Psy i ch.8

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2006

Intelligence and Creativity

Chapter Eight

This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law:

• Any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network;

• Preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any images;

• Any rental, lease, or lending of the program.

Slide author:

Cynthia K. Shinabarger Reed

Book authors:

Samuel Wood

Ellen G. Wood

Denise Boyd


Chapter Eight Overview

The Nature of Intelligenceo The Search for Factors Underlying Intelligenceo Intelligence: More than One Type?

Measuring Intelligenceo Binet and the First Successful Intelligence Testo Intelligence Testing in the United Stateso Reliability, Validity, and Standardization



The Range of Intelligence

o The Bell Curve

o Giftedness

o Mental Retardation

o Intelligence and Neural Processing



The IQ Controversyo The Uses of Intelligence Testso The Abuses of Intelligence Testso The Heritability of Intelligenceo Race and IQo Intelligence: Fixed or Changeable?o Expectations, Effort, and Standardized Test

Scores



Emotional Intelligence

o Personal Components of Emotional Intelligence

o Interpersonal Components of Emotional Intelligence



Creativity

o The Creative Process

o The Nature of Creative Thinking

o Measuring Creativity

o Characteristics of Creative People

o Savant Syndrome


Nature of Intelligence

Intelligence: an individual’s ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, and to overcome obstacles through mental effort.



The Search for Factors Underlying Intelligence

Spearman and General Intelligence

• Charles Spearman observed that people who are good at one type of thinking or cognition tend to do well in other types as well.

• He came to believe that intelligence is composed of a general ability, or g factor, which underlies all intellectual functions.

• Spearman arrived at his g factor theory when he found positive relationships among scores on the subtests of intelligence tests.



The Search for Factors Underlying Intelligence (continued)

Spearman and General Intelligence continued

• But some of the correlations between subtests were much higher than others.

• Spearman concluded that some other abilities in addition to the g factor must be being assessed by some subtests.

• These other abilities Spearman named s factors for specific abilities.


Nature of IntelligenceThe Search for Factors Underlying Intelligence

(continued)

Spearman and General Intelligence continued• Spearman concluded that intelligence tests tap a

person’s g factor and a number of s factors.• Robert Plomin asserts that the g factor is among the

most valid and reliable measures of intelligence, better than other measures in predicting success in social, educational, and occupational endeavors.

• Brain-imaging studies show that general intelligence tasks are associated with specific areas of the frontal cortex in one or both hemispheres.



The Search for Factors Underlying Intelligence (continued)

Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities

• Louis L. Thurstone rejected Spearman’s notion of a general intellectual ability.

• After analyzing the scores of many research participants on 56 separate tests, Thurstone identified seven primary mental abilities: verbal comprehension, numerical ability, spatial relations, perceptual speed, word fluency, memory, and reasoning.



Intelligence: More Than One Type?

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

• Howard Gardner denies the existence of a g factor.

• He proposes eight independent forms of intelligence, or frames of mind.




Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences• Gardner first developed his theory by studying

patients with different types of brain damage that affect some forms of intelligence, but leave others intact.

• He also studied reports of people with savant syndrome, who show a combination of mental retardation and unusual talent or ability.




Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence• Triarchic theory of intelligence: Sternberg’s

theory that there are three types of intelligence – componential (analytical), experiential (creative), and contextual (practical).

• Sternberg claims that traditional IQ tests measure only componential, or analytical, intelligence.


Measuring Intelligence

Binet and the First Successful Intelligence Test

• Franz Gall proposed that measurements of the size and shape of an individual’s skull could be used to estimate an individual’s intelligence; this proposal failed.

• Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon tested school children in Paris in 1904 for intelligence levels.

• They published their intelligence scale in 1905 and revised it in 1908 and again in 1911.

• The Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale was an immediate success.



Binet and the First Successful Intelligence Test (continued)

• Binet established the concept that mental retardation and mental superiority are a function of the difference between chronological age (actual age in years) and mental age.

