Week 7 - Intelligence

What evidence did Spearman have for the existence of g?

• Scores of monozygotic twins correlate highly with each other

• Scores on any test of intelligent performance correlate positively with scores on other tests

• Children who are identified as intellectually gifted tend to become highly productive adults

• On the average, intelligence scores are equal for males and females

On average, how does intelligence change from young adulthood to old adulthood?

• Both fluid and crystallised intelligence decline

• Fluid intelligence declines, but crystallised intelligence remains constant or increases

• Fluid intelligence remains constant or increases, but crystallised intelligence declines

• Both fluid and crystallised intelligence remain constant or increase

What evidence would demonstrate the existence of an intellectual ability separate from g?

• People with this ability do well on all measures of intelligent behaviour

• People with this ability do not do well in school

• The ability predicts some type of intelligent behaviour but has a low correlation with the tests that measure g

What was the original purpose of Binet's first IQ test?

• To select the brightest students for advanced training

• To compare the performance of ethnic groups

• To determine the relationship between intelligence and brain size

• To identify slow learners who needed special education

Under what circumstances do environmental interventions most strongly promote intellectual development?

• If they start in early childhood

• If they take place during school hours

• If they start during adolescence

• If large numbers of children are taught together at the same time

Theoretically, the distribution of IQ scores should have a mean of 100 and an equal number of people above and below the mean. How does the actual distribution of scores differ from this prediction?

• The actual mean is 105

• The actual mean is 95

• The mode (most common score) is 105

• The mode (most common score) is 95

On average, how do males and females compare in IQ?

• On average, males have a higher IQ

• On average, females have a higher IQ

• On average, males and females are equal on all subtests and on average IQ

• On average, males and females differ on certain subscores, but are equal on overall IQ

Why have psychologists needed to re-standardise IQ tests repeatedly over the years?

• To prevent the mean from increasing above 100

• To prevent the mean from decreasing below 100

• To match the changes in school curricula

• To measure newly evolved abilities

A hundred people take a test. We find that the person with the highest score on the odd-numbered items also has the highest score on the even-numbered items. Someone else has the second highest score on both sets of items, and so forth down to the 100th person. Which of the following can we conclude about this test?

• It has high reliability and validity

• It has low reliability and validity

• It has high reliability and unknown validity

• It has unknown reliability but high validity