Lesson 7: Thinking and Intelligence

Attention

Click on the logo to Psychology Today magazine for a list of articles related to Intelligence

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Describe concepts, prototypes, and schemes
  • Describe event schemes and scripts

Teaching

How would you measure Intelligence? What is smart?

Consider the most intelligent person you know...why is this person intelligent, or why do they come across as intelligent? Are they good at one particular thing? Are they good at many things? Do they "talk intelligent"? Do they have a lot of "street smarts"? Do they have a lot of degrees?

How we define this well known concept is the topic of much research and debate within Psychology.

What is Normal (The Normal Curve)

Normal is defined in a number of ways:

  • Statistics
    • Anything that is sufficiently rare is considered to be "abnormal"
    • Bill Gates is abnormal in terms of his earning capacity
    • Tiger Woods is abnormal in terms of his golfing ability
    • Normal is something that lays between -2 and +2 "Standard Deviations represented in the image of the Normal Curve below

  • Social Norms
    • Normal is also defined as those behaviors that fit within the expectations of a given society or group
    • Behavior outside of these definitions are deemed abnormal
  • Survival
    • Normal constitutes behaviors that are adaptive and allow the person to live and be happy
    • Abnormal constitute behaviors that are non-adaptive and bring about unwanted pain and discomfort

Intelligence is a great subject to discuss Normal and Abnormal because the terms are easily understood as use them all the time.

  • Definitions of Abnormal Intelligence
    • Retardation---scores lower than a 70 on the IQ scale (notice how that lines up with the -2 Standard Deviation line!)
    • Giftedness---scores higher than a 130 on the IQ scale or has a specific exceptional ability

Intelligence has been defined in many ways...consult your text to learn about the following ways in which Intelligence has been defined:

  • Spearman G
  • IQ and Mental Age
  • Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
    • Componential Intelligence: analytical thinking and abstract reasoning.
    • Experiential Intelligence: insightful and creative thinking.
    • Contextual Intelligence: Street smarts and practical knowledge.

Sternberg on the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence  
Click HERE to view this video on YouTube

  • Gardiner's theory of Multiple Intelligence
    • Linguistic Intelligence: language skills as seen in the poet's facility with words
    • Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: the abstract thinking and problem solving
      shown by mathematicians and scientists and emphasized by Piaget
    • Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence: the "intelligent" movement shown by dancers,
      athletes, and surgeons
    • Spatial Intelligence: most obvious in great artists who can perceive things
      accurately and transform what they see
    • Intrapersonal Intelligence: understanding of one's own feeling and inner life
    • Interpersonal Intelligence: social intelligence, social skill, exceptional sensitivity
      to other people's motivations and moods
    • Musical Intelligence: based on an acute sensitivity to sound patterns

Howard Gardiner on Multiple Intelligence  
Click HERE to view the video on YouTube

Click HERE to take a Multiple Intelligence test based on Gardiner's theory!
(...a special thanks to Daniel Meng for finding this!)

Concepts

One of the leading researchers in cognition is Jean Piaget...we learn a lot about him in Developmental Psychology. He referred to "concepts" as "schemas". They are simply the ideas and definitions we have about things.

As we develop we learn the names and properties of things and we develop these "schemas". These schemas are modified as we experience more in the world through the processes of "assimilation" (the construction of new schemas) and "accommodation" (the modification or elaboration of existing schemas).

For example: Some of you may be into plants and flowers, but likely all of you know what a flower is. For most of you the "schema" of flower may be fairly simple but those who are "into" them, the schema would be very complex. Basically, the definition of an EXPERT is one who has a highly defined schema for something!

