psychology unit 11 test

what is an intellectual disability?

1. Mentally retarded individuals required constant supervision a few decades ago, but with a supportive family environment and special education they can now care for themselves a) People with a lower than 70 IQ. The skills are up to a 6th grade level and can be varying levels 2. At one extreme of the normal curve are those with unusually low intelligence test scores a) To be labeled as having an INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY (formerly referred to as mental retardation) a person must have both a low test score and difficulty adapting to the normal demands of independent living b) Intellectual disability: a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life. (formerly referred to as mental retardation) 3. America association on intellectual and developmental disabilities guidelines specify performance that is approximately two standard deviations below average a) For an intelligence test with 100 as average and a standard division of 15, that means (allowing for some variation in one's test score) an IQ of approximately 70 or below b) The second criterion is a comparable limitation in adaptive behavior as expressed in: A) CONCEPTUAL SKILLS, such as language, literacy, and concepts of money, time, and number B) SOCIAL SKILLS, such as interpersonal skills, social responsibility, and the ability to follow basic rules and laws and avoid being victimized C) PRACTICAL SKILLS, such as daily personal care, occupational skill, and travel and health care 14. Intellectual disability is a developmental condition that is apparent before age 18, some times with a known physical cause a) Down syndrome: a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosomes 21 b) Consider one reason why people diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability-those just below the 70 score-might be better able to live independently today than many decades ago, when they were institutionalized c) Recall that, thanks to the Flynn effect, the tests have been periodically restandardized d) As that happened, individuals who scored near 70 on earlier tests suddenly lost about 6 IQ points e) Two people with the same ability level could thus be classified differently, depending on when they were tested f) As the boundary shifts, more people become eligible for special education and for Social Security payments for those with an intellectual disability g) And in the United States (one of only a few industrialized countries with the death penalty), fewer people are eligible for execution-the US Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the execution of people with an intellectual disability is cruel and unusual punishment h) For people near that score of 70, intelligence testing can be a high stakes competition i) And so it was for Teresa Lewis, a dependant personality with limited intellect, who was executed by the state of Virginia in 2010 Lewis whose reported IQ was 72, reportedly agree to a pot in which two men killed her husband and stepson in exchange for a split of a life insurance payout j) If only she had scored 69

what is general intelligence? What is factor analysis?

1. Spearman proposed that general intelligence (g) is liked to many clusters that can be analyzed by factor analysis a) For example, people who do well on vocabulary examinations do well on paragraph comprehension examinations, a cluster that helps define verbal intelligence. Other factors include a spatial ability factor, and a reasoning ability factor 2. Charles Spearman believed we have on GENERAL INTELLIGENCE (often shortened to g) a) General intelligence (g): a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test 3. He granted that people often have special abilities that stand out and he helped develop FACTOR ANALYSIS a) Factor analysis: a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score b) But Spearman also found that those who score high in one area, such as verbal intelligence, typically score higher than average in other areas, such as spatial or reasoning ability c) Spearman believed a common skill set, the g factor, underlies all intelligent behavior, from navigating the sea to excelling in school d) This idea of general mental capacity expressed by a single intelligence score was controversial in Spearman's day, and so it remains 4. One of Spearman's early opponents was L. L. Thurstone Thurstone gae 56 different tests to people and mathematically identified seven clusters of primary mental abilities (word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory) a) Thurstone did not rank people on a single scale of general aptitude b) But when other investigators studied these profiles, they detected a persistent tendency: those who excelled in one of the seven clusters generally scored well on the others c) So, the investigators concluded, there was still some evidence of a g factor d) We might, then, liken mental abilities to physical abilities e) Athleticism is not one thing by many f) The ability to run fast is distinct from the pion weightlifter rarely has the potential to be a skilled ice skater g) Yet there remains some tendency for good things to come package for good things to come packaged together-for running speed and throwing accuracy to correlate thanks to general athletic ability h) So, too, with intelligence 5. Several distinct abilities tend to cluster together and to correlate enough to define a general intelligence factor a) Satoshi Kanazwa argues that general intelligence evolved as a form of intelligence that helps people solve novel problems-how to stop a fire from spreading, how to find food during a drought, how to reunite with one's tribe on the other side of a flooded river b) More common problems-such as how to mate or how to read a stranger's face or how to find your way back to camp-required a different sort of intelligence c) Kanazawa asserts that general intelligence scores do correlate with the ability to solve various novel problems (like those found in academic and many vocational situations) but do not much correlate with individuals' skills in evolutionary familiar situations-such as marrying and parenting, forming close friendships, and navigating without maps d) No wonder academic and social skills may come in different bodies

how does expectations, environmental effects, birth order, and family size effect intelligence?

1. Teachers' expectations affect student performance a) Teachers given IQ scores rated not gifted students as less curious and less interested, this was reflected in grades too b) IQ test was not real c) Told the teacher that certain students were gifted and should double their performance by the end of the year. d) Kids considered gifted had an increase in performance e) Expectations in the student's performance increased the amount that students learned over the course of the year. f) Poor expectations in the student's performance can cause them to not learn as much by the end of the year g) Second test, kids labeled as gifted had an increase of at least 10 points. 20% of the gifted group gained 30 points. 2. Birth order, family size, and intelligence a) The mean IQ drops when you have more kids and a larger family b) in popular culture, birth order was believed to influence intelligence. indeed, many studies found that birth order influenced intelligence: the older the child, the more intelligence c) however, most of those studies had a vital flaw: data were cross sectional. they often assessed soldiers' birth order and intelligence d) therefore, birth order was not analyzed within-family, but between different families e) this could lead to apparent birth-order effects that are not real if increasing sibship size decreases intelligence. this has to do with the fact that the youngest in a two child family can not be a single child; the youngest of three children family can not be from a two child family f) the more siblings, the lower is the intelligence of each child. however, each sibling within a family has the same intelligence g) although there is no difference between siblings within the family, average IQ for increasing birth order decreases because older children weigh more in calculating the average h) therefore, it is necessary to have longitudinal data i) that is why the authors analyzed data from a large national longitudinal sample where they could compare intelligence of siblings within family j) indeed, the found the pattern presented in the last slides: there were significant effects of family size, but no effects of birth order k) The authors concluded that this means that large families do not result in less intelligent children, as some studies suggest, but less intelligent parents make larger families. l) If this were not the case, we would see a birth order effect because the first child some time lives in a smaller family and should be more intelligent if family size affected intelligence. However, this was not the case. m) Most importantly, they found a correlation between the IQ of the mothers and family size. n) These results have to be taken with some caution: o) The Parental IQ - Family Size correlation is not necessarily a biological phenomenon. It could just be fashionable in certain circles to have fewer children. If fashion in those same circles prescribed more children, the effect could turn; but this is an open question. b) The authors of the study concluded that this means that large families do not result in less intelligent children, as some studies suggest, but less intelligent parents make larger families. p) Most importantly, they found a correlation between the IQ of the mothers and family size 3. People with lower incomes have larger households a) Environmental Effects b) Differences in intelligence among these groups are largely environmental, as if one environment is more fertile in developing these abilities than the other c) The best predictor on how children will do standardized test are the ability to not give in to instant gratification

what are the principles of test construction?

Principles of Test Construction a) For a psychological test to be acceptable it must fulfill the following three criteria: 1. Standardization 2. Reliability 3. Validity b) The stanford-Binet and Wechsler tests meet these requirements

how are aptitude tests bias and how are they not biased?

