The Psychology on Intelligence

The psychology of intelligence has rapidly developed over the years, but it still has quite a long way to go. Intelligence is controversial topic due to tests being “unfair” in a certain group of people’s perspectives. The intelligence myths are easy to disprove if one is able to obtain the factual evidence. Intelligence is not as black and white as it used to seem: different forms of intelligence, intelligence tests, hereditary differences, environmental differences, gender differences, and ethnic differences all prove the previous statement.
Intelligence is the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations (Myers 219). Charles Spearman constructed an idea called general intelligence; Spearman believed that general intelligence covered all the aspects of everything that one does. He also believed that if an individual does well on a part of an intelligence test, then that individual is also going to score above average on other sections of the intelligence test (Myers 219). Howard Garner’s belief that is widely used today disagrees with Spearman’s view. Garner believed that intelligence is a vast number of abilities that come in different packages. A great example to prove Garner’s theory is a person who has suffered a traumatic accident (Myer 219). John went out skiing. He decided not to buckle his seatbelt, and then he tragically fell off the ski lift as it was dropping him at the top of the hill. He immediately had to be rushed to the hospital. John made it out with minimal injuries, but, sadly, he suffered brain damage. Now, John is not able to remember most of the math principles he learned in his Geometry class years earlier; however, his language and musical ability are completely unaffected. Garner’s rule of multiple intellectual abilities in different clusters is illustrated with John’s accident. Savant syndrome is also a way to express Garner’s theory. A savant is incredibly intelligent in one aspect of life, such as art. This savant is not able to perform simple mathematic operations, though. Some of this can be because some savants have autism, but many famous savants have been without autism and still had difficulties with seemingly menial tasks. Kim Peek is a famous savant who had the ability to read and remember a page in several seconds. That was surprising to people because Peek could hardly button his shirt (Myers 219). Peek took things very literally, as well. His father asked him to lower his voice, and Peek promptly slid down in his seat to make his voice at a lower level to appease his father (Myers 219).
Garner believed that general intelligence was too unspecific. “A general intelligence score is like the overall rating of a city—which tells you something but doesn’t give you much specific information about its schools, streets, or nightlife” (Myers 220). People surveyed with academic success were also shown to later have job success, thus proving that general intelligence does have some relevance (Myers 220). Success is not as easy to obtain as it might sound. One must be dedicated enough to the cause. “ Success has two ingredients: can do (ability) and will do (motivation)” (Myers 220). Herkimer is a bright young psychology scholar with limitless opportunity due to his natural intelligence and charisma. Herkimer’s ability is one to be envied. He has grown weary after his previous three years of college. He has the ability to be a world-renowned psychologist, but he is motivation is severely lacking. Herkimer decides to stop going to his classes because he would rather sit at home and play Call of Duty with his friends. He is then put on academic probation because of his now failing grades. Herkimer is very insulted that the school would dare put such a bright young man such as him on academic probation, so he decides to remove himself from the school to teach the institution a lesson. He ends up living with his parents for the rest of his life because he has the ability, but he is not willing to put for the effort; therefore, he is not successful in his life.
“Creativity is the ability to produce new and valuable ideas” (Myers 221). It is generally believed that in order to be creative one must be excessively intelligent to produce a “ new and valuable idea”. That notion has been disproved by psychological studies that have shown scholars, whom are not creative, to score the same on an aptitude test as a creative scholar (Myers 221). Robert Sternberg produced the five parts that he believes are necessary to creativity: expertise is when one has acquired an extensive amount of knowledge to properly use in being creative; imaginative thinking skills is when a person is able to look at something in a new light and maybe combine it with another uncommon thing to produce a creative idea; venturesome personality is when one is able to go to the extremes to complete his creative idea. He might even have to take away his simple pleasures and completely isolate himself to achieve said creative idea; intrinsic motivation is when a person is relentless in thinking about his problem and how to solve it creatively. Math Professor, Andrew Wiles, was trying to solve a mathematical problem posed to him by Pierre de Fermat. He thought about the problem when he woke up and when he went to bed; creative environment is an environment that supports creative ideas. The environment encourages you to focus solely on making up creative ideas when surrounded by other people that are also thinking the same way (Myers 221-222). The Salk Institute is a modern day institute that supports a space for scientists to think creatively without being disturbed (Myers 222).
