intelligence

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Intelligence has been a controversial topic throughout psychology’s history. Despite the substantial interest in the subject, there is still considerable disagreement about what components makeup intelligence. In addition to questions of exactly how to define intelligence, the debate continues today about whether accurate measurements are even possible.

At various points throughout recent history, researchers have proposed some different definitions of intelligence. While these definitions can vary considerably from one theorist to the next, current conceptualizations tend to suggest that intelligence is the ability to:

• Learn from experience:The acquisition, retention, and use of knowledge is an important component of intelligence.
• Recognize problems: To put knowledge to use, people must be able to identify possible problems in the environment that need to be addressed.
• Solve problems:People must then be able to take what they have learned to come up with a useful solution to a problem they have noticed in the world around them.1

Intelligence involves some different mental abilities including logic, reasoning, problem-solving, and planning. While the subject of intelligence is one of the largest and most heavily researched, it is also one of the topics that generate the greatest controversy.

While psychologists often disagree about the definition and causes of intelligence, research on intelligence plays a significant role in many areas. These areas include decisions regarding how much funding should be given to educational programs, the use of testing to screen job applicants, and the use of testing to identify children who need additional academic help.

Brief History of Intelligence

The term “intelligence quotient,” or IQ, was first coined in the early 20th century by a German psychologist named William Stern. Psychologist Alfred Binet developed the very first intelligence tests to help the French government identify schoolchildren who needed extra academic assistance. Binet was the first to introduce the concept of mental age or a set of abilities that children of a certain age possess.2

Since that time, intelligence testing has emerged as a widely used tool that has led to developing many other tests of skill and aptitude. However, it continues to spur debate and controversy over the use of such testing, cultural biases that may be involved, influences on intelligence, and even the very way we define intelligence.

Theories of Intelligence

Different researchers have proposed a variety of theories to explain the nature of intelligence. Here are some of the major theories of intelligence that have emerged during the last 100 years.

General Intelligence

British psychologist Charles Spearman (1863–1945) described a concept he referred to as general intelligence or the g factor. After using a technique known as factor analysis to examine some mental aptitude tests, Spearman concluded that scores on these tests were remarkably similar.

People who performed well on one cognitive test tended to perform well on other tests, while those who scored badly on one test tended to score badly on others. He concluded that intelligence is a general cognitive ability that can be measured and numerically expressed.3

Primary Mental Abilities

Psychologist Louis L.Thurstone (1887–1955) offered a differing theory of intelligence. Instead of viewing intelligence as a single, general ability, Thurstone’s theory focused on seven different primary mental abilities.4

• Associative memory: The ability to memorize and recall
• Numerical ability: The ability to solve arithmetic problems
• Perceptual speed: The ability to see differences and similarities among objects
• Reasoning: The ability to find rules
• Spatial visualization: The ability to visualize relationships
• Verbal comprehension: The ability to define and understand words
• Word fluency: The ability to produce words rapidly

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

One of the more recent ideas to emerge is Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner proposed that the traditional idea of intelligence, based on IQ testing, did not fully and accurately depict a person’s abilities. His theory proposed eight different intelligences based on skills and abilities that are valued in different cultures:5

• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: The ability to control your body movements and to handle objects skillfully
• Interpersonal intelligence: The capacity to detect and respond appropriately to the moods, motivations, and desires of others
• Intrapersonal intelligence: The capacity to be self-aware and in tune with inner feelings, values, beliefs, and thinking processes
• Logical-mathematical intelligence: The ability to think conceptually and abstractly, and the capacity to discern logically or numerical patterns
• Musical intelligence: The ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, and timbre
• Naturalistic intelligence: The ability to recognize and categorize animals, plants, and other objects in nature
• Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to the sounds, meanings, and rhythms of words
• Visual-spatial intelligence: The capacity to think in images and pictures, to visualize accurately and abstractly.

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Psychologist Robert Sternberg defined intelligence as “mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection, and shaping of real-world environments relevant to one’s life.”

While he agreed with Gardner that intelligence is much broader than a single, general ability, he suggested that some of Gardner’s types of intelligence are better viewed as individual talents. Sternberg proposed what he referred to as “successful intelligence,” which involves three different factors:6

• Analytical intelligence:Your ability to evaluate information and solve problems
• Creative intelligence: Your ability to come up with new ideas
• Practical intelligence: Your ability to adapt to a changing environment

Questions About Intelligence Testing

In order to gain a deeper understanding of intelligence and the tests developed to measure this concept, it’s important to understand the history of intelligence testing, the research that has been conducted, and the findings that have emerged.