1. If one assumes that race is a meaningful concept, the debate over race differences in intelligence divides into three camps, note Earl Hunt and Jerry Carlson: a) There are genetically disposed race differences in intelligence b) There are socially influenced race differences in intelligence c) There are race differences in test scores, but the tests are inappropriate or biased 2. Are intelligence tests bias? a) The answer depends on which of two very different definitions of bias we use 3. Aptitude tests are necessarily biased in the sense that they are sensitive to performance differences caused by cultural differences a) Bias can be pretty difficult to overcome when there are different experiences that happen based on a person's cultural background. If you are not familiar with something and you are being asked questions about it, you are at a significant disadvantage b) We consider a test biased if it detects not only innate differences in intelligence but also performance differences caused by cultural experiences c) This in fact happened to Eastern European immigrants in the early 1900s d) Lacking the experience to answer questions about their new culture, many were classified as feeble-minded In this popular sense, intelligence tests are biased e) They measure your developed abiltieis, which reflect, in part, your education and experiences f) You may have read examples of intelligence test items that make middle class assumptions (for example, that a cup goes with a saucer) g) Do such items bias the test against those who do not use saucers? Could such questions explain racial differences in test performance? If so, are tests a vehicle for discrimination, consigning potentially capable children, some of whom may have a different native language, to dead end classes and jobs? And could creating culture-neutral questions-such as by assessing people's ability to learn novel words, sayings, and analogies-enable culture fair aptitude tests? h) Defenses of the existing aptitude tests note that racial group differences persist on nonverbal items, such as counting digits backward i) Moreover, they add, blaming the test for a group's lower scores is like blaming a messenger for bad news j) Why blame the tests for exposing unequal experiences and opportunities/ k) If, because of malnutrition, people were to suffer stunted growth, would you blame the measuring stick that reveals it? l) If unequal past experiences predict unequal future achievements, a valid aptitude test will detect such inequalities 4. However, aptitude tests are not biased in the sense that they accurately predict performance of one group over the other a) The second meaning of bias-its scientific meaning-is different b) It hinges on a test's validity-on whether it predicts future behavior only for some groups of test takers c) For example, if the SAT exam accurately predicted the college achievement of women but not that of among psychologists (as summarized by the US National Research Council's Committee on Ability Testing and the American Psychological Association's task force on intelligence) is that the major US aptitude tests are not biased d) The tests' predictive validity is roughly the same for women and men, for Blacks and Whites, and for rich and poor e) If an intelligence test score of 95% slightly below-average grades, that rough prediction usually applies equally to all.

what are the extremes of intelligence?

1. A valid intelligene test divides two groups of people into two extrmes: the mentally retarded (IQ 70) and individuals with high intelligence (IQ 130). These two groups are significantly different 2. One way to glimpse the validity and significance of any test is to compare people who score at the two extremes of the normal curve 3. The two groups should differ noticeably and they do

what is considered high intelligence?

1. Contrary to popular belief, people with high intelligence test scores tend to be healthy, well adjusted, and unusually successful academically a) In one famous project begun in 1921, Lewis Terman studied more than 1500 California schoolchildren with IQ scores over 135 b) Contrary to the popular notion that intellectually gifted children are frequently maladjusted, Terman's high scoring children, like those in later studies, were healthy, well adjusted, and unusually successful academically c) When restudied over the next seven decades, most people in Terman's group (the Termites") had attained high levels of education d) They included many doctor, lawyers, professors, scientists, and writers, but no Nobel Prize winners e) A more recent study of precocious youths who aced the math SAT exam at age 13 by scoring in the top quarter of 1% of their age group-were at age 35 twice as likely to have patents as were those in the bottom quarter of the top 1% f) Compared with the math aces, 13 year olds scoring high on verbal aptitude were more likely to have become humanities professors or written a novel g) About 1% of Americans earn doctorates h) But among those scoring in the top 1 in 10,000-on the mere two hour SAT at age 12 or 13-more than half have done so i) These whiz kids remind me of Jean Piaget, who by age 15 was publishing scientific articles on mollusks and who went on to become the 20th century's most famous developmental psychologist j) Children with extraordinary academic gifts are sometimes more isolated, introverted, and in their own worlds. But must thrive 2. Is there a gifted education program at your school? a) There are critics who question many of the assumptions of currently popular "talented and gifted child" programs, such as the belief that only 3 to 5% of children are gifted and that it pays to identify and track these special few-segregating them in special classes and giving them academic enrichment not available to their peers b) Critics note that tracking by aptitude sometimes creates a self fulfilling prophecy: those implicity labeled "ungifted" may be influenced to become so c) Denying lower ability students opportunities for enriched education can widen the achievement gap between ability groups and increase their social isolation from one another d) Because minority and low income youth are more often placed in lower academic groups, tracking can also promote segregation and prejudice-hardly, note critics, a healthy preparation for working and living in a multicultural society e) Critics and proponents of gifted education do, however, agree on this: Children have differing gifts, whether at math, verbal reasoning, art, or social leadership f) Educating children as if all were alike is as naive as assuming that giftedness is something, like blue eyes, that you either have or do not have g) One need not hang labels on children to affirm their special talents and to challenge them all at the frontiers of their own ability and understanding h) By providing APPROPRIATE DEVELOPMENTAL PLACEMENT suited to each child's talents, we can promote both equity and excellence for all

what are the effects of early environmental intervention on intelligence?

1. Early neglect from caregivers leads children to DEVELOP A LACK OF PERSONAL CONTROL over the environment, and it impoverishes their intelligence a) Romanian orphans with minimal human interaction are delayed in their development. 2. Genes make a difference a) Even if we were all raised in the same intellectually stimulating environment, we would have differing aptitudes b) But life experiences also matter 3. Human environments are rarely as impoverished as the dark and barren cages inhabited by deprived rats that develop thinner-than-normal brain cortexes a) Yet severe deprivation also leaves footprints on the human brain 4. Early Environmental Influences a) Nowhere is the intertwining of biology and experience more apparent than in impoverished human environments such as J McVicker Hunt observed in a destitute Iranian orphanage b) The typical child Hunt observed there could not sit up unassisted at age 2 or walk at age 4 c) The little care the infants received was not in response to their crying, cooing, or other behaviors, so the children develop little sense of personal control over their environment d) They were instead becoming passive glum lumps e) Extreme deprivation was bledgeoning native intelligence-a finding confirmed by other studies of children raised in poorly run orphanages in Romania and elsewhere f) Aware of bother the dramatic effects of early experiences and the impact of early intervention, Hunt began a program of TUTORED HUMAN ENRICHMENT g) He trained caregivers to play language fostering games with 11 infants, imitating the babies' babbling, then engaging them in vocal follow the leader, and finally teaching them sounds from the pErsian language h) The result were dramatic By 22 months of age, the infants could name more than 50 objects and body parts, and so charmed visitors that most were adopted-an unprecedented success for the orphanage i) Hunt's findings are an extreme case of more general finding: among those economically impoverished, environmental conditions can depress cognitive development 5. Schools with many poverty-level children often have less qualified teachers, as one study of 1450 Virginia schools found a) So these children may receive a less enriched education b) And even after controlling for poverty, having less qualified teachers predicted lower achievement scores c) Malnutrition also plays a role d) Relieve infant malnutrition with nutritional supplements, and poverty's effect on physical and cognitive development lessens 6. Do studies of such early interventions indicate that providing an "enriched" environment can give your child a superior intellect as some popular products claim? a) Most expects are doubtful b) Although malnutrition, sensory deprivation, and social isolation can retard normal brain development, there is no environmental recipe for fast forwarding a normal infant into a genius c) All babies should have normal exposure to sights, sounds, and speech d) Beyond that, Sandra Scarr's verdict still is widely shared: parents who are very concerned about providing special educational lessons for their babies are wasting their time e) Still explorations of intelligence promotion continue f) Some parents, after exposing their 12 to 18 month old babies to educational DVDS such as from the Baby Einstein series, have observed their baby's vocabulary growing g) To see whether such cognitive growth is a result of the DVD exposure, or simply of infants' natural language explosion, two research teams assigned babies to DVD exposure or a control group h) Their common finding: the two groups' word learning did not differ

how can the racial gap in intelligence by environmental?