• Binet believed that children with a mental age 2 years below their chronological age were retarded and should be placed in special education classes.



Binet and the First Successful Intelligence Test (continued)

• William Stern devised a simple formula for calculating an index of intelligence – the intelligence quotient (IQ).

• He divided a child’s mental age by his or her chronological age to obtain this index.



Intelligence Testing in the United States

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

• Lewis M. Terman published a thorough revision of the Binet-Simon scale in 1916.

• He revised and adapted the items for American children, added new items, and established norms – standards based on the test scores of a large number of individuals and used as bases for comparison.


Measuring IntelligenceIntelligence Testing in the United States

(continued)

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (continued)• Terman’s revision was known as the Stanford-Binet

Intelligence Scale.• It is an individually administered IQ test for those

aged 2 to 23.• It contains four subscales: verbal reasoning,

quantitative reasoning, abstract visual reasoning, and short-term memory.

• An overall IQ score is derived from scores on the four subscales, and the test scores correlate well with achievement test scores.



Intelligence Testing in the United States (continued)

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (continued)

• Intelligence quotient: an index of intelligence originally derived by dividing mental age by chronological age and then multiplying by 100; now derived by comparing an individual’s score with the scores of others of the same age.




The Wechsler Intelligence Tests

• Deviation score: a test score calculated by comparing an individual’s score with the scores of others of the same age on whom the intelligence test was normed.

• David Wechsler contributed the deviation score and developed the first successful individual intelligence test for adults, designed for those age 16 and older.




The Wechsler Intelligence Tests continued• His test has been revised, restandardized, and

renamed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III).

• An individual intelligence test for adults that yields separate verbal and performance IQ scores as well as an overall IQ score.




The Wechsler Intelligence Tests (continued)

• Wechsler believed that differences in a person’s scores on the various verbal and performance subtests could be used for diagnostic purposes.




Group Intelligence Tests

• Administering individual intelligence tests is expensive and time-consuming.

• The tests must be given to one person at a time by a qualified professional.

• For testing large numbers of people in a short period of time on a limited budget, group intelligence tests are the answer.



Reliability, Validity, and Standardization

• Reliability: the ability of a test to yield nearly the same score when the same people are tested and then retested on the same test or an alternative form of the test.

• Validity: the ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure.

• Aptitude test: a test designed to predict a person’s achievement or performance at some future time.



Reliability, Validity, and Standardization (continued)

• Standardization: the process of establishing both norms for interpreting scores on a test and standard procedures for administering the test.

• Test items that are valid in one cultural context may lose their validity in a different context.

• Intelligence tests must undergo continuous revision to maintain their validity.



The Bell Curve• When large populations are measured on

intelligence or on physical characteristics, such as height or blood pressure, a graph of the frequencies of all the test scores or results usually conforms to a bell-shaped distribution known as the normal curve, or sometimes as the bell curve.

• The majority of scores cluster around the mean (average).



The Bell Curve (continued)• The more the scores deviate, or the farther

away they are, from the mean – either above or below – the fewer there are.

• The curve is perfectly symmetrical, that is, there are just as many scores above as below the mean.

• The average test score for all people in the same age group is arbitrarily assigned an IQ score of 100.



Giftedness

Terman’s Study of “Genius”• Lewis Terman launched a longitudinal study,

now a classic, in which 1,528 students with “genius” IQs were measured at different ages throughout their lives.

• He concluded that “there is no law of compensation whereby the intellectual superiority of the gifted is offset by inferiorities along nonintellectual lines.”



Giftedness (continued)

Who Are the Gifted?

• Beginning in the early 1920s, the term gifted was used to describe the intellectually superior, those with IQs in the upper 2-3% of the U.S. population.

• Today the term also includes both the exceptionally creative and those who excel in the visual or performing arts.



Giftedness (continued)

Who Are the Gifted? (continued)

• Traditionally, special programs for the gifted have involved either acceleration or enrichment.

• Acceleration enables students to progress at a rate that is consistent with their ability.

