intelligence

• Intelligence


  What psychologists mean by intelligence
• Many people have different definitions of intelligence
• Spearman's 'g' factor


  The underlying mental ability that accounts for around 50% of the variance across mental tasks
• Spearman's 's' factors


  Specific skills and abilities in particular limited areas e.g. logic, maths, vocabulary
• Fluid intelligence


  The ability to reason in abstract ways and solve problems logically without experience
• Crystallised intelligence


  The ability to acquire knowledge through learning and experience
• Gardner's multiple intelligences


  • Verbal-linguistic
  • Logical-mathematical
  • Bodily-kinaesthetic
  • Musical
  • Visual-spatial
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal
  • Naturalistic
• The variety of definitions of intelligence suggests the validity of research into intelligence is questionable
• Sex differences in intelligence


  Women obtain higher scores in verbal fluency and foreign language, men perform better in mental rotation and scientific reasoning
• Brain structure differences


  Men have more grey matter in frontal and parietal lobes, women have more in frontal lobe and Broca's area
• Despite brain structure differences, men and women achieve similar IQ results
• Biological relatives


  Have a stronger correlation in intellectual abilities than adopted relatives
• MZ twins


  Have a higher IQ concordance rate (+0.86) than DZ twins (+0.60)
• MZ twins raised apart


  Have a higher IQ concordance rate (+0.72) than DZ twins raised together (+0.60)
• Concordance rates are essentially correlations, which is a problem for studying genetic influence on intelligence
• Assortative mating


  Individuals with similar traits mate with one another more frequently
• Phenotypic assortment


  Assortative mating occurs because individuals choose one another based on similar characteristics
• Social homogamy


  Assortative mating occurs because people with similar characteristics are clustered in the same environment
• No significant sex differences in intelligence found in the Van Leeuwen study
• Phenotypic assortment


  The idea that assortative mating occurs because individuals choose one another as they have similar intelligence levels
• Social homogamy


  The idea that because people with similar intelligence are clustered together in the same environment they are more likely to end up having children together
• Raven's Progressive Matrices is one of the most popular non-verbal tests of intelligence in current use
• Raven's Progressive Matrices


  Measures 'deductive reasoning' which is the ability to work out an answer based on only the information one has been given
• The RPM measured what is known as 'General Intelligence' or 'Fluid intelligence'
• The RPM comes in 3 different versions designed for different age levels and levels of intelligence
• Scoring on the RPM takes into account the difficulty of each question rather than just a general score out of the maximum available
• The test-retest reliability for children is reported as +0.88, and for adults +0.91
• Intelligence


  The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills
• An IQ test always aims to give a quantitative value to a set of skills, which can be based on cognitive skills, such as reasoning, or verbal skills
• There are lots of different ways of defining 'intelligence', and therefore different ways of measuring it
• General intelligence ('g' factor)


  The underlying mental ability that allows people to perform well across a range of cognitive tests
• Specific intelligence ('s' factors)


  Specific skills and abilities, e.g. logic, maths, vocabulary
• Fluid intelligence


  The ability to reason in abstract ways and solve problems logically without experience
• Crystallised intelligence


  The ability to acquire knowledge through learning and experience
• Types of intelligence


  • Verbal-linguistic
  • Logical-mathematical
  • Bodily-kinaesthetic
  • Musical
  • Visual-spatial
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal
  • Naturalistic
• Intelligence is a theoretical construct – it is not tangible and therefore cannot be measured wholly objectively
• Psychologists cannot necessarily agree on what intelligence is, so research into this area lacks construct validity
• There are no overall sex differences in levels of intelligence, but men and women display different types of intelligence
• Mental rotation task


  Visualise and manipulate 3D shapes
• More grey matter


  High level reasoning and motor skills