, and
otherwise transforming information in a logical manner.
 Conservation - the understanding that the amount of a substance
remains the same even when its form is changed.
 Piaget believed that preoperational thinking is dominated by visual
impressions.
 Egocentrism – The child believes that everyone else perceives the
environment the same way they do.

29.  Operational stages
 Concrete operational (7-11 years)
 Formal operational (11 years and up)
 Concrete operational stage: Although children are using abstract
terms, they are doing so only in relation to concrete objects –
objects to which they have direct sensory access.
 At about the age of 11 or 12, children arrive at adult modes of
thinking. In the formal operational stage, the person is able to
reason in purely symbolic terms.
 Considering all the possibilities – working out the consequences for
each hypothesis and confirming or denying these consequences – is
the essence of formal operational thought.

30.  Critique of piaget’s theory
 Piaget underestimated the abilities of infants and preschool
children.
 Object permanence
 Other experiments using Piaget’s conservation tasks have also
yielded evidence that children’s mental capacities develop
earlier than he thought
 Other research has identified more factors that can influence
the development of concrete operational thought

31. Aptitude
 An aptitude is a component of a competency to do a certain kind
of work at a certain level, which can also be considered "talent“. It
is an innate inborn ability or capacity to learn to do a certain kind of
work
 The innate nature of aptitude is in contrast to achievement, which
represents knowledge or ability that is gained through learning.
 Scholastic aptitude – To predict success in academic training. SAT
(scholastic aptitude test), GRE (Graduate Record Examination) are
few examples of tests.
 There are also non cognitive abilities like physical and perceptual
skills.

32.  General Learning Ability
 Verbal Aptitude
 Numerical Aptitude
 Form Perception
 Clerical checking, also called graphoria
 Inductive reasoning aptitude, also called differentiation or inductive learning ability
 Finger dexterity aptitude
 Number series aptitude
 Ideaphoria also called, creative imagination
 Creativity, also called remote association
 Language learning aptitude
 Mechanical comprehension
 Spatial reasoning, also called spacial visualization, space visualization or structural
visualization
 Symbolic reasoning aptitude, also called analytical reasoning
 Visual memory
 Visual pursuit, also called line tracing

33. Achievement
 An achievement test is a test of developed skill or knowledge.
 The most common type of achievement test is a standardized test
developed to measure skills and knowledge learned in a given
grade level, usually through planned instruction, such as training or
classroom instruction.

34. THANK YOU