1. Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY
(7th Ed)
Chapter 11
Intelligence
James A. McCubbin, PhD
Clemson University
Worth Publishers

2. Origins of Intelligence
Testing
 Intelligence Test
 a method of
assessing an
individual’s mental
aptitudes and
comparing them
to those of others,
using numerical
scores

3. Origins of Intelligence
Testing
 Mental Age
 a measure of intelligence test
performance devised by Binet
 chronological age that most typically
corresponds to a given level of
performance
 child who does as well as the average
8-year-old is said to have a mental age
of 8

4. Origins of Intelligence
Testing
 Stanford-Binet
 the widely used American
revision of Binet’s original
intelligence test
 revised by Terman at Stanford
University

5. Origins of Intelligence
Testing
 Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
 defined originally the ratio of
mental age (ma) to chronological
age (ca) multiplied by 100
 IQ = ma/ca x 100)
 on contemporary tests, the average
performance for a given age is
assigned a score of 100

6. What is Intelligence?
 Intelligence
 ability to learn from experience,
solve problems, and use
knowledge to adapt to new
situations

7. What is Intelligence?
 Factor Analysis
 statistical procedure that identifies clusters of
related items (called factors) on a test
 used to identify different dimensions of
performance that underlie one’s total score
 General Intelligence (g)
 factor that Spearman and others believed
underlies specific mental abilities
 measured by every task on an intelligence
test

8. Are There Multiple
Intelligences?
 Savant Syndrome
 condition in which a person otherwise
limited in mental ability has an exceptional
specific skill
 computation
 drawing

9. Are There Multiple
Intelligences?
 Social Intelligence
 the know-how involved in
comprehending social situations and
managing oneself successfully
 Emotional Intelligence
 ability to perceive, express, understand,
and regulate emotions

10. Intelligence and
Creativity
 Creativity
 the ability to produce novel and
valuable ideas
 expertise
 imaginative thinking skills
 venturesome personality
 intrinsic motivation
 creative environment

11. Brain Function and
Intelligence
 People who can
perceive the
stimulus very
quickly tend to
score somewhat
higher on
intelligence tests
Stimulus Mask
Question: Long side on left or right?

12. Assessing Intelligence
 Aptitude Test
 a test designed to predict a person’s
future performance
 aptitude is the capacity to learn
 Achievement Test
 a test designed to assess what a person
has learned

13. Assessing Intelligence
 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
(WAIS)
 most widely used intelligence test
 subtests
 verbal
 performance (nonverbal)

14. Assessing Intelligence:
Sample Items from the WAIS
VERBAL PERFORMANCE
General Information Picture Completion
Similarities Picture Arrangement
Arithmetic Reasoning Block Design
Vocabulary Object Assembly
Comprehension Digit-Symbol Substitution
Digit Span
From Thorndike and Hagen, 1977

15. Assessing Intelligence
 Standardization
 defining meaningful scores by comparison
with the performance of a pretested
“standardization group”
 Normal Curve
 the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that
describes the distribution of many physical
and psychological attributes
 most scores fall near the average, and fewer
and fewer scores lie near the extremes

16. The Normal Curve

17. Getting Smarter?

18. Assessing Intelligence
 Reliability
 the extent to which a test yields consistent
results
 assessed by consistency of scores on:
 two halves of the test
 alternate forms of the test
 retesting
 Validity
 the extent to which a test measures or
predicts what it is supposed to

19. Assessing Intelligence
 Content Validity
 the extent to which a test samples the
behavior that is of interest
 driving test that samples driving tasks
 Criterion
 behavior (such as college grades) that a
test (such as the SAT) is designed to
predict
 the measure used in defining whether
the test has predictive validity

20. Assessing Intelligence
 Predictive Validity
 success with which a test predicts the
behavior it is designed to predict
 assessed by computing the correlation
between test scores and the criterion
behavior
 also called criterion-related validity

21. Assessing Intelligence
Football 10 Greater correlation
linemen’s
9
over broad range
of body weights
 As the range of
success
8 data under
7
consideration
6
5
narrows, its
4
Little corre-
lation within predictive
3 restricted
range power
2
1
diminishes
0
180 250 290
Body weight in pounds

22. The Dynamics of
Intelligence
 Mental Retardation
 a condition of limited mental ability
 indicated by an intelligence score below 70
 produces difficulty in adapting to the demands
of life
 varies from mild to profound
 Down Syndrome
 retardation and associated physical disorders
caused by an extra chromosome in one’s
genetic makeup

23. The Dynamics of
Intelligence

24. Genetic Influences
 The most
genetically
similar
people have
the most
similar
scores

25. Genetic Influences
 Heritability
 the proportion of variation among
individuals that we can attribute to
genes
 variability depends on range of
populations and environments studied

26. Genetic Influences

27. Environmental
Influences
 The Schooling Effect

28. Group Differences
 Group differences and environmental impact
Variation within group
Variation within group
Seeds
Poor soil Fertile soil
Difference within group

29. Group Differences
 The Mental Rotation Test
Which two of the other circles contain a configuration of blocks
identical to the one in the circle at the left?
Standard Responses

30. Group Differences
 Stereotype Threat
 A self-confirming concern that one
will be evaluated based on a
negative stereotype