Major questions about intelligence and IQ testing still include:

• Are intelligence tests biased?
• Is intelligence a single ability, or does it involve an assortment of multiple skills and abilities?
• Is intelligence inherited, or does the environment play a larger role?
• What do intelligence scores predict, if anything?

To explore these questions, psychologists have conducted a considerable amount of research on the nature, influences, and effects of intelligence.

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Types of Intelligence

After examining the popular competing theories of intelligence, it becomes clear that there are many different forms of this seemingly simple concept.

On one hand, Spearman claims that intelligence is generalizable across many different areas of life, and on the other hand, psychologists such as Thurstone, Gardener, and Sternberg hold that intelligence is like a tree with many different branches, each representing a specific form of intelligence.

To make matters even more interesting, let’s throw a few more types of intelligence into the mix!

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is the “ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour” (Salovey and Mayer, 1990).

Emotional intelligence is important in our everyday lives, seeing as we experience one emotion or another nearly every second of our lives. You may not associate emotions and intelligence with one another, but in reality, they are very related.

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to recognize the meanings of emotions and to reason and problem-solve on the basis of them (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999). The four key components of emotional Intelligence are (i) self-awareness, (ii) self-management, (iii) social awareness, and (iv) relationship management.

In other words, if you are high in emotional intelligence, you can accurately perceive emotions in yourself and others (such as reading facial expressions), use emotions to help facilitate thinking, understand the meaning behind your emotions (why are you feeling this way?), and know how to manage your emotions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).

Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence

Raymond Cattell (1963) first proposed the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence and further developed the theory with John Horn.

Fluid intelligence is the ability to problem solve in novel situations without referencing prior knowledge, but rather through the use of logic and abstract thinking. Fluid intelligence can be applied to any novel problem because no specific prior knowledge is required (Cattell, 1963). As you grow older fluid increases and then starts to decrease in the late 20s.

Crystallized intelligence refers to the use of previously-acquired knowledge, such as specific facts learned in school or specific motor skills or muscle memory (Cattell, 1963). As you grow older and accumulate knowledge, crystallized intelligence increases.

The Cattell-Horn (1966) theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence suggests that intelligence is composed of a number of different abilities that interact and work together to produce overall individual intelligence

For example, if you are taking a hard math test, you rely on your crystallized intelligence to process the numbers and meaning of the questions, but you may use fluid intelligence to work through the novel problem and arrive at the correct solution. It is also possible that fluid intelligence can become crystallized intelligence.

The novel solutions you create when relying on fluid intelligence can, over time, develop into crystallized intelligence after they are incorporated into long-term memory.

This illustrates some of the ways in which different forms of intelligence overlap and interact with one another, revealing its dynamic nature.

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Intelligence Testing

Binet-Simon Scale

During the early 1900s, the French government enlisted the help of psychologist Alfred Binet to understand which children were going to be slower learners and thus require more assistance in the classroom (Binet et al., 1912).

As a result, he and his colleague, Theodore Simon, began to develop a specific set of questions that focused on areas such as memory and problem-solving skills.

They tested these questions on groups of students aged three to twelve to help standardize the measure (Binet et al., 1912). Binet realized that some children were able to answer advanced questions that their older peers were able to answer.

As a result, he created the concept of a mental age, or how well an individual performs intellectually relative to the average performance at that age (Cherry, 2020).

Ultimately, Binet finalized the scale, known as the Binet-Simon scale, that became the basis for the intelligence tests still used today.

The Binet-Simon scale of 1905 comprised 30 items designed to measure judgment, comprehension, and reasoning which Binet deemed the key characteristics of intelligence.

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

When the Binet-Simon scale made its way over to the United States, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman adapted the test for American students, and published the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale in 1916 (Cherry, 2020).

The Stanford-Binet Scale is a contemporary assessment which measures intelligence according to five features of cognitive ability, including fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and working memory. Both verbal and nonverbal responses are measured.

This test used a single number, referred to as the intelligence quotient (IQ) to indicate an individual’s score.

The average score for the test is 100, and any score from 90 to 109 is considered to be in the average intelligence range. Score from 110 to 119 are considered to be High Average. Superior scores range from 120 to 129 and anything over 130 is considered Very Superior.