• Enrichment aims to broaden students’ knowledge by giving them special courses in foreign languages, music appreciation, and the like or by providing special experiences designed to foster advanced thinking skills.



Mental Retardation• Mental retardation: individuals with IQ scores

below 70 and who have a severe deficiency in everyday adaptive functioning – the ability to care for themselves and relate to others.

• Individuals with IQs ranging from 55 to 70 are considered mildly retarded; from 40 to 55, moderately retarded; from 25-40, severely retarded; and below 25, profoundly retarded.



Mental Retardation (continued)• There are many causes of mental retardation,

including brain injuries, chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome, chemical deficiencies, and hazards present during fetal development.

• Inclusion (or mainstreaming): educating mentally retarded students in regular schools and may involve placing these students in classes with nonretarded students for part of the day or in special classrooms in regular schools.



Intelligence and Neural Processing

• Some scientists believe that biochemical differences may explain variations in normal intelligence.

• Some researchers have found that processing speed is related to intelligence and that processing speed accelerates as children get older.


The IQ Controversy

The Uses of Intelligence Tests• IQ scores are fairly good predictors of academic

performance.• Neisser and others, “Successful school learning

depends on many personal characteristics other than intelligence, such as persistence, interest in school, and willingness to study.”

• Studies indicate that intelligence test scores are related to a wide range of social outcomes, including job performance, income, social status, and years of education completed.


The IQ Controversy

The Abuses of Intelligence Tests• Abuses occur when scores on intelligence or

aptitude tests are the only, or even the major, criterion for admitting people to various educational programs.

• Intelligence tests do not measure attitude and motivation, critical ingredients of success.

• Early categorization based solely on IQ scores can doom children to slow-track educational programs that are not appropriate for them.


The IQ Controversy

The Abuses of Intelligence Tests (continued)

• Another problem with intelligence tests is that they are sometimes designed in such a way that their results reflect cultural bias.

• Culture-fair intelligence test: an intelligence test that uses questions that will not penalize those whose cultural background and/or language differs from that of the white middle and upper classes.


The IQ Controversy

The Heritability of Intelligence

• Nature-nurture controversy: the debate over whether intelligence and other traits are primarily the result of heredity (nature) or the environment (nurture).

• Sir Francis Galton initiated the debate over whether intelligence is predominantly the result of heredity or the environment.

• Heritability: a measure of the degree to which a characteristic is estimated to be influenced by heredity.


The IQ Controversy

The Heritability of Intelligence (continued)• Thomas Bouchard reports that various types of

twin studies have consistently yielded heritability estimates of .60 to .70 for intelligence.

• Plomin and others found the heritability estimate for general intelligence to be .52.

• Adoption study method: a method researchers use to study the relative effects of heredity and environment on behavior and ability in children adopted shortly after birth by comparing them with their biological and adoptive parents.


The IQ Controversy

The Heritability of Intelligence (continued)

• Bouchard and others claim that “although parents may be able to affect their children’s rate of cognitive skill acquisition, they may have relatively little influence on the ultimate level attained.”

• A great deal of convincing research does argue for the importance of genes in determining intelligence, including language skills.


The IQ Controversy

Race and IQ• Arthur Jensen published an article in which he

attributed the IQ gap to genetic differences between the races.

• He claimed that the genetic influence on intelligence is so strong that the environment cannot make a significant difference.

• Jensen even went so far as to claim that Blacks and Whites possess qualitatively different kinds of intelligence.


The IQ ControversyRace and IQ (continued)• Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray argued that IQ

differences among individuals and between groups explain how those at the top of the ladder in U.S. society got there and why those at the lower rungs of society’s ladder remain there.

• Jensen’s and Hernstein and Murray’s views run counter to the belief that an enriched, stimulating environment can overcome the deficits of poverty and cultural disadvantage and thus reduce any negative effects these have on IQ.

• There are studies that suggest that changes in environment can increase IQ scores.


The IQ Controversy

Intelligence: Fixed or Changeable?