Solving Problems

Psychology sets out to study how we solve problems by defining how we go about doing that...there are two general categories of ways in which we solve problems:

  • Algorithms
    • Fixed methodological ways in which we solve problem
    • Slower
    • Predictable
    • Example: We are trying to find a person in hide-and-seek and we methodically search one room and then the next one and then the next one...
  • Heuristics
    • Creative ways in which we solve problems
    • Faster
    • Less predictable, but prone to error
    • Example: We may deduce, in our hide-and-seek game, where a person is likely to hide based on what we know about them

Although the process leading to the development of psychological research is highly heuristic, most research is algorithmic. By adopting fixed methods for research we limit the number of errors we make. For example, we may intuitively know why relationships "break up" based on our experiences and we may "heuristically" come to conclusions, but these may be in error...we research why relationships "break up" my methodically reviewing all the different reasons, surveys, etc. etc. etc.

This is why when we sometimes read psychological literature we wonder..."Who cares" or "How am I supposed to USE this information?"...the point is that when we go to apply psychological information we need to use Heuristics approaches to accommodate for the individual differences in the situation.

The Wikipedia link for Heuristics has a nice list of well-known and lesser known approaches to problem solving.

Creativity

"Creative Thinking" is a combination of flexibility in thinking and reorganization of understanding to produce innovative ideas and new or novel solutions.

  • Convergent Thinking
    • means beginning with a problem and coming up with a single correct solution (best used when approaching a crisis or a situation in which a decision must be made quickly)
  • Divergent Thinking
    • means beginning with a problem and coming up with many different solutions (brainstorming, creative, great for coming up with innovative ways of solving a problem)

Language and Thought

One of the more interesting ideas is the exploration of how language impacts thought.

For example: If I'm in a classroom and I say "OK, all of you guys need to come with me to the library right now so we can see how to search for articles." I then leave the room and the entire class would follow me to the library.

However, if I said "OK, all of you ladies need to come with me to the library right now so we can see how to search for articles." only the women would follow me.

The question is: "Does the fact that women include themselves among the "guys" in the first statement suggest anything about how they think about gender? Is this part of a patriarchal system? Is there anything "wrong" with this?

Researches look at the use of words to identify ways in which they may impact our thinking....Linguistic Relativity is the concept that differences among language result in differences in how people think about and perceive the world.

Assessment

In this section you will find a list of the required Assessments that accompany this Lesson. The Lesson Discussions are designed for the ONLINE and HYBRID versions of this course. If you are not in an ONLINE or HYBRID version of this course you can ignore these instructions unless otherwise guided by your instructor.

Lesson 7 Discussion A

For this particular discussion I want you to go Online and take an IQ test.

www.iqtest.com
This is a commercial site, so it will ask if you want to purchase a full profile report...you do not have to, it will send your IQ score to you directly in your email and that is all you need to complete this discussion.

From this same site you can visit pages that discuss...
IQ Testing and Standard Deviation
Test Score Comparison Chart
History of Intelligence Testing

Now that you have your IQ score according to this test examine the two major theories of intelligence are those proposed by Gardner and Sternberg above. Discuss how the IQ test is different from the types of Intelligence that are proposed by Gardner and Sternberg. What does this mean in terms of the relationship between the definitions of intelligence and the validity of intelligence tests? Do you think your IQ is an accurate portrayal of your true intelligence, or do you think a test based on Gardner or Sternberg's theory would be better? Why?

Since I would not dare to have you do anything I would not do myself...
Click HERE to see Mark Kavanaugh's report...I paid the $9.95 for the full report to see what it was like and copied it into this document

Lesson 7 Discussion B

In this discussion I would like you to come up with an example of a schema that you feel you are fairly expert at. For example, let's say you have been raising horses for years and you have ridden in many competitions. You have a relatively "expert" level of understanding of the schema of "horse".

In your post describe how you remember going from a relatively simple understanding of your schema (ex: When you were young what did you understand about horses?) to a relatively complex level of understanding (ex: What do you know now about horses?)

Support one another's efforts to identify what you are an expert at. As you make your way through your career you start in college and then move into the workplace gradually building up enough experience and knowledge to become an expert...I think it takes about 10 years of doing something to be an expert at it.