You are not currently logged in. Please create an account or log in to view the full course.
Understanding Intelligence
- About
- Transcript
- Cite
Child Psychology – Intelligence, Moral Development and Social Cognition
In this course, Dr Ashok Jansari (Goldsmiths, University of London) explores the concepts of intelligence, moral development and social cognition. In the first lecture, we think about what intelligence is. In the second lecture, we think about the reasons for individual differences in intelligence. In the third lecture, we think about the environmental factors which can impact intelligence. Next, we think about what can be done to improve outcomes for individuals whose upbringing has resulted in them falling behind in their development. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about the stages of moral development and the significance of social cognition.
Understanding Intelligence
In this lecture, we think about what intelligence is, focusing in particular on: (i) the nature of intelligence being very difficult to define; (ii) the disagreement within the scientific community around exactly what intelligence is; (iii) theories which divide intelligence into different types; (iv) Binet’s early intelligence test, requested by the French government to measure the achievement of school children; (v) the evolution of this test at Stanford University; (vi) a review of intelligence testing in the statistical context of a normal distribution; (vii) the lack of cross cultural applicability of many intelligence tests, which has led to an interest in creating a cross culturally representative test of intelligence.
Hello. I'm Dr Ashraf Khan. Sorry.
00:00:06And I'm a cognitive neuropsychologist at Goldsmiths University of London.
00:00:09In selector, we're going to tackle the issue of intelligence,
00:00:14which is quite a tricky concept.
00:00:17I'm going to look at what we think intelligences
00:00:20and then look at ways of testing. Intelligence.
00:00:24Intelligence is something that is used a lot in terms of a term that we use in society.
00:00:28All of the time. This person lacks intelligence.
00:00:34That person is more intelligent than so.
00:00:37And so how can I increase my intelligence, et cetera.
00:00:39Oddly, however, were not really that sure what intelligence is,
00:00:45is it? They're built to remember things.
00:00:50So if I can remember 30 people's names from a party easily, is that intelligent,
00:00:52or is that just memory?
00:00:57Is it the bill to solve a problem that I've never seen before?
00:00:58Or is it the bill to think creatively and think outside
00:01:04the box when I'm given a situation I've never seen before?
00:01:08Or is it intelligent to be able to go into a crowded room where you don't know anyone
00:01:13and be able to make a good social relationships with them?
00:01:19Now the theories have changed a lot or expanded
00:01:23because our idea of intelligence has changed a lot,
00:01:27and a classic example is education.
00:01:32We think of the people who've got more education,
00:01:34get the higher grade or more qualifications as more intelligent.
00:01:38But maybe that's just part of intelligence.
00:01:43And this is where one of the complications comes in because there
00:01:47can be a circularity depending on how you define the term intelligence.
00:01:51Is that the accumulation of knowledge that you then remember later on?
00:01:56Or is it the ability to use that knowledge to change things later on?
00:02:01So there are quite a few different theories,
00:02:07and there is no firm decision on which one is better.
00:02:09There's one theory, which is Spearman's G,
00:02:15which is the suggestion that underneath
00:02:18everything there's one general intelligence.
00:02:21There are other theories that there are three different types of intelligence.
00:02:25There might be a practical, creative and analytic intelligence.
00:02:29Gardner has got another theory with maybe eight different types of intelligence.
00:02:34Now each of the theories varies mainly in terms
00:02:40of what they add to the previous theories.
00:02:43So some more recent theories might
00:02:47talk about things like kinesthetic intelligence.
00:02:50So the way that a dancer is able to fluidly move their body into different shapes.
00:02:53Is that an intelligence?
00:02:58I certainly can't do it,
00:03:01and I'm impressed by someone who can, unless that a form of intelligence,
00:03:02because they can use their body in an intelligent way.
00:03:07There's social intelligence and the ability to empathise with other people
00:03:10and be able to get them to open up et cetera.
00:03:15Some people really have it, and some people don't have that.
00:03:18So that's the main difference between the different theories.
00:03:21It's they started off with, mainly a memory type of thing,
00:03:25and then they've moved on in terms of whether
00:03:31they're about remembering things or manipulating information that is new.
00:03:34And then eventually these other abilities, such as social abilities,
00:03:39physical abilities, et cetera.
00:03:43The important thing is
00:03:47we don't really know.
00:03:48We just know that there is something called intelligence
00:03:50and we're still trying to define it
00:03:52in terms of measuring it.
00:03:56As you can imagine. If we can't define it well,
00:03:57it's difficult to know have one good measurement of it.