• The high degree of similarity in the intelligence scores of identical twins who have been reared apart makes a strong case for the powerful influences of genetics.

• None of us inherits a specific IQ score, instead our genes probably set the boundaries of a fairly wide range of possible performance levels, called the reaction range.

• Our environments determine where we end up within that range.


The IQ ControversyIntelligence: Fixed or Changeable? (continued)

Adoption Studies• The IQ scores of adopted children tend to resemble

those of their biological parents more than their adopted families.

• Sandra Scarr and Richard Weinberg found a different pattern among adopted children whose biological and adoptive parents differed both in race and in socioeconomic status.

• Their study involved 130 Black and interracial children who had been adopted by highly educated, upper-middle class White families; 99 of the children had been adopted in the first year of life.


The IQ ControversyIntelligence: Fixed or Changeable?

(continued)

Adoption Studies (continued)

• The adoptees were fully exposed to middle-class cultural experiences and vocabulary, the “culture of the tests and the school.”

• The average IQ score among the studied adoptees was 106.3.

• On the average, the earlier the children were adopted, the higher their IQs.


The IQ Controversy

Intelligence: Fixed or Changeable? (continued)Early Childhood Interventions• Research examining the effects of preschool

programs involving infants and young children from poor families clearly indicates that early educational experiences can affect intellectual functioning.

• Craig Ramey carried out an intervention program and experiment in which 6- to 12-month-old infants of low-IQ, low-income mothers were randomly assigned either to an intensive 40-hour-per-week day-care program that continued throughout the preschool years or to a control group that received only medical care and nutritional supplements.



(continued)Early Childhood Interventions (continued)• When the children reached school age, half in

each group (again based on random assignment) were enrolled in a special after-school program that helped their families learn how to support school learning with educational activities at home.

• Ramey followed the progress of children in all four groups through age 12, giving them IQ tests at various ages.


The IQ ControversyIntelligence: Fixed or Changeable? (continued)Early childhood interventions (continued)• Children who participated in Ramey’s infant and

preschool program scored higher on IQ tests than peers who received either no intervention or only the school-age intervention.

• During the elementary school years, about 40 percent of the control group participants had IQ scores classified as borderline or retarded, compared to only 12.8 percent of those who were in the infant program.

• Recent research shows that the cognitive advantage enjoyed by the infant intervention group has persisted into adulthood.



(continued)

Changes in Standard of Living• James Flynn analyzed 73 studies involving

some 7,500 participants ranging in age from 12 to 48 and found that “every Binet and Wechsler sample from 1932 to 1978 has performed better than its predecessor.”

• The consistent improvement in IQ scores over time that accompanies changes in standards of living is known as the Flynn effect.


The IQ ControversyIntelligence: Fixed or Changeable? (continued)

Changes in Standard of Living

• Some researchers suggest that the Flynn effect is caused by those parts of IQ tests that measure learning rather than the g factor.

• Some observers claim that improved nutrition and prenatal care are responsible for gains in neurological functioning that have resulted in increased IQ scores.

• However, Flynn argues that such changes should affect those at the bottom of the IQ scale more than those at the top.


The IQ Controversy

Intelligence: Fixed or Changeable? (continued)

Changes in Standard of Living• Flynn points out that there has been just as

much change among high scorers as among those whose scores are below average.

• Flynn argues that the more general cultural changes, such as the increased popularity of cognitively demanding leisure activities, have produced these gains.


The IQ Controversy

Intelligence: Fixed or Changeable? (continued)

Changes in Standard of Living

• Decreased family size is another cultural change that could contribute to these gains.

• Some psychologists believe that changes in standards of living may also be narrowing the Black-White IQ gap.


The IQ Controversy

Expectations, Effort, and Standardized Test Scores• Harold Stevenson and others compared the math

scores of randomly selected elementary school children from three comparable cities: Taipei in Taiwan, Sendai in Japan, and Minneapolis in the United States.

• Though all groups were fairly equal at the beginning of school, by the fifth grade, the Asian students were outscoring the Americans by about 15 points.