To calculate IQ, the student’s mental age is divided by his or her actual (or chronological) age, and this result is multiplied by 100. If your mental age is equal to your chronological age, you will have an IQ of 100, or average. If, however, your mental age is, say, 12, but your chronological age is only 10, you will have an above-average IQ of 120.

WISC and WAIS

Just as theories of intelligence build off one another, intelligence tests do too. After Terman created Stanford-Binet test, American psychologist David Wechsler developed a new tool due to his dissatisfaction with the limitations of the Stanford-Binet test (Cherry, 2020).

Just like Thurstone, Gardner, and Sternberg, Wechsler believed that intelligence involved many different mental abilities and felt that the Stanford-Binet scale too closely reflected the idea of one general intelligence.

Because of this, Wechsler created the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in 1955, with the most up-to-date version being the WAIS-IV (Cherry, 2020).

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), developed by David Wechsler, is an IQ test designed to measure intelligence and cognitive ability in children between the ages of 6 and 16. It is currently in its fourth edition (WISC-V) released in 2014 by Pearson.

Above Image: WISC-IV Sample Test Question

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), is an IQ test designed to measure cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents, including verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.

The latest version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) was standardized on 2,200 healthy people between the ages of 16 and 90 years (Brooks et al., 2011).

The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of people at different ages in order to compute the average score on the test at each age level

The overall IQ score combines the test takers’ performance in all four categories (Cherry, 2020). And rather than calculating this number based on mental and chronological age, the WAIS compares the individual’s score to the average score at that level, as calculated by the standardization process.

The Flynn Effect

It is important to regularly standardize an intelligence test because the overall level of intelligence in a population may change over time.

This phenomenon is known as the Flynn effect (named after its discoverer, New Zealand researcher James Flynn) which refers to the observation that scores on intelligence tests worldwide increase from decade to decade (Flynn, 1984).

Aptitude vs. Achievement Tests

Other tests, such as aptitude and achievement tests, are designed to measure intellectual capability. Achievement tests measure what content a student has already learned (such as a unit test in history or a final math exam), whereas an aptitude test measures a student’s potential or ability to learn (Anastasi, 1984).

Although this may sound similar to an IQ test, aptitude tests typically measure abilities in very specific areas.

Extremes of Intelligence

IQ scores are generally normally distributed (Moore et al., 2013). That is, roughly 95% of the population has IQ scores between 70 and 130. But what about the other 5%? 

Individuals who fall outside this range represent the extremes of intelligence. 

Those who have an IQ above 130 are considered to be gifted (Lally & French, 2018), such as Christopher Langan, an American horse rancher, who has an IQ score around 200 (Gladwell, 2008).

Those individuals who have scores below 70 do so because of an intellectual disability, marked by substantial developmental delays, including motor, cognitive, and speech delays (De Light, 2012). 

Some of the time, these disabilities are the product of genetic mutations. 

Down syndrome, for example, resulting from extra genetic material from or a complete extra copy of the 21st chromosome, is a common genetic cause of an intellectual disability (Breslin, 2014). As such, many individuals with down syndrome have below average IQ scores (Breslin, 2014). 

Savant syndrome is another example of an extreme of intelligence. Despite having significant mental disabilities, these individuals demonstrate certain abilities in some fields that are far above average, such as incredible memorization, rapid mathematical or calendar calculation ability, or advanced musical talent (Treffert, 2009).

The fact that these individuals who may be lacking in certain areas such as social interaction and communication make up for it in other remarkable areas, further illustrates the complexity of intelligence and what this concept means today, as well as how we must consider all individuals when determining how to perceive, measure, and recognize intelligence in our society.

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Intelligence Today

Today, intelligence is generally understood as the ability to understand and adapt to the environment by using inherited abilities and learned knowledge. 

;Many new intelligence tests have arisen, such as the University of California Matrix Reasoning Task (Pahor et al., 2019), that can be taken online and in very little time, and new methods of scoring these tests have been developed too (Sansone et al., 2014). 

Admission into university and graduate schools rely on specific aptitude and achievement tests, such as the SAT, ACT, and the LSAT – these tests have become a huge part of our lives.

Humans are incredibly intelligent beings and we rely on our intellectual abilities every day. Although intelligence can be defined and measured in countless ways, our overall intelligence as a species makes us incredibly unique and has allowed us to thrive for generations on end.

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