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Or is intelligence really a combination of several different abilities, as
suggested by Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Or does it involve a combination of some
inborn factor that accounts for some intellectual abilities and a variety of specific intellectual skills
that operate independently of each other? This is a great discussion topic that students usually
have strong opinions about. You might add, that part of the problem, even among the “experts” in
this field, is there is no single, universally accepted definition of intelligence from which to focus
the argument. How you feel about intelligence can vary greatly depending upon how you define it.
The average student or person on the street tends to view intelligence differently than the average
teacher or professor. And both of them tend to view intelligence differently than the average
scientific researcher studying intelligence. With this type of disagreement, is it possible to know
how many different types of intelligence there are?
IQ Tests and Labeling
One of the dangers in assigning people IQ scores in grade school is the danger of labeling the
student based on an IQ score, and then having that label become a self-fulfilling prophecy. While IQ
can be useful for identifying children who are either gifted or retarded, how useful is it to assign
numbers and labels to those falling within the middle ranges? If one assumes that IQ is measuring
primarily a set of school skills, rather than one’s ability to learn across the board, is it fair to label
someone as “smart” or “stupid” based on an IQ score? While, no one officially uses such terms as
“stupid” to label someone based on IQ, it informally happens all the time, and children can be
vicious in their use of such labels on each other. Since people tend to have stereotypes about what
“smart” and “stupid” mean, how does such a label positively or negatively affect a child? Can it
change the way parents and teachers interact with such children? Could such labels cause a child
to lose self-confidence, leading to even worse future performance, thus fulfilling the label? Many
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CHAPTER 10: INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT
people believe that labeling can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)
study, discussed in the text, found evidence of a positive self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers
were led to believe that certain students were “smart.” A reverse negative self-fulfilling prophecy
seems just as possible when students are labeled “stupid” or “not smart.” The text also discusses
this issue in regard to the larger effect of stereotypes and the poorer performance of African
Americans on tests when they believe the tests measure intelligence than when they are just lab
experiments. The results of the Steele and Aronson (1995) study indicate that just being a member of
a group that has been stereotyped as not being smart can lower individual performance. How much
more does believing that you, as an individual, are not smart, affect performance? Given how many
areas of practical intelligence that IQ does not seem to measure or predict, we need to be very careful
about negatively labeling children on the basis of IQ alone. This means doing a better job of
educating people on the limitations of what intelligence tests tell us about children’s abilities.
BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILES
Alfred Binet (1857—1911)
Born in Nice, France, Binet received his law degree from Lycee St. Louis in 1878, and his Ph.D. in
science from the University of Paris in 1894. Binet was perhaps the most respected French
psychologist near the turn of the century and was responsible, with colleague Henri Beaunis, for
founding the first French psychological laboratory. Binet was fascinated by the concepts of
hypnotism and suggestibility, and became known for his studies of these phenomena before 1900.
Binet’s reputation in psychology, however, stems most from his and colleague Theodore Simon’s
first test of intelligence, for which Binet was commissioned by the French minister of public
instruction. The test would later be brought to America, becoming the Stanford-Binet Intelligence
Scale, the most popular and most researched of the intelligence scales.
Lewis Madison Terman (1877—1956)
Terman received his Ph.D. from Clark University in 1905, having studied under G. Stanley Hall.
Terman’s first teaching position was at the Los Angeles Normal School, but the rest of his academic
career would be spent at Stanford University, where he was department head from 1922 to 1942.
Terman was responsible for revising the Binet-Simon intelligence scale in 1916, leading to
subsequent development of the U.S. Army tests used during World War I. Additionally, Terman
carried out an extensive longitudinal study of intellectually gifted children, published in five
volumes from 1925 to 1959, the final volume appearing posthumously, He was president of the
American Psychological Association in 1923.
Sir Francis Galton (1822—1911)
Francis Galton, the intellectually curious cousin of Charles Darwin, reportedly read Shakespeare
for pleasure at age seven and, by modern estimates, would have received an IQ score of
approximately 200 on a standard intelligence test. Galton’s genius knew few boundaries. He wrote
an unequalled guide for explorers of wild lands, studied boredom at scientific meetings, and
mapped out the locales in Great Britain boasting the most beautiful women.
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PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE
TIMELINE
Yea Event
r
1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species by a Means of Natural
Selection.
1869 Sir Francis Galton published Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and
Consequences, in which he attempted to show that intelligence is an inherited
characteristic.
1904 Charles Spearman published General Intelligence Objectively Determined and
Measured, offering his view on general intelligence, or “g”.
1905 Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed the first useful intelligence test.
1917 The Bolshevik revolution occurred in Russia.
19141918
World War I was fought.
1916 Lewis Terman, though not the first to do so, published an English translation of
Binet’s test; Terman’s translation had the advantage of using the concept of the
intelligence quotient (IQ).
1929 The Great Depression began in America.
1938 Louis Thurstone published his monograph on the seven primary mental abilities.
1939 David Wechsler published The Measurement of Adult Intelligence, introducing his
family of intelligence tests. Unlike the Stanford-Binet, Wechsler’s tests
emphasized both verbal intelligence and performance.
19391945
World War II was fought.
1969 Arthur Jensen published How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?