1. GENETICS RESEARCH REVEALS THAT UNDER THE SKIN, THE RACES ARE REMARKABLY ALIKE: a) the average genetic difference between two Icelandic villagers or between two Keyans greatly exceeds the group difference between Icelanders and Kenyans. b) Moreover, looks can deceive. Light skinned Europeans and dark skinned Africans are genetically closer than are dark skinned Africans and dark skinned Aboriginal Australians 2. RACE IS NOT A NEATLY DEFINED BIOLOGICAL CATEGORY: a( some scholars argue that there is a reality to race, noting that there are genetic markers for race (the continent of one's ancestry), that medical risks (such as skin cancer or high blood pressure) vary by race and that most people self identify with a given race. b) Behavioral traits may also vary by race. c) No runner of Asian or European descent-a majority of the world's population has broken 10 seconds in the 100 meter dash, but dozens of runners of West African descent have done so, observed psychologist David Rowe. d) Many social scientists, though, see race primarily as a social construction without well defined physical boundaries, as each race blends seamlessly into the race of its geographical neighbors. e) People with varying ancestry may categorize themselves in the same race. f) Moreover, with increasingly mixed ancestries, more and more people defy neat racial categorization and self identify as multiracial 3. THE INTELLIGENCE TEST PERFORMANCE OF TODAY'S BETTER FED, BETTER EDUCATED, AND MORE TEST PREPARED POPULATION EXCEEDS THAT OF THE 1930S POPULATION-BY A GREATER MARGIN THAN THE INTELLIGENCE TEST SCORE OF THE AVERAGE WHITE TODAY EXCEEDS THAT OF THE AVERAGE BLACK: a) one research review noted that the average IQ test performance of today's sub-Saharan Africans is the same as British adults in 1948, with the possibility of similar gains to come, given improved nutrition, economic development, and education. b) No one attributes generational group differences to genetics 4. WHEN BLACKS AND WHITES HAVE OR RECEIVE THE SAME PERTINENT KNOWLEDGE, THEY EXHIBIT SIMILAR INFORMATION PROCESSING SKILL: a) the data suppor the view that cultural differences in the provision of information may account for racial differences in IQ report researchers Joseph Fagan and Cynthia Holland 5. SCHOOLS AND CULTURE MATTER: a) countries whose economies create a large wealth gap between rich and poor tend also to have a large rich/poor IQ gap. b) Moreover, educational politics such as kindergarten attendance, school discipline, and instructional time per year predict national differences in intelligence and knowledge tests. c) Asian studies outperform North American students on math achievement and aptitude tests. d) This difference may reflect conscientiousness more than competence. e) Asian students also attend school 30% more days per year and spend much more time in and out of school studying math 6. IN DIFFERENT ERAS, DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUPS HAVE EXPERIENCED GOLDEN AGES-PERIODS OF REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT: a) twenty five hundred years ago, it was the Greeks and the Egyptians, then the Romans, in the eight and ninth centuries, genius seemed to reside in the Arab world; 500 years ago it was the Aztec Indians and the people of Northern Europe. b) Today, people marvel at Asians' technological genius and Jews' cultural success. c) In today's United States, Jews are 2% of the population, 21% of Ivy League student bodies, 37% Academy Award winning directors, and 51% of Pilitzer Prize winners for nonfiction; worldwide, they have been 27% of Nobel physics laureates and 54% of world chess champions. d) Cultures rise and fall over centuries; genes do not. That fact makes it difficult to attribute a natural superiority to any race. e) Moreover, consider the striking results of a national study that looked back over the mental test performances of White and Black young adults after graduation from college f) From 8th grade through the early high school years, the average aptitude score of the White students increased, while that of the Black students decreased-creating a gap that reached its widest point at about the time that high school students like you take college admission tests g) But during college, the Black students' scores increased more than four times as much as those of their white counterparts, thus greatly decreasing the aptitude gap h) It is not surprising concluded researcher Joel Myerson and his colleagues, that as Black and White studies complete more grades in high school environments that differ in quality, the gap in cognitive test scores widens i) At the college levels, however, where Black and White students are exposed to education environments of comparable quality...many Blacks are able to make remarkable gains, closing the gap in test scores

is our intelligence stable or does it change throughout our life time?

1. Intelligence scores become stable after about seven years of age a) IQ is pretty stable after age 7 but certain things can lower it (heavy drug use or traumatic brain injury) b) If we retested people periodically throughout their lives, would their intelligence scores be stable? Let's first explore the stability of mental abilities in later life c) If we retested people periodically throughout their lives, would their intelligence scores be stable? Let's first explore the stability of mental abilities in later life 2. Aging and Intelligence a) What happens to our broader intellectual muscles as we age? Do they gradually decline, as does our body strength (even if relative intellectual and muscular strength in later life is predictable from childhood)? b) Or do they remain constant? c) The question for answers to these questions illustrates psychology's self correcting process d) This research developed in phases 3. Phase I: Cross-Sectional evidence for intellectual decline a) In CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDIES,researchers at one point in time test and compare people of various ages b) In such studies, researchers have consistently found that older adults give fewer correct answers on intelligence tests than do younger adults c) WAIS creator, David Wechsler therefore concluded that the decline of mental ability with age is part of the general aging process of the organism as a whole d) For a long time, this rather dismal view went unchallenged e) Many corporations established mandatory retirement policies, assuming the companies would benefit by replacing aging workers with younger, presumably more capable, employees f) As everyone knows, you can't teach an old dog new tricks 4. Phase II: Longitudinal Evidence for intellectual stability a) After colleges in the 1920s began giving intelligence tests to entering students, several psychologists saw their chance to study intelligence LONGITUDINALLY b) They retested the same COHORT over a period of years c) Cohort: a group of people from a given time period d) What they found was a surprise: until late in life, intelligence remained stable e) On some tests, it even increased f) How then are we to account for the cross sectional findings? g) In retrospect, researchers saw the problem h) When cross sectional studies compared 70 year olds and 30 year olds, they compared people not only of two different ages but of two different eras i) They compared generally less educated people 9born say in the early 1900s) with better educated people (born after 1950), people raised in large families with people raised in smaller families, people growing up in less affluent families with people raised in more affluent families j) With this more optimistic view, the myth that intelligence sharply declines with age was laid to rest h) At age 70, John Rock developed the birth control pill i) At age 81-and 17 years from the end of his college football coaching career-Amos Alonzo Stagg was named coach of the year j) At age 89, architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed New York City's Guggenheim Museum k) As everyone knows given good health, you're never too old to learn 5. Phase III: It All Depends a) With everyone knowing two different and opposing facts about age and intelligence, something was clearly wrong b) As it turns out, longitudinal studies have their own potential pitfalls c) Those who survive to the end of longitudinal studies may be bright, healthy people whose intelligence is least likely to decline (perhaps people who died younger and were removed from the study had declining intelligence) d) Adjusting for the loss of participants, as did a study following more than 2000 people over age 75 in Cambridge, England, reveals steeper intelligence decline, especially after 85 e) Research is further complicated by the finding that intelligence is not a single trait but rather several distinct abilities f) Intelligence tests that assess speed of thinking ma place older adults at a disadvantage because of their slower neural processing g) Meeting old friends on the street, names rise to the mind's surface more slowly like air bubbles in molasses said David Lykken h) But slower processing need not mean less intelligence i) In four studies in which players were given 15 minutes to complete New York Times sixties, and seventies j) Wisdom tests assessing expert knowledge about life in general and good judgement and advice about how to conduct oneself in the face of complex, uncertain circumstances also suggested that older adults more than hold their own on such tasks

what is savant syndrome? Who is Kim Peek?

1. People with savant syndrome excel in abilities unrelated to general intelligence a) Have a low level of intelligence in most areas, but excel at one area. Mostly men have it. Rain Man is about a man with savant syndrome b) And consider people with SAVANT SYNDROME, who often score low on intelligence tests but have an island of brilliance c) Savant syndrome: a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing 2. Some have virtually no language ability, yet are able to compute numbers as quickly and accurately as an electronic calculator, or identify the day of the week corresponding to any given historical date, or render ncredible works of art or musical performance a) About 4 in 5 people with savant syndrome are males and many also have autism spectrum disorder 3. Kim Peek a) When Peek's father told him to lower his voice once in a restaurant, Peek slid down in his chair, bringing his larynx closer to the ground. He had an IQ of 87 b) He had only one brain, he didn't have two differentiated sides and his left side of his brain was not formed right. c) Their synapses are super short and they are all connected d) Dyslexia has synapse that are super far apart, but they are e) The late memory whiz Kim Peek, a savant who did not have ASD, was the inspiration for the movie Rain Man f) In 8 to 10 seconds, he could read and remember a page g) During his lifetime, he memorized 9000 books, including Shakespeare and the Bible h) He learn maps from the front of phone books and could provide GPS like travel directions within any major US city i) Yet he could not button his clothes j) And he had little capacity for abstract concepts k) Asked by his father at a restaurant to lower your voice, he slide lower in his chair to lower his voice box l) Asked for Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, he responded "227 North West Front Street" but he only stayed there one night-he gave the speech the next day."

What them, can we realistically conclude about aptitude tests and bias?

