APPsychologyChapter11+Intelligence+and+Intelligence+Testing

The TEST for Chapters 10 & 11 is still scheduled for Friday March 27, 2009. If you want to be better prepared go to the Myers 8th Edition Website at bcs.worthpublishers.com and do the Vocabulary Flashcard Activities and take the practice Quizzes (for both chapters). Good luck and you can email me at wmcnamara @gvsd.org with questions. Have a great night and a pleasant tomorrow.
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CHAPTER 11: INTELLIGENCE **   Today//, intelligence is generally considered to be the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and adapt to new situations//. Psychologists debate (as does Max, Jania, and Annisha) whether intelligence is one general ability (Charles Spearman (1863-1945) who helped develop the factor analysis approach in statistics) or several specific abilities (L. L. Thurstone, a critic of Spearman, analyzed his subjects NOT on a single scale of general intelligence, but on seven clusters of //primary mental abilities// ). More recently, some theorists have expanded the definition of intelligence to include social intelligence, especially emotional intelligence. While a certain level of intelligence is necessary for creativity, beyond that level, the correlation is weak. Psychologists have linked people’s intelligence to brain anatomy and functioning as well as to cognitive processing speed. Modern intelligence testing began more than a century ago in France when Alfred Binet developed questions that helped predict children’s future progress in the Paris school system.
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Lewis Terman of Stanford University used Binet’s ideas to develop the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. German psychologist William Stern derived the formula for the famous intelligence quotient, or IQ. Modern aptitude and achievement tests are widely accepted only if they are standardized, reliable, and valid. __Aptitude tests__ tend to be **__highly reliable__** but they are **__weak predictors__** of success in life. One way to test the validity of a test is to compare people who score at the two extremes of the normal curve: the challenged and the gifted. Studies of twins, family members, and adopted children point to significant genetic determinants of intelligence scores. These and other studies also indicate that environment significantly influences intelligence test scores. Environmental differences are perhaps entirely responsible for racial gaps in intelligence. Psychologists debate evolutionary and cultural explanations of gender differences in aptitudes and abilities.

Aptitude tests, which predict performance in a given situation, are necessarily “biased” in the sense that they are sensitive to performance differences caused by cultural experiences. However, the major tests are not biased in that they predict as accurately for one group as for another. Stereotype threat can adversely affect performance and sometimes appears in intelligence testing among African-Americans and women.

 __Mensa __  According to its website, Mensa is an international society founded in 1946 in Oxford, Great Britain with the purpose of identifying people of exceptional intelligence and putting them in touch with one another. The only qualification necessary for admission into Mensa is to obtain, in an approved and correctly administered intelligence test, a score **in the top 2% of the general population**. In other words membership is open to all who have an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) in the 98th percentile of the general population. The purposes of Mensa, as defined by its constitution are:

===-To identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity -To encourage research related to human intelligence -To provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members === Mensa does NOT have any ideological, political or religious affiliations and does not take a stand on any such issue as a group. However, their members may and are encouraged to express strictly personal points of view. Mensa is a not-for-profit organization, funded mainly through the contributions of its members. Generally it does not seek nor does it accept sponsorship as that may influence its ability to fulfill its mission. You'll need to take the [|Mensa Workout](Carolyn).