• The Asian superiority held firmly from the highest to the lowest achievement levels.


The IQ ControversyExpectations, Effort, and Standardized Test Scores

(continued)

Cultural Beliefs• Stevenson and his colleagues interviewed the

parents of their study participants.• The Chinese and Japanese mothers considered

academic achievement to be the most important pursuit of their children, whereas American parents did not value it as a central concern.


The IQ Controversy

Expectations, Effort, and Standardized Test Scores (continued)

Cultural Beliefs (continued)• The Asian, but not the American, families structured

their home activities to promote academic achievement as soon as their first child started elementary school.

• The Asian parents downplayed the importance of innate ability, but emphasized the value of hard work and persistence.


The IQ Controversy

Expectations, Effort, and Standardized Test Scores continued

Cultural Beliefs (continued)• American parents, in contrast, believed more firmly

in genetic limitations on ability and achievement.• In follow-up studies, Stevenson and others found

that the achievement gap between Asian and American students persisted over a 10-year period.

• Researchers suggest that Asian teenagers typically enjoy support and encouragement for their academic achievement from family and peers alike.


The IQ Controversy


Formal education• For many years the National Center for

Educational Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, has tracked the math and science achievement test scores of thousands of children all over the world in a study known as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).


The IQ Controversy


Formal education (continued)

• The most recent data show that children in many European nations and in Canada, societies with cultural values quite similar to those of the United States, achieve scores that are comparable to those of students in Asian nations.


The IQ Controversy


Formal education (continued)• Researchers have looked at other kinds of

environmental factors besides differences in cultural values.

• In Singapore, the nation ranked first in mathematics in the TIMSS data, parents begin teaching their children about numbers and the relationships among numbers long before the children enter school.


The IQ Controversy


Formal education (continued)• Teaching methods, too, can vary widely from

one country to another.• Another important aspect of math teaching,

emphasis on computational fluency, has been found to contribute to math achievement differences both across cultures and across classrooms within the United States.



• Emotional intelligence is a type of intelligence that includes an awareness of and an ability to manage one’s own emotions, the ability to motivate oneself, empathy, and the ability to handle relationships successfully.

• Peter Salovey and David Pizarro proposed that emotional intelligence includes the ability to perceive emotions, the capacity to use emotions to aid cognitive processes, and a comprehension of emotions.



• Emotional intelligence is unrelated to IQ scores.

• Scores on tests of emotional intelligence predict both academic and social success.

• Those who are high in emotional intelligence often emerge as leaders.



Personal Components of Emotional Intelligence

Awareness and Management of One’s Emotions

• Daniel Goleman, one of several authors who have popularized the notion of emotional intelligence, insists that the goal is balance and that every feeling has value and significance.

• Among individuals who experience intense emotions, individual differences in the ability to assign meaning to those feelings predict differences in the ability to manage them.



Personal Components of Emotional Intelligence (continued)

Self-motivation• Self-motivation refers to strong emotional self-

control, which enables a person to get moving and pursue worthy goals, persist at tasks even when frustrated, and resist the temptation to act on impulse.

• Of all the attributes of emotional intelligence, the ability to postpone immediate gratification and to persist in working toward some greater future gain is most closely related to success.



Interpersonal Components of Emotional Intelligence

Empathy• Empathy: a sensitivity to the needs and

feelings of others; appears to be a higher level of development that springs from self-awareness.

• One key indicator of the empathy component of emotional intelligence is the ability to read and interpret nonverbal behavior.



Interpersonal components of emotional intelligence (continued)

Handling relationships• Emotional intelligence has a great deal to do

with forming and maintaining successful relationships.

• Two components of emotional intelligence that are prerequisites for handling relationships are (1) the ability to manage one’s own emotions, and (2) empathy.


Creativity

Creativity: the ability to produce original, appropriate, and valuable ideas and/or solutions to problems.

The Creative Process• Research studies indicate that useful and genuine

creativity rarely appears in the form of sudden flashes.