1. The tests are indeed biased (appropriately so, some would say) in one sense-sensitivity to performance differences caused by cultural experience a) But they are not biased in the scientific sense of failing to make valid statistical predictions for different groups b) Bottom line: are the tests discriminatory? c) Again, the answer can be Yes or no 2. In one sense, yes their purpose is to discriminate-to distinguish among individuals a) In another sense, no, their purpose is to reduce discrimination by reducing reliance on subjective criteria for school and job placement-who you know, what school you're from, or whether you are the right kind of person b) Civil service aptitude tests, for example, were devised to discriminate more fairly and objectively by reducing the political, racial, and ethnic discrimination that preceded their use c) Banning aptitude tests would lead those who decide on jobs and admissions to rely more on other considerations, such as personal opinion 3. Perhaps, then, our goals for tests of mental abiltieis should be threefold a) First, we should realize the benefits Alfred Binet foresaw-to enable schools to recognize who might profit most from early intervention b) Second, we must remain alert to Binet's fear that intelligence test scores may be misinterpreted as literal measures of a person's worth and potential. c) Third, we must remember that the competence that general intelligence tests sample is important; it helps enable success in some life paths d) But it reflects only one aspect of personal competence e) Our practical intelligence and emotional intelligence matter, too, as do other forms of creativity, talent, and character f) Because there are many ways of being successful, our differences are variations of human adaptability g) Finally, life's great achievements result not only from can do abilities but also from will do motivation h) Competence + diligence = accomplishment

What is tacit intelligence?

1. everyday intelligence not taught in school 2. general intelligence tests are limited a) predicts success in school, complex occupations b) cannot predict tacit intelligence c) persons with low or limited general intelligence rarely have high tacit intelligence d) persons with high general intelligence-more likely to have good practical knowledge across many areas

Who is David Wechsler? What is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

1. Wechsler developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and later the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), an intelligence test for school aged children a) WAIS measures overall intelligence and other aspects related to intelligence that are designed to assess clinical and educational problems b) Psychologist David Wechsler created what is not the most widely used individual intelligence test, the WECHSLER ADULT INTELLIGENCE SCALE (WAIS), with a version for school age children, and another for preschool children c) Wechsler adult intelligence scale (WAIS): the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests 2. The latest edition of the WAIS consists of 15 subtests, including these: a) SIMILARITIES: reasoning the commonality of two objects or concepts, such as "in what way are wool and cotton alike?" b) VOCABULARY: naming pictured objects, and defining words ("what is a guitar?) c) BLACK DESIGN: visual abstract processing, such as "using the four blocks, make one just like this." d) LETTER NUMBER SEQUENCING: on hearing a series of numbers and letters, repeat the numbers in ascending order, and then the letters in alphabetical order: R-2-C-1-M-3 3. It yields not only an overall intelligence score, as does the Stanford-Binet, but also separate scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed a) Striking differences among these scores can provide clues to cognitive strengths or weaknesses that teachers or therapists can build upon b) For example, a low verbal comprehension score combined with high scores on other subtests could indicate a reading or language disability c) Other comparisons can help a psychologist or psychiatrist establish a rehabilitation plan for a stroke patient d) Such uses are possible, of course, only when we can trust the test results

Is Intelligence Neurologically Measurable?

1. You know it: your are smarter than some people and not as smart as others 2. What in your brain creates this difference? a) Brain Size and Complexity b) After the brilliant English poet Lord Bryon died in 1824, doctors discovered that his brain was a massive 5 pounds, not the normal 3 points c) Three years later, Beethoven died and his brain was found to have exceptionally numerous and deep convolutions d) Such observations set brain scientists off studying the brains of other geniuses 3. Do people with big brains have big smarts? a) Alas, some geniuses had small brains, and some dim witted criminals have brains like Bryon's b) More recent studies that directly measured brain volume using MRI scans do reveal correlations of about +33 between brain size (adjusted for body size) and intelligence score c) Bigger is better d) One review of 37 brain imaging studies revealed associations between intelligence and brain size and activity in specific areas, especially within the frontal and parietal lobes e) Intelligence is having ample gray matter (mostly neural bodies) plus ample white matter (axons) that make for efficient communications between brain centers Sandra Witelson would not have been surprised f) With the brains of 91 Canadians as a comparison base, Witelson and her colleagues seized an opportunity to study Einstein's brain g) Although not notably heavier or larger in total size than the typical Canadian's brain, Einstein's brain was 15% larger in the parietal lobe's lower region-which just happens to be a center for processing mathematical and spatial information 4. Brain Function a) The correlations between brain anatomy and intelligence only begin to explain intelligence differences b) Searching for other explanations, neuroscientists are studying the brain's functioning c) As people contemplate a variety of questions like those found on intelligence tests, a frontal lobe area just above the outer edge of the eyebrows becomes especially active-in the left brain for verbal questions, and on both sides for spatial questions d) Information from various brain areas seems to convergy here, suggesting to researcher e) John Duncan that it may be a global workspace for organizing and coordinating information and that some people may be blessed with a workspace that functions very, very well f) Functioning well means functioning efficiently g) Brain scans reveal that smart people use less energy to solve problems h) They are like skilled athletes, for whom agile moves can seem effortless i)) Agile minds come with agile brains 5. So, are more intelligent people literally more quick witted, much as today's speedier computer chips enable ever more powerful computing? a) On some tasks they seem to be b) Verbal intelligence scores are predictable from the speed with which people retrieve information from memory c) Those who recognize quickly that sink and wink are different words or that A and a share the same nam, tend to score high in verbal ability d) Extremely precocious 12 to 14 year old college students are especially quick in responding to such tasks e) To try to define quick-wittedness, researchers are taking a close look at speed of perception and speed of neural processing f) Across many studies, the correlation between intelligence score and the speed of taking in perceptual information tends to be about +3 to +5 g) A typical experiment flashes an incomplete stimulus then a masking image-another image that overrides the lingering afterimage of the incomplete stimulus h) The research then asks participants whether the long side appeared on the right or left i) Those whose brand require the least inspection time to register a simple stimulus tend to score somewhat higher on intelligence tests j) Perhaps people who process more quickly accumulate more information k) Or perhaps as one Australian-Dutch research team has found, processing speed and intelligence correlates not because one causes the other but because they share an underlying genetic influence

what are Gardner's eight types of intelligence?

Gardner proposes eight types of intelligence 1. Linguistic a) Women typically excel in this 2. Logical-mathematical a) Men typically excel in this 3. Musical 4. Spatial a) Men also excel in this 5. Bodily kinesthetic a) Ballet, other sports 6. Intrapersonal (self) a) Introverts are better at this because they think about themselves more 7. Interpersonal (other people) a) You can read other people's emotions and can communicate with them well 8. Naturalist a) People that are fond of nature

what is expertise? How does creativity affect intelligence?

Intelligence and Creativity a) Creativity is the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable. It correlates somewhat with intelligence 1. Expertise: a well developed knowledge base The more expertise you get over your lifetime, the more you can use it 2. Imaginative thinking: the ability to see things in novel ways, recognize patterns and make connections 3. A venturesome personality: a personality that seeks new experiences rather than following the pack 4. Intrinsic motivation: a motivation to be creative from within, must enjoy challenges 5. A creative environment: a creative and supportive environment allows creativity to bloom.

what are the gender differences and similarities?

