AP PSYCHOLOGY

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AP PSYCHOLOGY

• Chapter 8
• Intelligence

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What is Intelligence?

• Intelligence
• capacity for goal-directed and adaptive behavior
• involves certain abilities
• profit from experience
• solve problems
• reason effectively

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What is Intelligence?

• IQ is a score on a test
• it is not something you have
• Is intelligence singular or multiple abilities?
• Does it relate to
  speed of brain processing?

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Intelligence

• Is intelligence culturally defined?
• Are intelligence tests culture free?

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Origins of Intelligence

• Intelligence Test
• a method of assessing an individuals
  mental aptitudes and comparing them to those of
  others, using numerical scores

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Origins of Intelligence

• Stanford-Binet
• the widely used American revision of Alfred
  Binets original intelligence test
• revised by Lewis Terman at Stanford
  University

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Origins of Intelligence

• 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

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Example of Test Material

• The Mental Rotation Test of Spatial Abilities

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Origins of Intelligence

• 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 it is the average
  performance for a given age is assigned a score
  of 100

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AP PSYCHOLOGY

• Chapter 8
• Intelligence

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Assessing Intelligence

• Aptitude Test
• a test designed to predict a persons future
  performance
• aptitude is the capacity to learn
• Achievement Test
• a test designed to assess what a person has
  learned

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Assessing Intelligence

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• most widely used intelligence test
• subtests
• verbal
• performance (nonverbal)
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
• similar to WAIS, but for school children

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Assessing Intelligence- Sample Items from the WAIS
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Assessing Intelligence

• 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

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The Normal Curve
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Assessing Intelligence

• Standardization
• defining meaningful scores by comparison with the
  performance of a pretested standardization group

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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 the same individual

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Assessing Intelligence

• Validity
• the extent to which a test measures or predicts
  what it is suppose to
• 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

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Assessing Intelligence

• Content Validity
• the extent to which a test samples the behavior
  that is of interest
• driving test that samples driving tasks

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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

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AP PSYCHOLOGY

• Chapter 8
• Intelligence

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Are There Multiple Intelligences?

• Factor Analysis
• statistical procedure that identifies clusters of
  related items (called factors) on a test
• used to identify different dimensions of
  performance that underlie ones total score
• General Intelligence (g)
• factor that Spearman and others believed
  underlies specific mental abilities
• measured by every task on an intel. test

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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
• critical part of social intelligence

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Brain Function and Intelligence

• People who can perceive the stimulus very quickly
  tend to score somewhat higher on intelligence
  tests

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Genetic Influences

• The most genetically similar people have the most
  similar scores

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Genetic Influences

• Heritability
• the proportion of variation among individuals
  that we can attribute to genes
• variability depends on range of populations and
  environments studied

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Are There Multiple Intelligences?

• Savant Syndrome
• condition in which a person otherwise limited in
  mental ability has an amazing specific
  skill
• computation
• drawing

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Why Do Intelligent People Fail?
• Intelligent people sometimes make a mess of
  their lives. Why?
• Robert Sternberg identified 20 stumbling blocks
  that can get in the way of even the brightest
  people.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Lack of motivation.
• Lack of impulse control.
• Lack of perseverance and perseveration.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Using the wrong abilities.
• Inability to translate thought into action.
• Lack of product orientation.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Inability to complete tasks.
• Failure to initiate.
• Fear of failure.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Procrastination.
• Misattribution of blame.
• Excessive self-pity.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Excessive dependency.
• Wallowing in personal difficulties.
• Distractibility and lack of compensation.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Spreading oneself too thin or too thick.
• Inability to delay gratification.
• Inability to see the forest for the trees.

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The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Lack of balance between critical, analytical
  thinking and creative, synthetic thinking.
• Too little or too much self-confidence.