Are You Intelligence-Savvy?

Intelligence: Theories, Assessments, and Influences

• Spearman's General Intelligence theory proposes that humans have one general intelligence that is at the heart of everything a person does.
• Gardner and Sternberg propose multiple intelligences, with Gardner identifying eight relatively independent intelligences and Sternberg proposing three.
• Factor analysis confirms the existence of "g" that predicts performance on a variety of complex tasks.
• Intelligence tests are methods for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others using numerical scores.
• Early tests of mental abilities were developed by Alfred Binet and Lewis Terman, with David Wechsler creating the most widely used intelligence test today.
• Intelligence tests tend to form a normal, or bell-shaped, curve around an average score, with the average score for the Wechsler scale being 100.
• Crystallized intelligence, or accumulated knowledge, increases as we age, into middle age, while fluid intelligence, or the ability to reason speedily and abstractly, decreases with age.
• Intelligence test performance begins to predict adolescent and adult scores by age 4, with remarkable stability of aptitude scores in late adolescence.
• Estimates of the heritability of intelligence range from 50 to 80 percent, with identical twins raised together having nearly identical intelligence test scores.
• Environmental factors, such as schooling and poverty, can influence intelligence scores, with intensive, high-quality preschool programs boosting early intelligence scores.
• Gender differences in intelligence test scores are minor, with girls outpacing boys in spelling, verbal fluency, and locating objects, and boys outperforming girls in tests of spatial ability and complex math problems.
• Racial and ethnic groups differ in their average intelligence test scores, but group differences provide a poor basis for judging individuals, and stereotype threat may impair attention, performance, and learning.

Intelligence: Theories, Assessments, and Influences

• Spearman's General Intelligence theory proposes that humans have one general intelligence that is at the heart of everything a person does.
• Gardner and Sternberg propose multiple intelligences, with Gardner identifying eight relatively independent intelligences and Sternberg proposing three.
• Factor analysis confirms the existence of "g" that predicts performance on a variety of complex tasks.
• Intelligence tests are methods for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others using numerical scores.
• Early tests of mental abilities were developed by Alfred Binet and Lewis Terman, with David Wechsler creating the most widely used intelligence test today.
• Intelligence tests tend to form a normal, or bell-shaped, curve around an average score, with the average score for the Wechsler scale being 100.
• Crystallized intelligence, or accumulated knowledge, increases as we age, into middle age, while fluid intelligence, or the ability to reason speedily and abstractly, decreases with age.
• Intelligence test performance begins to predict adolescent and adult scores by age 4, with remarkable stability of aptitude scores in late adolescence.
• Estimates of the heritability of intelligence range from 50 to 80 percent, with identical twins raised together having nearly identical intelligence test scores.
• Environmental factors, such as schooling and poverty, can influence intelligence scores, with intensive, high-quality preschool programs boosting early intelligence scores.
• Gender differences in intelligence test scores are minor, with girls outpacing boys in spelling, verbal fluency, and locating objects, and boys outperforming girls in tests of spatial ability and complex math problems.
• Racial and ethnic groups differ in their average intelligence test scores, but group differences provide a poor basis for judging individuals, and stereotype threat may impair attention, performance, and learning.