There are seven ways in which males and females differ in various abilities: 1. Girls are better spellers 2. Girls are more verbally fluent and are better at remembering words 3. Girls are better at nonverbal memory (remembering pictures, landmarks) a) Girls are better speelers, more verbally fluent, better at locating objects, better at detecting emotions, and more sensitive to touch, taste, and color 4. Girls are more sensitive to tour, taste, and odor 5. Boys outnumber girls in counts of underachievement 6. Boys outperform girls at math problem solving and spatial ability tests b) Boys outperform girls in tests of spatial ability and comple math problems, though in math computation and overall math performance, boys and girls hardly differ 7. Women detect emotions more easily than men do 8. In science, as in everyday life, differences, not similarity,s excite interest a) Compared with the anatomical and physiological similarities between men and women, our differences are minor b) In that 1932 testing of all Scottish 11 year olds, for example, girls' average intelligence score was 100,6 and boys' was 100.5 c) So far as g is concerned, boys and girls, men and women, are the same species d) Yet, most people find differences more newsworthy e) Males' mental ability scores also vary more than females' f) Thus, boys worldwide outnumber girls at both the low extreme and the high extreme g) Boys, for example, are more often found in special education classes h) And among 12 to 14 year olds scoring extremely high (700 or higher) on the SAT exam math section, boys outnumber girls 4 to 1 i) The most reliable male edge appears in spatial ability tests j) The solution requires speedily rotating three dimensional objects in one's mind 9. Today, such skills help when fitting suitcases into a car trunk playing chess, or doing certain types of geometry problems a) From an evolutionary perspective, those same skills would have helped our ancestral fathers track prey and make their way home b) The survival of our ancestral mothers may have benefitted more from a keen memory for the location of edible plants-a legacy that lives today in women's superior memory for objects and their location c) Evolutionary psychologists think this is due to natural selection 10. But experience also matters a) One experiment found that playing action video games boosts spatial abilities b) And you probably won't be surprised to know that among entering American collegians, six times as many men as women report playing video/computer games six or more hours a week c) Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker argues that biological as well as social influences appear to affect gender differences in life priorities (women's greater interest in people versus men's in money and things), in risk taking (with men more reckless) and in math reasoning and spatial abilities d) Such differences are, he notes, observed across cultures, stable over time, influenced by prenatal hormones, and observed in genetic boys raised as girls e) Culturally influenced preferences also help explain women selecting people rather than math intensive vocations f) Other critics urge us to remember that social expectations and divergent opportunities shape boys' and girls' interests and abilities g) Gender equal cultures, such as Sweden and Iceland, exhibit little of he gender math gap found in gender unequal cultures, such as Turkey and Korea

what is stereotype threat?

1. A STEREOTYPE THREAT is a self confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype a) Throughout this text, we have seen that our expectations and attitudes can influence our perceptions and behaviors, and we find this effect in intelligence testing b) When Steven Spencer and his colleagues gave a difficult math test to equally capable men and women, women did not do as well-except when they had been led to expect that women usually do as well as men on the test c) Otherwise, the women apparently felt apprehensive, which affected their performance d) With Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, SPencer also observed this self fulfilling STEREOTYPE THREAT with Black students e) When reminded of their race just before taking verbal aptitude tests, they performed worse f) Follow up experiments confirm that negatively stereotyped minorities and women may have unrealized academic potential g) If when taking an exam, you are worried that your type often doesn't do well, your self doubts and self monitoring may hijack your working memory and impair your performance h) For such reasons, stereotype threat may also impair attention and learning 2. Critics note that stereotype threat does not fully account for the Black-White aptitude score difference a) But it does help explain why Blacks have scored higher when tested by Blacks than when tested by Whites b) It gives us insight into why women have scored higher on math tests with no male test takers present, and why women's chess play drops sharply when they think they are playing a male opponent c) And it explains "the Obama effect"-the finding that African AMerican adults performed better if taking a verbal aptitude test administered immediately after watching barack Obama's stereotype defying nomination acceptance speech or just after his 2008 presidential victory d) Steeele concludes that telling students they probably won't succeed (as is sometimes implied by remedial minority support programs) functions as a stereotype that can erode performance e) Over time, such students may detach their self esteem from academics and look for recognition elsewhere f) Indeed, as African American boys progress from eighth or twelfth grade, there is a growing disconnect between their grades and their self esteem and they tend to underachieve g) One experiment randomly assigned some african american seventh graders to write for 15 minutes about their most important values h) That simple exercise in self affirmation had the apparent effect of boosting their semester grade point average by 0.26 in a first experiment and 0.34 in a replication i) Minority students in university programs that challenge them to believe in their potential, or to focus on the idea that intelligence is malleable and not fixed, have likewise produced marekedly higher gades and had lower dropout rates

what do adoption studies show about intelligence?

1. Adopted children show a marginal correlation in verbal ability to their adopted parents a) Other evidence points to the effects of environment b) Twin studies show some environmental contribution to IQ score variation among top scorers c) Where environments vary widely, as they do among children of less educated parents, environmental differences are more predictive of intelligence scores 2. Studies also show that adoption enhances the intelligence scores of mistreated or neglected children a) Seeking to disentangle genes and environment, researchers have compared the intelligence test scores of adopted childrenwith those of (a) their adoptive siblings, (b) their biological parents (the providers of their genes), and (c ) their adoptive parents, the providers of their home environment b) During childhood, the intelligence test scores of adoptive siblings correlate modestly c) Over time, adopted children accumulate experience in their differing adoptive families 3. So would you expect the family environment effect to grow with age and the genetic legacy effect to shrink a) If you would, behavior geneticists have a stunning surprise for you b) Mental similarities between adopted children and their adoptive families wane with age, until the correlation approaches zero by adulthood c) Genetic influences-not environmental ones-become more apparent as we accumulate life experience d) Identical twins' similarities, for example, continue or increase into their eighties. e) Thus, report Ian Deary and his colleagues, the heritability of general intelligence increases from about 30% in early childhood to well over 50% in adulthood. 4. In one massive study of 11,000 twin pairs in four countries, the heritability of g increased from 41% in middle childhood to 55% in adolescence to 66% in young adulthood a) Similarly, adopted children's verbal ability scores over time become more like those of their biological parents

what is emotional intelligence?

1. Also distinct from academic intelligence is SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE-the how involved in successfully comprehending social situations a) People with high social intelligence can read social situations the way a skilled football player reads the defense or a seafarer reads the weather b) The concept was first proposed in 1920 by psychologist Edward Thorndlike, who noted, "the bed mechanic in a factor may fail as a foreman for lack of social intelligence" c) Later psychologists have marveled that high aptitude people are not a wide margin, more effective in achieving better marriage,s in successfully raising their children, and in achieving better mental and physical well being d) Others have explored the difficulty that some smart people have processing and managing social information 2. This idea is especially significant for an aspect of social intelligence that John Mayer, Peter Salovey, and David Caruso have called EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE a) Emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions 3. They have developed a test that assesses four emotional intelligence components: a) Perceive emotion: recognize emotions in faces, music, and stories b) Understand emotion: predict emotions, how they change and blend c) Manage emotion: to know how to express emotions in different situations d) Use emotion: utilize emotions to adapt or be creative e) If you are emotionally intelligence, you are willing to put off gratification later to focus on long term goals and rewards

what is the difference between aptitude and achievement tests?

1. Aptitude tests are intended to predict your ability to learn a new skill and achievement tests are intended to reflect what you have already learned SAT and ACT are aptitude tests a) Terranova test are achievement tests 2. By this point in your life, you've faced dozens of ability tests: school tests of basic reading and math skills, course exams, intelligence tests, and driver's license exams, to name just a few a) Psychologists classify such tests are either ACHIEVEMENT TESTS, intended to MEASURE what you have learned or APTITUDE TESTS, intended to PREDICT your ability to learn a new skill b) Achievement test: a test designed to assess what a person has learned c) Aptitude test: a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn 3. Exams covering what you have learned in this course (like the AP exam) are achievement tests a) A college entrance exam, which seeks to predict your ability to do college work, is an aptitude test-a thinly disguised intelligence test says Howard Gardner b) Indeed, total scores on the US SAT correlate +.82 with general intelligence scores in a national sample of 14-to 21 year olds

Are general aptitude tests as predictive as they are reliable?

1. As critics are fond of noting, the answer is plainly No a) The predictive power of aptitude tests is fairly strong in the early school years, but later it weakens b) Academic aptitude test scores are reasonably good predictors of achievement for children ages 6 to 12, where the correlation between intelligence score and school performance is about +.6 c) Intelligence scores correlate even more closely with scores on ACHIEVEMENT TESTS: +.81 in one comparison of 70,000 English children's intelligence scores at age 11 with their academic achievement in national exams at age 16 d) The SAT exam, used in the United States as a college entrance exam, is less successful in predicting first year college grades (the correlation, which is less than +.5 is, however, a bit higher when adjusted for high scorers electing tougher courses) e) By the time we get to the Graduate Record Examination (GRE, an aptitude test similar to the SAT exam but for those applying to graduate school), the correlation with graduate school performance is an seven more modest but still significant +.4

Why does the predictive power of aptitude scores diminish as students move up the educational ladder?

1. Consider a parallel situation: among all American and Canadian football linemen, body weight correlates with success a) A 300 pound player tends to overwhelm a 200 pound opponent b) But within the narrow 280 to 3320 pound range typically found at the professional level, the correlation between weight and success becomes negligible c) The narrower the range of weights, the lower the predictive power of body weight becomes d) If an elite university takes only those students who have very high aptitude scores, those scores cannot possibly predict much e) This will be true even if the test has excellent predictive validity with a more diverse sample of students f) So, when we validate a test using a wide range of people but then use it with a restricted range of people, it loses much of its predictive validity.

what are the criticisms of emotional intelligence?