Other things that a gifted, intelligent individual might not have are social and emotional intelligence (Myers 222). Social and emotional intelligence are closely related because one’s emotions impact how one might act socially. A socially intelligent person knows how to conduct himself in a social setting. An emotionally intelligent person is able to control and understand his emotions. Emotionally intelligent people are good helpers because they are able to help people control their emotions, since most people find controlling his emotions to be one of the most difficult tasks to complete. Charlotte may not receive the highest grades in school, but she has been gifted with emotional intelligence. Equipped with this power, she is nearly everyone’s most trusted confidant. Through her emotional intelligence, she is able to help people that otherwise might have a breakdown because of their inability to control their emotions. Charlotte has now learned to accept her spiritual gift of emotional intelligence and come to terms with her troubles with academia.
Modern day intelligent tests measure one’s aptitude and compare it with others using a numerical score. The first intellect measuring tests would either measure aptitude, which is one’s ability to learn, or achievement, which is what one has already learned. Alfred Binet was recruited by France to create and intelligence test that they could administer to children to improve the French schooling. Binet, along with some other men, developed a test that would figure out a child’s mental age. The test would cover material that could discern by how many of the questions the child got correct what his mental age was (Myers 223). William Stern made the term intelligence quotient (Myers 224). The way a child would find out his IQ was by doing his mental age divided by his chronological age, then multiplying by 100. Ryder has a mental age of 10, but he is only 7 years old. According to the IQ equation (10/7 * 100), Ryder’s IQ is an astounding 142! However, this test was not effective for adults because as you age, your IQ might drop a few points, so being younger would actually be better. David Wechsler developed a new, more accurate test called the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). The WAIS has become the most widely used intelligence test of this age. The test contains 11 subtests that have verbal and performance based tests. The verbal subtests are more of the thinks that one would find on a typical standardized test that you took in elementary school, such as comprehension and arithmetic reasoning. The performance tests are more pictures in which you must arrange them in a certain order (Myers 224).
The heredity of intelligence has become more obvious as intelligence has been studied. Studies have shown that people who share the most similar intelligence are identical twins who have been raised together (Myers 226). Naturally, one could deduce since intelligence is part heredity, then as you grow older your intellect begins to match that of your parents; studies have proved that hypothesis (Myers 226). “Heritability is the portion of variation among people’s test scores that we can assign to genetic factors” (Myers 227). Myers provides a great example of heritability when he says that a group of boys is raised in a barrel until age 12. The boys then take a test, but their scores are different. Since the boys all grew up in a barrel, which is the same environment, then the only reason their test scores could be different is because of the genes/ heredity (Myers 227). “In gene-environment interactions, small genetic advances can trigger social experiences that multiply our original skill.”(Myers 227). If a person is naturally talented at something, then they are more likely to continue to do the thing, thus honing the skill that they acquired from their heredity. Conversely, a sad reality is when someone experiences deprivation, and their native intelligence completely disappears. Iranian orphans were observed and found to be way behind in their intelligence because of their lack of food, attention, and the simple comforts of life. Luckily, a man came in a began a program to teach the children a few words a day, since they could hardly speak. They saw progress in the kids and learned that when they came back on a later date, the kids had improved immensely because their native intelligence was awakened (Myers 227).
Ethnic groups differences in intelligence test scores have been found to be environmental (Myers 228). “Stereotype Threat- the fear that our performance will support others’ stereotype of our group” (Myers 232). The stereotype threat is seen all around the world today when people are taking intelligence tests. It is seen when people are prejudiced to a certain group because they think the group’s cognitive ability is lower than their’s (Hodson and Busseri 1). The CIA speaks of how cognitive biases are becoming harder and harder to overcome (Part three—cognitive biases 1). As a Christian, I am certain that cognitive biases and racial stereotypes are horribly wrong and hateful.
After all this intelligence talk, it may seem that people are unequal because some people have gifts that others do not; however, if we go to God, then we learn that we are all equal. Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” As humans, we are all going to get down on ourselves because we feel that we do not have the right intellectual gift. God teaches us that all our gifts are incredibly relevant to helping one another. Without these differences in intellectual gifts, we would surely self-destruct from the inability to make progress or help each other.