Thurstone’s Model of Intelligence

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Thurstones Model of Intelligence

• Alison Carr
• Tests Measures- Fall 2006

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Louis Leon Thurstone, Ph.D.1887-1955
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Primary Works

• Reliability and Validity of Tests (1931)
• Vectors of the Mind (1935)
• Multiple-Factor Analysis (1944)

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defining Intelligence

• - Intelligence as judged in every-day life
  contains at least three psychologically
  differentiable components a) the capacity to
  inhibit an instinctive adjustment, b) the
  capacity to redefine the inhibited instinctive
  adjustment in the light of imaginally experienced
  trial and error, c) the volitional capacity to
  realize the modified instinctive adjustment into
  overt behavior to the advantage of the individual
  as a social animal.
• -Thurstone, 1919
• - Cognitive vs. Mental Process

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Psychometrics Psychological Testing

• What is Psychometrics?
• Quantitative vs. Qualitative testing
• - Assumptions about intelligence

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7 Primary Mental Abilities

• Verbal Fluency
• Verbal Comprehension
• Numbers
• Spatial Visualization
• Memory
• Inductive Reasoning
• Perceptual Speed

g
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Qualities of Thurstones Theory

• Intelligence as a composite of abilities
• Attempted to isolate different intelligences
• social from nonsocial intelligence
• academic from nonacademic intelligence
• mechanical from abstract intelligence

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Testing his Theory

• Test of Primary Mental Abilities was given to
  children. Findings
• each primary factor is composed of
• an Independent primary factor
• a general factor (g) that is shared by all of
  the primary factors
• conclusion intelligence consists of general
  ability AND many specific abilities.

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Further Research

• Gardner
• Guilford