1. Gardner and others criticize the idea of emotional intelligence and question whether we stretch this idea of intelligence too far when we apply it to our emotions a) Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso caution against stretching emotional intelligence to include varied traits such as self esteem and optimism b) Rather, emotionally intelligent people are both socially and self aware c) And in both the united states and germany, those scoring high on managing emotions enjoy higher quality interactions with friends d) They avoid being hijacked by overwhelming depression, anxiety, or anger e) Being sensitive to emotional cues, they know what to say to soothe a grieving friend, encouraging a colleague, and managing a conflict 2. Emotional intelligence is less a matter of conscious effort than of one's unconscious processing of emotional information a) Yet the outgrowths of this automatic processing become visible b) Across dozens of studies in many countries, those scoring high in emotional intelligence exhibit somewhat better job performance c) They also can delay gratification in pursuit of long range rewards, rather than being overtaken by immediate impulses d) They are emotionally in tune with others, and thus often succeed in career, marriage and parenting situations where academically smarter (but emotionally less intelligent) people fail 3. Brain damage reports have provided extreme examples of the results of diminished emotional intelligence in people with high general intelligence a) Neuroscientists Antonio Damasio tells of Elliot, who had a brain tumor removed: i never saw a tinge of emotion in my many hours of conversation with him, no sadness, no impatience, no frustration b) Shown disturbing pictures of injured people, destroyed communities, and natural disasters, Elliot showed-and realized he felt-no emotion c) He knew but he could not feel d) Unable to intuitively adjust his behavior in response to others' feelings, Elliot lost his job e) He went bankrupt. His marriage collapsed. He remarried and divorced again f) At last report, he was dependent on a disability check and custodial care from a sibling 4. Some scholars, however, are concerned that emotional intelligence stretches the concept of intelligence too far. a) Multiple intelligence man Howard Gardner welcomes our stretching the concept into such realms as music and information about ourselves and others b) But let us also, he says, respect emotional sensitivity, creativity, and motivation as important but different c) Stretch intelligence to include everything we prize and it will lose its meaning

what is validity? What are the types of validity?

1. High reliability does not ensure a test's VALIDITY a) Validity: the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to (see also content validity and predictive validity) b) If you use an inaccurate tape measure to measure people's heights, your height report would have high reliability (consistency) but low validity. c) Reliability of a test does not ensure validity. Validity of a test refers to what the test is supposed to measure or predict 2. Content validity: refers to the extent a test measures a particular behavior or trait a) It is enough for some tests that they have CONTENT VALIDITY, meaning the test taps the pertinent behavior, or criterion b) Content validity: the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest c) The road test for a driver's license has content validity because it samples the tasks a driver routinely faces d) Course exams have content validity if they assess one's mastery of a representative sample of course material 3. Predictive validity: refers to the function of a test in predicting a particular behavior or trait a) But we expect intelligence tests to have PREDICTIVE VALIDITY: they should predict the criterion of future performance, and to some extent they do b) Predictive validity: the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior (also called criterion-related validity)

who is Lewis Terman? What is an IQ? What is the Stanford-Binet test?

1. In the US, Lewis Terman adapted Binet's test for American school children and named the test the Stanford-Binet Test a) The following is the formula of Intelligence Quotient (IQ): IQ = mental age/chronological age x 100 b) Only use this up to the age of 16 2. Binet's fears were realized soon after his death in 1911, when others adapted his tests for use as a numerical measure of inherited intelligence a) This began when Stanford University professor Lewis Terman found that the Paris developed questions and age norms worked poorly with California school children b) Adapting some of Binet's original items, adding others, and establishing new age norms, Terman extended the upper end of the test's range from teenagers to "superior adults." c) He also gave his revision the name it retains today-the STANFORD-BINET d) Stanford-Binet: The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test 3. For Terman, intelligence tests revealed the intelligence with which a person was born a) For such tests, German psychologist William Stern derived the famous INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT OR IQ b) Intelligence quotient (IQ): defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca x 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average c) The IQ is simply a person's mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100 to get rid of the decimal point: IQ = mental age (ma) / chronological age (ca) x 100 d) Thus, an average child, whose mental and chronological ages are the same, has an IQ of 100 e) But an 8 year old who answers questions as would a typical 10 year old has an IQ of 125 f) The original IQ formula worked fairly well for children but not for adults (should a 40 year old who does as well on the test as an average 20 year old be assigned an IQ of only 50?) g) Most current intelligence tests, including the Stanford-Binet, no longer compute an IQ in this manner (though the term IQ still lingers as a shorthand expression for "intelligence test scores") Instead, they represent the test taker's performance RELATIVE TO THE AVERAGE PERFORMANCE OF OTHERS THE SAME AGE h) This average performance is arbitrarily assigned a score of 100, and about 2/3rd of all test takers fall between 85 and 115 4. Terman promoted the widespread use of intelligence testing a) His motive was to take account of the inequalities of children in original endowment by assessing their vocational fitness b) In sympathy with Francis Galton's eugenics-a much criticized nineteenth century movement that proposed measuring human traits and using the results to encourage only smart and fit people to reproduced-Terman envisioned that the use of intelligence tests would ultimately result in curtailing the reproduction of feeblemindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency c) With Terman's help, the US government developed new tests to evaluate both newly arriving immigrants and World War I army recruits-the world's first mass administration of an intelligence test d) To some psychologists, the results indicated the inferiority of people not sharing their Anglo-Saxon heritage e) Such findings were part of the cultural climate that led to a 1924 immigration law that reduced Southern and Eastern European immigration quotas to less than 1/5th of those for Northern and Western Europe Binet probably would have been horrified that his test had been adapted and used to draw such conclusions Indeed, such sweeping judgements became an embarrassment to most of those who championed testing f) Even Terman came to appreciate that test scores reflected not only people's innate mental abilities but also their education, native language, and familiarity with the culture assumed by the test g) Abuses of the early intelligence tests serve to remind us that science can be value-laden h) Behind a screen of scientific objectivity, ideology sometimes lurks

what is the flynn effect?

1. In the past 60 years, intelligence scores have risen steadily by an average of 27 points. This phenomenon is known as the Flynn effect a) People over time have gone to school longer and the education system improved so people learn more and the IQ scores have risen b) If you took the WAIS Fourth Edition recently, your performance was compared with a standardization sample who took the test during 2007, not to David Wechsler's initial 1930s sample c) If you compare the performance of the most recent standardization sample with that of the 1930s sample, do you suppose you would find rising or declining test performance d) Amazingly-given that college entrance aptitude scores were dropping during the 1960s and 1970s-intelligence test performance was improving 2. This worldwide phenomenon is called the FLYNN EFFECT, in honor of New Zealand researcher James Flynn who first calculated its magnitude a) The average person's intelligence test score in 1920 was-by today's standard-only a 76 b) Such rising performance has been observed in 29 countries, from Canada to rural Australia c) Although the gains have recently reversed in Scandinavia, the historic increase is now widely accepted as an important phenomenon 3. The Flynn effect's cause has been a mystery a) Did it result from greater test sophistication? (but the gains began before testing was widespread and have even been observed among preschoolers) b) Better Nutrition? As the nutrition explanation would predict, people have gotten not only smarter but taller c) But in post war britain, notes Flynn, the lower class children gained the most from improved nutrition but the intelligence performance gains were greater among upper class children d) Or did the Flynn effect stern from more education? More stimulating environments? Less childhood disease? Smaller families and more parental investment? e) Regardless of what combination of factors explains the rise in intelligence test scores, the phenomenon counters one concern of some hereditarians-that the higher twentieth century birth rates among those with lower scores would shove human intelligence scores downward 4. Seeking to explain the rising scores, and mindful of global mixing, one scholar has even speculated about the influence of a genetic phenomenon comparable with "hybrid vigor," which occurs in agriculture when cross-breeding produces corn or livestock superior to the parent plants or animals

what is intelligence?

1. Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do (Jean Piaget) 2. Intelligence (in all cultures) is the mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use our knowledge to adapt to new situations. 3. In research studies, intelligence is whatever the intelligence test measures. This tends to be "school smarts" a) Intelligence experts agree that intelligence is a concept and not a thing b) In many research studies, INTELLIGENCE has been operationally defined as whatever intelligence test measure, which has tended to be school smarts c) But intelligence is not a quality like height or weight, which has the same meaning to everyone around the globe d) People assign the term intelligence to the qualities that enable success in their own time and in their own culture e) In the Amazon rainforest, intelligence may be understanding the medicinal qualities of local plants. In a north american high school, it may be mastering difficult concepts in tough courses 4. In both locations INTELLIGENCE is the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

who is Albert Binet? What is mental age?

1. Practiced a modern form of intelligence testing by developing questions that would predict children's future progress in the Paris school system 2. The modern intelligence testing movement began at the turn of the 20th century, when France passed a law requiring that all children attend school a) Some children, including many newcomers to Paris, seemed incapable of benefiting from the regular school curriculum and in need of special classes b) But how could the schools objectively identify children with special needs? c) The French government hesitated to trust teachers' subjective judgements of children's learning potential d) Academic slowness might merely reflect inadequate prior education e) Also, teachers might prejudge children on the basis of their social backgrounds 3. To minimize bias, France's minister of public education in 1904 commissioned Alfred Binet and others to study the problem a) Binet and his collaborator, Theodore Simon, began by assuming that all children allow the same course of intellectual development but that some develop more rapidly b) On tests, therefore, a dull children should perform as does a typical younger child and a bright child as does a typical older child 4. Thus, their goal became measuring each child's MENTAL AGE a) Mental age: a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8 year old is said to have a mental age of 8 b) The average 9 year old, then, has a mental age of 9 c) Children with below average mental ages, such as 9 year olds who perform at the level of typical 7 year olds would struggle with age appropriate schoolwork d) To measure mental age, Binet and Simon theorized that mental aptitude, like athletic aptitude, is a general capacity that shows up in various ways e) After testing a variety of reasoning and problem solving questions on Binet's two daughters, and then on bright and backward Parisian schoolchildren, Binet and Simon identified items that would predict how well French children would handle their school work 5. Note that Binet and Simon made no assumptions concerning WHY a particular child was slow, average, or precocious a) Binet personally learned toward an environmental explanation b) To raise the capacities of low scoring children, he recommended mental orthopedics that would help develop their attention span and self discipline c) He believed his intelligence test did not measure inborn intelligence as a meter stick measures height d) Rather, it had a single practical purpose: to identify French school children needing special attention e) Binet hoped his test would be used to improve children's education, but he also feared it would be used to label children and limit their opportunities

what are the effects of schooling on intelligence?

1. Schooling is an experience that pays dividends, which is reflected in intelligence scores. INCREASED SCHOOLING CORRELATES WITH HIGHER INTELLIGENCE SCORES a) To increase readiness for schoolwork, projects like Head Start facilitate learning Kids whose parents read to them, go to preschool, and have good nutrition have better IQ. government programs like WIC, Head Start, and story time help kids to have better IQ overall b) Later in childhood, schooling is one intervention that pays intelligence score dividends 2. School and intelligence interact, and both enhance later income a) Hunt was a strong believer in the ability of education to boost children's chances for success by developing their cognitive and social skills b) Indeed, his 1961 book, Intelligence and Experience, helped launch Project Head Start in 1965, a US government funded preschool program that serves more than 900,000 children, most of whom come from families below the poverty level c) Generally, the aptitude benefits dissipate over time (reminding us that life experiences after Head Start matters, too) d) Psychologist Edward Zigler, the program's first director, nevertheless believed there are long term benefits 3. Genes and experiences together weave the intelligence fabric a) But what we accomplish with our intelligence depends also on our own beliefs and motivations b) One analysis of 72,431 collegians found that study motivation and study skills rivaled previous grades and aptitude intelligence test performance c) Four frozen studies show that, when promised money for doing well, adolescents score higher d) Psychologist Carol Dweck reports that believing intelligence is biologically set and unchanging can lead to a fixed mindset e) Believing intelligence is changeable, a growth mindset results in a focus on learning and growing f) As collegians, these believers also tend to happily flourish g) Dweck has developed interventions that effectively teach young teens that the brain is like a muscle that grows stronger with use as neuron connections grow h) Indeed, superior achievements in fields from sports ot science to music arise, from disciplined effort and sustained practice

what is Howard Gardner's theory on intelligence?

1. Since the mid-1980s, some psychologists have sought to extend the definition of intelligence beyond Spearman's and Thurstone's academic smarts 2. Howard Gardner supports the idea that intelligence comes in multiple independent forms a) Gardner notes that brain damage may diminish one type of ability but not others 3. Gardner's eight intelligences a) Gardner's eight intelligences: naturalist, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal. b) Howard Gardner views intelligence as multiple abilities that come in different packages 3. Brain damage, for example, may destroy one ability but leave others intact a) Using such evidence, Gardner argues that we do not have an intelligence, but rather MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE including the verbal and mathematical aptitudes assessed by standard tests b) Thus, the computer programmer, the poet, the street-smart adolescent who becomes a craft executive, and the basketball team's point guard exhibit different kinds of intelligence c) Wouldn't it be nice if the world were so just that being weak in one area would be compensated by genius in another? 4. Alas, say Gardner's critics, the world is not just a) Recent research using factor analysis, has confirmed that there is a general intelligence factor: G MATTERS b) It predicts performance on various complex tasks and in various jobs c) Much as jumping ability is not a predictor of jumping performance hen the bar is set a foot off the ground-but becomes a predictor when the bar is set higher-so extremely high cognitive ability scores predict exceptional attainments, such as doctoral degrees and publications d) Even so "success" is not a one-ingredient recipe e) High intelligence may help you get into a good college and ultimately a desired profession, but it won't make you successful once there f) The recipe for success combines with GRIT: those who become highly successful tend also to be conscientious, well-connected, and doggedly energetic A) Gri: in psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long term goals 5. K. Anders Ericsson reports a 10 year rule: a common ingredient of expert performance in chess, dancing, sports, computer programming, music, and medicine is about 10 years of intense, daily practice a) Various animal species including bees, birds, and chimps, likewise require time and experience to acquire peak expertise in skills such as foraging b) As with humans, animal performance therefore tends to peak near midlife c) People with savant syndrome excel in abilities unrelated to general intelligence

how is intelligence effected by age?

1. So the answers to our age and intelligence questions depend on what we assess and how we assess it 2. Fluid Intelligence: ability to reason speedily and abstractly, declines with age during late adulthood a) FLUID INTELLIGENCE decrease beginning in the twenties and thirties, slowly up to age 75 or so, then more rapidly, especially after age 85 3. Crystalline intelligence: accumulated knowledge and verbal skills, increases with age a) CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE increases up to old age b) Gain knowledge and vocabulary as you age, but you lose recall memory c) With age we lose and we win d) We lose recall memory and processing speed, but we gain vocabulary knowledge 4. Our decisions also become less distorted by negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and anger a) And despite their lesse fluid intelligence, older adults also show increased social reasoning, such as by taking multiple perspectives, appreciating knowledge limits, and thus offering helpful wisdom in times of social conflict b) These cognitive differences help explain why older adults are less likely to embrace new technologies c) In 2010, only 31% of Americans age 65 and older had broadband internet at home, compared with 80% of adults under 30 5. The age related cognitive differences also help explain some curious findings about creativity a) Mathematicians and scientists produce much of their most creative work during their late twenties or early thirties b) In literature, history, and philosophy, people tend to produce their best work in their forties fifties, and beyond-after accumulating more knowledge c) Poets, for example, who depend on fluid intelligence, reach their peak output earlier than prose authors, who need a deeper knowledge reservoir d) This finding holds in every major literary tradition, for both living and dead languages

what is a normal curve?

1. Standardized tests establish a normal distribution of scores on a tested population in a bell shaped pattern called the normal curve a) Standardized deviation and IQ always stay the same-they are 16 2. Group members' scores typically are distributed in a bell-shaped pattern that forms the NORMAL CURVE a) Normal curve: the symmetrical, bell shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. b) Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fever scores lie near the extremes c) No matter what we measure-height, weight, or mental aptitude-people's scores tend to form this roughly symmetrical shape d) On an intelligence test, we call the midpoint, the average score, 100. e) Moving out from the average toward either extreme, we find fewer and fewer people 3. For both the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler tests, a person's score indicates whether that person's performance fell above or below the average a) A performance higher than all but 2% of all scores earns an intelligence score of 130 b) A performance lower than 98% of all scores earns an intelligence score of 70 c) To keep the average score near 100, the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales are periodically restandarisized

what is the triarchic theory of three intelligences?

