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Summary Theme 4 Personality Psychology Notes
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These are the notes for Theme 4 of the Personality Psychology course.
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THEME 4I. DEFINING INTELLIGENCE
It is hard to define intelligence, because it is not observable directly, but people measure it based
on a person's behavior.
• implicit theories of intelligence = judgements based on non-expert or a layperson's
beliefs
↳ the alternative → explicit theories of intelligence = formally derived, based on
export opinion (proposed by researchers and can be tested empirically)
The top 6 elements of intelligence according to experts:
o abstract reasoning
o problem-solving ability
o capacity to acquire knowledge
o memory
o adaptation to one's environment
o mental speed
II. IMPLICIT THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE
• incremental theory = belief that intelligence in malleable
• entity theory = belief that intelligence is fixed
↳ the former is found to be associated with positive emotions and self-regulation and the
latter with negative emotions and self-handicapping
!!! The definitions of intelligence vary from one culture to another.
** study with Finnish and Russian school pupils (11-12 y.o.) drawing an intelligent pupil and an
ordinary one (elicited a concept of intelligence?)
** study that elicited an implicit theory → ask people to estimate their IQ and the IQ of others
around them → showed implicit theories of heritability, gender differences and even specific
intelligence differences
** study that asked what people count as intelligent behaviors showed intelligence is viewed
differently and the final results were put in 3 categories:
o solving practical problems
o verbal ability
o social intelligence (noticing social cues)
III. APPROACHES TO AND HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE
Francis Galton observations in the late 1800's are thought as the start of individual
differences/differential psychology.
Approaches to classifying intelligence:
, o psychometric approach (most well- established, high predictive validity, useful
and practical tools)
o biological approach (genetics, brain imaging)
o cognitive-experiential approach
1. Psychometric Approaches to Intelligence.
• psychometrics = measurement of psychological functions and processes, tries to quantify
them
→ Galton was interested in individual differences and sensory thresholds (ex.: detecting subtle
changes in weight)
→ James Cattell (at the same time) was interested in measuring psychological functions of
people quantitatively measuring
↳ first to use the words "mental test"
→ Alfred Binet is credited as the founder of intelligence testing and with Theodore Simon
created the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence (30 tasks, increasingly harder which indicated the
mental age and the child's performance could be compared to others of his age)
→ Dirk Herderschee, in The Netherlands, adopted the Binet-Simon to identify children who
needed special education (were retarded)
↳ BUT the test favored scholastic and verbal knowledge
→ Lewis Terman, in California, adapted the Binet Scale which became the Stanford-Binet Scale
and compared performance of kids from the same age group → standardized testing
→ Wilhelm Stern, in Germany, introduced the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in 1912
↳ IQ = Mental Age / Chronological Age * 100
↳ BUT it wasn't as efficient in adults due to them no longer increasing
exponentially in their mental capabilities like children
→ WW1 → intelligence tests in batches are wanted (Army Alpha and Beta)
↳ Army Alpha was for English speaking literate recruits Army Beta was for non-English
speakers and illiterate people
1.1) General Intelligence Theories
→ Charles Spearman (from UK) proposed the theory of general intelligence (g) in 1927. He
used factor analysis to analyze the link between intellectual task performances.
• factor analysis = statistical method that reduces the complexity of groups of variables
(highly intercorrelated tasks are grouped together → aims to find the smallest nr. of
factors that can account for the task scare correlations)
↳ largest task score = g (Spearman - mental energy possessed by all). He noted
somebody's scores on intellectual tasks were intercorrelated - positive manifold.
↳ many specific abilities (s) can account for the scores
→ David Wechsler developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test and started the use of
'deviation IQ', to replace the mental age IQ concept
↳ IQ deviation = Actual Test Score / Expected Score for Age * 100
↳ expected IQ scores from groups are norms obtained from scores from a large
nr. of individuals groups within bands of age groups (bell curve distribution)
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