00:04:01But if we if we just look at theoretically historically the most important ones,
00:04:07they all started from Alfred been in France,
00:04:12who was asked by the French government to just get a sense of
00:04:15Children and their learning abilities because
00:04:21they wanted to understand these Children.
00:04:24And what Ben did was to develop a test
00:04:26which allowed him to differentiate between the abilities of
00:04:30different Children of similar ages so that he could
00:04:35say that some were more able than others.
00:04:38Many students were average and somewhat weaker,
00:04:41and that started the movement of intelligence testing. So that was the Bene tests,
00:04:45and then in America at Stanford University.
00:04:52They took on being an initial ideas and created the Stanford Binet test,
00:04:55which are development of that to try to look at how we
00:05:01can look at adults intelligence and how we can measure it.
00:05:05Now the Internet aren't very important,
00:05:09but the important thing is that most has developed such that the results
00:05:12from them across the population of people follows the bell shaped curve.
00:05:17So the curve that goes like this or the normal distribution
00:05:22where there are a lot of people in the middle,
00:05:26and then as you get further and further out to outlying scores,
00:05:28you get fewer and fewer people and generally speaking there,
00:05:31created so that the average score is 100
00:05:36and then above 100 is better than average, below 100 is less than average,
00:05:39and the standard deviation, which is a measure of the spread of scores, is 15.
00:05:45So anything between 85
00:05:52115 is considered within the average range for adult intelligence, and above, 115
00:05:54and below 85 is outside
00:06:04that standard. One deviation.
00:06:06The details aren't important.
00:06:10The main thing is appreciating that intelligence, um,
00:06:11can differ across the spectrum across the population.
00:06:16And one of the things that researchers want to
00:06:20look at is why are there differences between person,
00:06:23a person be
00:06:27and psychologists we want to look at?
00:06:29Is it because it's genetics, or is it the environment,
00:06:31or is it a combination of the two?
00:06:34Now an aspect of intelligence test that is important to know about
00:06:37is the fact that they tend to be developed within a culture.
00:06:43So if I gave you an intelligence test which required
00:06:47you to remember kings and queens of Great Britain,
00:06:52that wouldn't be particularly useful for someone who lived in Argentina
00:06:56because they shouldn't know the kings and queens of Great Britain.
00:07:00Now that's a simplistic example,
00:07:04but it demonstrates that depending on the types of items you use in a test,
00:07:06they might be more biassed.
00:07:11Two words. One group of people than they love them
00:07:13and taken to its extremes.
00:07:15Uh,
00:07:17there are suggestions that a lot of the tests that are developed in
00:07:18the West are culturally biassed towards the way we think in the West.
00:07:21And maybe they're no use for using for people in
00:07:26the east and certainly no use for using it and,
00:07:29say, nomadic tribes or aboriginal people, etcetera.
00:07:33So as a result of that, there are attempts to create culture fair tests
00:07:36where it doesn't matter which country you're born
00:07:43in or what your educational background is,
00:07:45etcetera.
00:07:48That everyone should be able to take those tests and that you
00:07:49should get a fair idea of that person's intelligence from the test.
00:07:52So, basically, just across these a few minutes,
00:07:58you have noticed that intelligence is much more
00:08:02complex than you might have thought it is.
00:08:05It can be many different things, depending on how you define intelligence.
00:08:08Given that we can't, we don't have one clear definition of intelligence.
00:08:12We don't have one solid test of intelligence.
00:08:16Then we've got the fact that even if we have a test of intelligence,
00:08:21who is it appropriate for?
00:08:25Is it appropriate for everyone?
00:08:27So I could test you and I could test someone who is
00:08:29in the Kalahari in Southern Africa and Aboriginal person in Australia?
00:08:33Or is there only for people with the Western education?
00:08:40So what we see is that our idea of definition, our definition, how we test it
00:08:43and the conclusions that we make from it are really all intertwined.
00:08:50And we have to be quite careful about how we use the term
00:08:55intelligence so that we can make conclusions
00:08:58about one person's intelligence against another person
00:09:03and in the next lecture will be exploring the
00:09:07issue of differences in intelligence between people and what,
00:09:10uh, factors are involved.
00:09:15
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Jansari, A. (2022, October 17). Child Psychology – Intelligence, Moral Development and Social Cognition - Understanding Intelligence [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/child-psychology-intelligence-moral-development-and-social-cognition
MLA style
Jansari, A. "Child Psychology – Intelligence, Moral Development and Social Cognition – Understanding Intelligence." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 17 Oct 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/child-psychology-intelligence-moral-development-and-social-cognition