1. Stenberg agrees with Gardner, but suggests three intelligence rather than eight a) Robert Sternberg agrees that there is more to success than traditional intelligence and also agrees with Gardner's idea of multiple intelligences 1. Analytical intelligence: intelligence that is assessed by intelligence tests a) Academic problem solving assessed by traditional intelligence tests, which present well defined problems having a single right answer. Such tests predict school grades reasonably well and vocational success more modestly 2. Creative intelligence: intelligence that makes us adapt to novel situations, generating novel ideas demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas. Many inventions result from such creative problem solving 3. Practical intelligence: intelligence that is required for everyday tasks (eg street smarts) a) required for everyday tasks, which may be ill-defined, with multiple solutions, managerial success, for example, depends less on academic problem-solving skills than on a shrewd ability to manage oneself, one's tasks, and other people. 2. Sternberg and Richard Wagner offer a test of practical managerial intelligence that measures skill at writing effective memos, motivating people, delegating tasks, and responsibilities, reading people, and promoting one's own career. a) Business executives who score relatively high on this test tend to earn high salaries and receive high performance ratings b) With support from the US College Board, Sternberg and a team of collaborators have developed new measures of creativity (such as thinking up a caption for an untitled cartoon) and practical thinking (such as figuring out how to move a large bed up a winding staircase) c) Their initial data indicate that these more comprehensive assessments improve prediction of American students' first year college grades and they do so with reduced ethnic group differences d) Although Gardner and Sternberg differ on specific points, they agree that multiple abilities can contribute to life success. e) They also agree that the differing varieties of giftedness add spice to life and challenges for education f) Under their influence, many teachers have been trained to appreciate such variety and to apply multiple intelligence theory in their classrooms

what is the genetic influence and heritability of intelligence?

1. Studies of twins, family members, and adopted children together support the idea that there is a significant genetic contribution to intelligence a) 70% of intelligence score variation attributed to genetics and 40% to nurture b) Smart people have smart offspring and vice versa c) Intelligence runs in families d) Few issues arose such passion or have such serious political implications as if our intellectual abilities are inherited or a result of our environment. e) Consider: if we mainly inherit our differing mental abilities and if success reflects those abilities, then people's socioeconomic standing will correspond to their inborn differences f) This could lead to those on top believing their intellectual birthright justified their social positions g) But if mental abilities are primarily nurtured by our environments, then children from disadvantaged environments can expect to lead disadvantaged lives. h) In this case, people's standing will result from their unequal opportunities 2. Heritability a) The variation in intelligence test scores attributable to genetics b) We credit heredity with 50% of the variation in intelligence c) It pertains only to why people differ from one another, not to the individual d) The intelligence test scores of identical twins raised together are virtually as similar as those of the same person taking the same test twice. The scores of fraternal twins who share only about half their genes, are much less similar. e) Estimates of the HERITABILITY of intelligence range from 50 to 80%. Identical twins also exhibit substantial similarity (and heritability) in specific talents, such as music, math, and sports f) Heritability: the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. g) The heritability of a trait may vary, spending on the range of populations and environments studied 3. Brain scans reveal that identical twins brains are built nad function similarly. They have similar gray and white matter volume. Their brains (unlike those of fraternal twins) are virtually the same in area associated with verbal and spatial intelligence. And their brains show similar activity while doing mental tasks a) Are there known genes for genius? Today's researchers have identified chromosomal regions important to intelligence, and they have pinpointed specific genes that seemingly influence variations in intelligence and learning disorders. But intelligence appears to be POLYGENIC, involving many genes, with each gene accounting for much less than 1% of intelligence variations. Intelligence is like height, suggests Wendy Johnson: 54 specific gene variations together have accounted for 5% of our individual differences in height, leaving the rest yet to be discovered. b) Do we really need to discover them all-or is it enough to know that few individual genes have a big effect on height, or intelligence? What matters is the combination of many genes.

what are the two disturbing but agreed upon facts about the effects of race on intelligence? How does heredity contribute to individual differences in intelligence among cultural groups?

1. To discuss this issue we begin with two disturbing but agreed upon facts: a) Racial groups differ in their average intelligence scores b) High scoring people (and groups) are more likely to attain high levels of education and income 2. There are many group differences in average intelligence test scores a) New Zealanders of European descent outscore native Maori New Zealanders Israeli Jews outscore Israeli Arabs b) Most Japanese outscore most Burakumin, a stigmatized Japanese minority c) Those who can hear outscore those born deaf d) And white Americans have outscored Black Americans e) This Black-White difference has diminished somewhat in recent years, especially among children 3. Such GROUP differences provide little basis for judging individuals a) Worldwide, women outlive men by 4 years, but knowing only that you are male or female won't tell us much about how long you will live 4. We have seen that heredity contribute to INDIVIDUAL differences in intelligence a) But group differences in a heritable trait may be entirely environmental b) Consider one of nature's experiments: allow some children to grow up hearing their culture's dominant language, while others, born deaf do not c) Then give both groups an intelligence test rooted in the dominant language and (no surprise) those with expertise in that language will score highest d) Although individual performance differences may be substantially genetic, then group difference is not

what are intelligence test? What is the origin of them?

Intelligence test: a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with others using numerical scores 1. The Origins of Intelligence Testing a) Some societies concerned themselves with promoting the collective welfare of the family, community, and society. b) Other societies emphasize individual opportunity Plato, a pioneer of the individualist tradition, wrote more than 2000 years ago in the Republic that no two persons are born exactly alike; but each differs from the other in natural endowments, one being suited for one occupation and the other for another c) As heirs to Plato's individualism, people in Western societies have pondered how and why individuals differ in mental ability d) Western attempts to assess such differences began in earnest over a century ago e) The English scientist Francis Galton had a fascination with measuring human traits 2. When his cousin Charles Darwin proposed that nature selects successful traits through the survival of the fittest, Galton wondered if it might be possible to measure natural ability and to encourage those of high ability to mate with one another a) At the 1884 London Exposition, more than 10,000 visitors received his assessment of their intellectual strengths based on such things as reaction time, sensory acuity, muscular power, and body proportions b) But alas, on these measures, well regarded adults and students did not outscore others c) Nor did the measures correlate with one another d) Although Galton's quest for a simple intelligence measure failed, he gave us some statistical techniques that we still use (as well as the phrase nature and nurture) e) And his persistent belief in the inheritance of genius-reflected in his book, Hereditary Genius-illustrates an important lesson from both the history of intelligence research and the history of science: although science itself strives for objectivity, individual scientists are affected by their own assumptions and attitudes

what is reliability? What are the types of reliability?

Reliability: the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting 1. A test is reliable when it yields consistent results. To establish reliability researchers establish different procedures: a) Split half reliability: dividing the test into two equals halves and assessing how consistent the scores are b) Test-retest reliability: using the same test on two occasions to measure consistency 2. Can split the test in half, do even and odds, do the first and second half to test reliability. You could test the test once, then take it again a couple of weeks later to see if you do well again a) Knowing where you stand in comparison to a standardization group still won't tell us much about your intelligence unless the test has RELIABILITY-unless it yields dependably consistent scores b) To check a test's reliability, researchers retest people c) They may use the same test or they may split the test in half to see whether odd-question scores and even question scores agree d) If the two scores generally agree, or CORRELATE, the test is reliable e) The higher the correlation between the test-retest or the split half scores, the higher the test's reliability f) The test we have considered so far-the Stanford-Binet, the WAIS and the WISC-all have reliabilities of about +0.9 which is very high g) When retested, people's scores generally match their first score closely

what is standarization? What will standaridize test have?

Standardization: defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group 1. Standardizing a test involves administering the test to a representative sample of future test takers in order to establish a basis for meaningful comparison a) The number of questions you answer correctly on an intelligence test would tell us almost nothing b) To evaluate your performance, we need a basis for comparing it with others' performance c) To enable meaningful comparisons, test makers first give the test to a representative sample of people d) When you later take the test following the same procedures, your score can be compared with the sample's scores to determine your position relative to others e) This process of defining meaningful scores relative to pretested group is called STANDARDIZATION Standardized tests will have: 1. Criteria for scoring 2. Norms 3. Uniform instructions 4. Reliability