ch.11

• intelligence - the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations
• general intelligence (g) - according to Spearman and others, underlies all mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test
• Charles Spearman - created the g factor vs s factor theory
• factor analysis - a statistical procedure that identifies clusters or related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score
• L. L. Thurstone - created the 7 primary mental abilities theory of intelligence
• Howard Gardner - identified 8 relatively independent intelligences

  (multiple intelligences), including the verbal and mathematical aptitudes assessed by standardized tests
• savant syndrome - a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing
• Robert Sternberg - proposed the triarchic theory of intelligence
• Sternberg's 3 intelligences

  • analytical
  • creative
  • practical
• Sternberg's analytical intelligence - assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer; predicts school grades reasonably well and vocational success more modestly
• Sternberg's creative intelligence - demonstrated in innovative smarts; the ability to adapt to new situations and generate novel ideas
• Sternberg's practical intelligence - required for everyday tasks that may be poorly defined and may have multiple solutions
• grit - the passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals
• emotional intelligence - the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions
• emotional intelligence components

  • perceiving - recognize them in faces, music, and stories and identifying one's own emotions
  • understanding - predicts them and how they may change and blend
  • managing - know how to express them in varied situations and how to manage others' emotions
  • using - to facilitate adaptive or creative thinking
• Spearman's general intelligence theory - basic intelligence predicts our abilities in varied academic areas
• intelligence test - a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores
• achievement test - a test designed to assess what a person has learned
• aptitude test - a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn
• Daniel Goleman - formed the emotional intelligence theory
• Francis Galton - believed intelligence comes from good genes and suggested that smart families should breed and believed in eugenics
• Alfred Binet - assumed low scoring kids could make gains with more remedial help and attention; created Binet's Mental Ability Test
• mental age - a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age - thus, a child who does as well as an average 8 year old is said to have a mental age of 8
• Binet's Mental Ability Test - tested French school children to determine their strengths and weaknesses and provided mental age scores
• Lewis Terman - supported eugenics and encouraged low scoring groups to become sterilized; created the Stanford-Binet Test
• Stanford-Binet test - revised Binet's test; first to adopt IQ score; only included verbal sections and were biased against non-English speakers; tested immigrants and WWI recruits
• intelligence quotient (IQ) - defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100; on contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100
• David Wechsler - believed in a broad view of intelligence and created the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) - for children, they are the most widely used intelligence tests; they contain verbal and performance subtests; allowed non-English speakers to demonstrate their intelligence on the performance sections
• standardization - defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group
• normal curve - the bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes; most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes
• Flynn effect - worldwide phenomenon that indicates the average person's IQ is rising
• reliability - the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test or on retesting
• split half - reliability test that divides the test into two halves and compare the results; like odd vs even
• test - retest - reliability test where a group of people take the same test twice and the results shouldn't change much between testings
• interscorer - reliability test that reveals whether the test yields the same results when scored at different times by different people
• validity - the extent to which a test measures or predicts what is is supposed to do
• content validity - the extent to which a test samples the behaviour that is of interest
• criterion - behaviour that a test is designed to predict; the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity
• predictive validity - the success with which a test predicts the behaviour it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behaviour; also called criterion-related validity