Unit 11 – Intelligence and Personality Part I – Testing and Individual Differences

What is intelligence? Intelligence – mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations INTELLIGENCE IS WHAT INTELLIGENCE TESTS MEASURE Traditionally referred to as “school smarts” and not “street smarts” IQ test – Stanford Binet

You’re saying it wrong… It’s not that you have an IQ of 120, it’s that you scored 120 on an assessment related to your intelligence as it compares to others who have taken that same assessment (re: bias) Intelligence test – a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others using numerical scores Aptitude – capacity to learn Aptitude tests – tests designed to predict a person’s future performance Achievement – what you have learned Achievement tests – tests designed to assess what a person has learned

Aptitude or achievement? SAT AP Exam Driving license exam – road test Driving license exam – sign test Not so clear cut as it seems – Your achieved vocabulary influences your score on most aptitude tests (SAT prep work?) Remember – achievement = current performance, aptitude = future performance

Is intelligence ONE general ability or SEVERAL specific abilities? (summaries) Charles Spearman believed we had one general intelligence Spearman’s g – underlies all mental abilities and can be measured by every task on an intelligence test Discovered g using a factor analysis – a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items L.L. Thurstone broke down intelligence into 7 factors, not 1 Word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory

Strengths and Criticisms of Spearman Strengths Different abilities do have tendency to correlate (i.e. verbal and spatial) Criticisms Humans are too diverse! Humans are used to evolutionarily familiar situations

Strengths and Criticisms of Thurstone Strength A single g does not inform the 7 primary mental abilities Criticisms Those 7 abilities show a tendency to cluster, which may suggest g

What about intelligence beyond academic smarts? Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences How is it that brain damage may destroy one level of ability but leave another in tact? What about savant syndrome? Remember Rainman… Savants test low on intelligence tests, but have areas of extreme talent (such as computation or drawing)

Sternberg’s Triarchic (Three Intelligences

Social and Emotional Intelligences Social intelligence – the know-how involved in comprehending social situations and managing oneself successfully Why is it that some people are better at calculus, but others are better at maintaining relationships? Emotional Intelligences – ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions Perceive – recognize emotions in faces, music, and stories Understand – predict emotions, how emotions change and blend Manage – know how to express emotions in varied situations Use – emotions to enable adaptive or creative thinking