9.1 | Measuring Intelligence

Question 1

Galton’s Anthropometric Approach

Answer 1

• anthropometric: the method of measuring physical and mental variations in humans
• the idea that people with heightened sensory abilities were able to take in more information and thus, were smarter
• found no correlation and was thus abandoned

Question 2

Intelligence

Answer 2

• intelligence: was defined by Alfred Binet as the ability to think, understand, reason, and adapt to overcome obstacles

Question 3

Alfred Binet

Answer 3

• tests given to children were meant to reflect their mental age
• compared mental age to actual age to determine how intellectual advanced that child was

Question 4

Standford-Binet Test

Answer 4

• Binet’s test adapted in the US
• Stanford-Binet test: a test intended to measure innate levels of intelligence
• differed from Binet’s original test who viewed his test as a measure of a child’s current abilities, not as a measure of an innate capacity

Question 5

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Answer 5

• intelligence quotient (IQ): is calculated by taking a person’s mental age, dividing it by his chronological age, and then multiplying by 100
• did not make sense when applied to adults
• created deviation IQ for adults, which compared to average scores of the same age

Question 6

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS)

Answer 6

• the WAIS provides a single IQ score for each test taker—the Full Scale IQ —but also breaks intelligence into a General Ability Index (GAI) and a Cognitive Proficiency Index (CPI)
• GAI is computed from scores on the Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning indices
• CPI, in contrast, is based on the Working Memory and Processing Speed subtests

Question 7

Raven’s Progressive Matrices

Answer 7

• previous tests were often culturally biased which did not properly represent a person’s intelligence
• Raven’s Progressive Matrices: an intelligence test that is based on pictures, not words, thus making it relatively unaffected by language or cultural background

Question 8

Eugenics

Answer 8

• eugenics: the idea of “good genes”
• people of other cultures performed worse than Western Caucasians which further supported this idea
• however, this can be attributed to other factors such as lifestyle and cultures

Question 9

Stereotype Threat

Answer 9

• stereotype threat: occurs when negative stereotypes about a group cause group members to underperform on ability tests