Intelligence

Intelligence: defined as one's capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving. More simply it is described as teh ability to perceive or infer information, as well as retain knowledge so as to apply it to adaptive behaviours.

Latent concept of intelligence: scientific notion of intelligence derives initially from psychometric intstruments that predict performance in school. Thus, intelligence is directly inferred from relationship between test scores and other criteria.

Gottfredson (1994) "A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings - 'catching on', 'making sense' of things, or 'figuring out' what to do".

Juan Harte de San Juan (1575): Spanish physician and psychologist published the earliest scientific writing on intelligence

Francis Galton (1822-1911): claimed that genius was hereditary and normally distributed in the population. Intelligence affects selection and competition for survival. Advocated for, and was the father of eugenics - wanted people who he deemed to be most intelligent to breed together and create a more intelligent generation of people

First ability tests:

Alfred Binet (1857-1911): designed the first intelligence test in collaboration with Theodore Simon. Consisted of 30 items in increasing difficulty, with every 6 items corresonding to one age group - Level 3 corresponded to 3 year-olds.

Crystallised and fluid intelligence

Crystallised:

• Ability to use skills knowledge, and experience
• Doesn't equate to memory, but does involve accessing information from long-term memory
• This type of intelligence is one's lifetime of intellectual achievement
• Improves somewhat with age, as experiences tend to expand one's knowledge

Fluid

• Capacity to reason and solve new problems, independent of past knowledge
• Ability to analyse new problems, identify patterns and relationships that underpin these problems
• Necessary for all logical problem solving

They are generally validated in large, representative samples: concurrent and criterion validity. Items fulfil certain psychometric criteria. They are interpreted in terms of the bell curve (normal distribution). They aim to assess individual differences in ability.

Tests can differ in scope, format, and length, as well as in what type of items are included. They may include psychological, pedagogical, and medical approaches. What kind of intelligence is being tested varies, and whether the test is administered to a group or to individuals.

The traditiona lnotion of intelligence is not sufficiently comprehensive and may be too mathetmatically and verbally based. There is more to intelligence than IQ tests can measure

Conclusions:

Intelligence is hard to define but may be summed up as the ability to think logically and learn. Intelligence tests were originally designed to be valid predictors of school performance, but today that is measured through a variety of standardised performance tests

IQ tests predict school and job performance but there may be more to intelligence than just a high IQ. People can be smart in ways that are not measured by traditional intelligence tests. Alternative concepts to IQ are referred to as theories of "hot" intelligences.

IQ doesn't provide a full account of individual differences in life success. Interpersonal skills are independent of IQ: people who do well on IQ tests aren't necessarily able when it comes to dealing with others. Interpersonal skills should be conceptualised as a form of ability or intelligence.

E.L Thorndike (1920) social intelligence: ability to read people, manage others, and act wisely in social relationships. Vernon (1933) defines social intelligence as "the ability to get along with people in general, social technique or ease in society, knowledge of social matters, susceptibility to stimuli from other members of a group, as well as insight into the temporary moods or underlying personality traits of strangers".

Gardner: traditional understandings of intelligence, i.e IQ testing, is too limited. Instead, he came up with several different forms of intelligence: logical/mathematical, linguistic/verbal, musical, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, naturalistic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.

Multiple intelligences are empirically expressions of general processes i.e general intelligence (Visser et al, 2006)

There is no empirical evidence and no usable tests to support the theory.

Ability Emotional Intelligence model (Salovey et al, 1990)

• Perceive emotions - detecting and deciphering emotions in faces, pictures, voices and cultural artifacts, including ability to identify one's own emotions
• Use emotions - harnessing emotions to facilitate various cognitive activies (i.e problem solving). An emotionally intelligent person capitalises on changing moods to best fit the environmnet
• Understand emotions - comprehending emotion language and appreciating complicated relationships among emotions. For example, ability to recognise how emotions evolve over time
• Manage emotions - regulating emotions in self and others. An emotionally intelligent person can harness negative emotions and manage them to achieve goals

Sternberg: intelligence is a mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real-world environments relevant to one's life.

Componential/analytical: able to take apart problems and being able to see solutions not often seen

Experiential/creative: able to deal with novel problems

Practical/contextual: able to deal with the mental activity involved in attaining fit to context

Analytical intelligence is related to g, but creative and practical are not. Most evidence comes from lay beliefs about intelligence rather than actual tests of practical intelligence