INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT

• Binet, cited by Terman, 1916: '“The tendency to take and maintain definite direction; The capacity to make adaptations for the purpose of maintaining a desired end, and the power of autocriticism”'
• Autocriticism


  Criticism of oneself: searching self-examination
• Spearman, 1923: '“Intelligence is the ability to educe either relations or correlates. What makes a good measure of intelligence is the education of correlates and relations.”'
• Educe


  Inter (something) from data; bring out or develop (something latent or potential)
• Abstract Thinking


  Ability to appreciate different meanings; multidimensional thinking with ability to use metaphors and hypothesis appropriately
• Freeman, 1955: '“Intelligence is adjustment or adaptation of the individual to his total environment; The ability to learn; The ability to carry on abstract thinking”'
• Das, 1973: '“Intelligence is the ability to plan and structure one’s behavior with an end in view”'
• Sternberg, 1981: '“Intelligence is best assessed by tasks that cannot be solved in a habitual manner. Intelligence is the ability to solve novel intellectual problems.”'
• Gardner, 1983: '“Intelligence is the ability to resolve genuine problems or difficulties as they are encountered.”'
• Sternberg, 1986, 1988: '“… Mental abilities involved in purposive adaptation to shaping of, & selection of real-world environments relevant to one’s life.”'
• Anderson, 2001: '“Intelligence is two-dimensional: Based on individual differences in (1) information-processing speed and (2) executive functioning i.e., inhibitory processes.”'
• Weschler: '“Intelligence, as a hypothetical construct, is the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment”'
• “Intelligence may be conceived of as a kind of evolving biological adaptation to the outside world. Psychological structures are recognized as a consequence of interaction with the environment.”'
• Predicts school grades relatively well does not predict success in life.
• Intelligence gets you in the door, predicts 6% of job success.
• Intelligence is static: Peaks in late teens.
• Racial Controversies: Culture-Bound, Gender Bias, SES.
• Galton was the first to make a systematic, scientific attempt to understand & measure intelligence.
• Galton's essential idea was that stable, biological differences in intelligence exist between people.
• Galton believed that intelligence is a low-level property of our nervous system inherited from our parents.
• Galton's concept of individual differences in intelligence equated to differences in the efficiency of operation of simple neural processes.
• Galton's book "Hereditary Genius" (1869) presents family trees of individuals of reputation.
• Galton's concept of Normal Distribution states that for any of our ‘natural gifts’ there will be an ‘average’ amount of that feature, to which most people approximate.
• Galton's Normal Distribution concept explains that higher or lower than the ‘average score’ results in fewer people registering those scores.
• Galton introduced the idea of ‘co-relation’ in 1888
• Correlation


  A measure of the extent to which two variables are related
• +1 would reflect a perfect positive relationship
• -1 would reveal a perfect negative relation
• Abilities


  • In relation to each other
  • And in relation to the abilities of others in the population
• Correlation


  How well we can use scores on one variable to predict score on another
• Early attempts to measure intelligence


  • Anthropometric Laboratory (London, late 19th century)
  • Physical attributes (head circumference, height, and hand size)
  • Intellectual characteristics
  • Intellectual measures basic sensory-motor tasks
  • Speed of reaction to sounds and visual stimuli
• Charles Spearman (1904): 'Estimated the intelligence of 24 children in his village school'
• Charles Spearman found relationships between performance in a number of domains and measures of the ability to discriminate light, weight, and pitch
• Charles Spearman found relationships between scores on examinations in different subject areas such as classics and math
• With strands of evidence, Spearman concluded that there is a 'general' intelligence underlying performance on these very different tasks
• General intelligence (g)


  A unitary, biological, and inherited determinant of measurable intellectual differences
• General intelligence (g) likened to mental energy


  A limited resource available to all intellectual tasks. Individuals differ in general intelligence because they have different amounts of this mental energy
• Alfred Binet (1857 – 1911) was a French lawyer and self-trained psychologist
• Alfred Binet's interest in intelligence was prompted by the observation of his two daughters, noting that as age increases, their abstract ways in reasoning also increase
• Alfred Binet observed his daughters' performance on various puzzles and asked them to explain how they had solved them