• Creative ideas that come to conscious awareness have been incubating for some time.

• Most experts agree that genuine creativity “is an accomplishment born of intensive study, long reflection, persistence and interest.”


Creativity

The Creative Process (continued)

There are basically four stages in the creative problem-solving process:

1. Preparation: searching for information that may help solve the problem

2. Incubation: letting the problem “sit” while the relevant information is digested

3. Illumination: being suddenly struck by the right solution

4. Translation: transforming the insight into useful action


Creativity

The Nature of Creative Thinking

• J.P. Guilford studied creativity for several decades and believes that creative thinkers are highly proficient at divergent thinking.

• Divergent thinking: the ability to produce multiple ideas, answers, or solutions to a problem for which there is no agreed-on solution.

• Convergent thinking: the type of mental activity measured by IQ and achievement tests; it consists of solving precisely defined, logical problems for which there is a known correct answer.


Creativity

The Nature of Creative Thinking (continued)• Convergent thinking is characterized by greater

activity in the left frontal cortex, while divergent thinking is marked by higher levels of activity in the right frontal cortex.

• Carlson and others found striking differences in the frontal lobe activity between participants who were engaged in highly creative thinking and those who were not.


Creativity

The Nature of Creative Thinking (continued)

• Some psychologists have criticized what might be called the trait approach to the study of creativity – the notion that creativity is a unique type of thought characteristic of certain people.

• John Baer argues that creativity is a domain-specific set of cognitive skills.


Creativity

Measuring Creativity• Tests designed to measure creativity emphasize

original approaches to arriving at solutions for open-ended problems or to producing artistic works.

• Mednick and Mednick, who reasoned that the essence of creativity consists of the creative thinker’s ability to fit together ideas that to the noncreative thinker might appear remote or unrelated, created the Remote Associates Test (RAT).

• The main weakness of creativity tests is that they measure creativity in the abstract.


Creativity

Characteristics of Creative People

1. Expertise

2. Openness to Experience

3. Independence of Mind

4. Intrinsic Motivation

5. Perseverance


CreativitySavant Syndrome• Savant syndrome, an unusual combination of mental

retardation and genius, is a condition that allows an individual whose level of general intelligence is very low to perform certain highly creative or difficult mental tasks.

• Savants demonstrate high levels of performance across a variety of domains.

• Savants who can rapidly determine day-date associations in the past and future, known as calendrical savants, appear to have enhanced abilities to calculate and to associate all kinds of verbal and numerical stimuli.


Review of Learning Objectives

The Nature of Intelligence

1. What factors underlie intelligence, according to Spearman and Thurstone?

2. What types of intelligence did Gardner and Sternberg identify?




1. What is Binet’s major contribution to intelligence testing?

2. How did the work of Terman and Wechsler influence intelligence testing in the United States?

3. Why are reliability, validity, and standardization important in intelligence testing?



The Range of Intelligence1. What does the term “bell curve” mean when

applied to IQ test scores?2. According to the Terman study, how do the

gifted differ from the general population?3. What two criteria must a person meet to be

classified as mentally retarded?4. What is the relationship between intelligence

and the efficiency and speed of neural processing?



The IQ Controvery

1. Of what are intelligence tests good predictors?

2. What are some abuses of intelligence tests?

3. What is the nature – nurture controversy regarding intelligence, and how do twin studies support the view that intelligence is inherited?



The IQ Controvery (continued)

4. What are Jensen’s and Herrnstein and Murray’s controversial views on race and IQ?

5. What kinds of evidence suggest that IQ is changeable rather than fixed?

6. How might parental expectations and teaching methods influence scores on standardized tests?




1. What are the personal components of emotional intelligence?

2. What are the interpersonal components of emotional intelligence?



Creativity1. What are the four stages in the creative

problem-solving process?2. How does creative thinking differ from other

forms of cognition?3. What are some tests that have been used to

measure creativity?4. What are some characteristics of creative

people?5. How do savants differ from other people?

Psy i ch.8

Technology

Transcript of Psy i ch.8