IQ tests are very intimidating and at the same time compulsive. We want it and don’t want it at the same time. What if the test decides I don’t have as high a score as I thought I should have? Will I only show someone else if it’s high enough, (or potentially lie)? What does it actually mean anyway?
Will my life be doomed to failure if I don’t get a high enough score? Well, possibly (if I let anyone know my score).
The problem seems to me that something that has so much weight in our communities, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like SATs or GDP they are the only tests in town. So we judge everything by them (having no real alternative).
As many experiments and studies have shown, IQ tests can provide an indicator of how people will succeed in their future lives. The view it offers of the future is constrained by the very parameters it seeks to show. But worse than that, it may reflect on how I feel about myself, and become that self-fulfilling prophecy.
Experiments with students at Stanford have shown that “priming” someone will affect their performance by affecting how they view themselves. When given tests where the questions were primed for confidence, students after the test behaved more confidently. If they were primed to doubt themselves, they behaved with much less confidence and assertion.
Stereotyping also plays a part in how we view ourselves and our performance. Again at Stanford, they re-inforced racial, gender, and social stereotypes to see whether students' performance in the test would be affected by how they viewed themselves in the contexts of the stereotypes. An example was mentioning to one group that girls were not as good at math as boys. They score went down as compared to the control group who were not primed.
There is, obviously a tried, tested, and proven validity in IQ tests, they do measure intelligence and they do indicate some people’s future success, but it’s a closed circle and I don’t think it’s the whole picture of intelligence.
Firstly, if you offer someone a choice of one, they will mostly choose that offer and use it to evaluate where they are in terms of progress, status, and success. These days, we are obsessed with what we can measure. The measure and its correlations become the benchmark by which we evaluate progress and become the only yardstick by which we project (statistically) our future. We don’t often consider alternatives because they aren’t available, accepted, or valued by others. So we’re stuck.
Second, what is intelligence? Is it only what is defined by an IQ test? Unlikely. My dictionary defines intelligence as; “capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding and similar forms of mental activity”, or “manifestation of high mental capacity”. The ability to learn is not covered by an IQ test, and what about an athlete who is capable of extraordinary intuitive skill, or someone with compassion, or someone illiterate and yet able to make extraordinary music, are also types of intelligence?
Third, who or what defines success? How do we define the results of success? Is it financial, purpose, happiness, self-worth, stability, power, influence? You don’t need a high IQ for any of these.
Nevertheless, intelligence (in all its forms) is attractive and desirable.
The English statistician and polymath Francis Galton created a standardized test for rating a person's intelligence in 1882, by applying statistical methods to the study of human diversity and inherited human traits. However, he believed that intelligence was largely a product of heredity and observable traits such as reflexes, muscle grip, and head size. He didn’t find any provable correlation and abandoned his study.
The Binet-Simon test, which focused on verbal abilities. It was intended to identify mental retardation in school children, The score on the Binet-Simon scale would reveal the child's mental age. A revised version of this scale was used for decades in the US.
Charles Spearman in 1904 observed that children's school grades across unrelated subjects were positively correlated, and reasoned that these reflected the influence of an underlying general mental ability.
He suggested that all mental performance could be thought of in terms of a single general ability factor and a large number of narrow task-specific ability factors. Spearman named it g for "general factor". Typically, the "g-loaded" composite score appears to involve a common strength for abstract reasoning.
The Cattell-Horn-Caroll theory suggested that there were two types of intelligence, Fluid Intelligence (Gf) and Crystalized intelligence (Gc). “g” the combination of Gf and Gc is at the top of the hierarchy, below that are eight broad abilities.
Fluid intelligence (Gf)
The ability to reason, form concepts, and solve problems using unfamiliar information or novel procedures. This is closely related to a form of creative intelligence.
Crystallized intelligence (Gc)
Acquired knowledge, the ability to communicate one's knowledge, and the ability to reason using previously learned experiences or procedures.
Quantitative reasoning (Gq)
The ability to comprehend quantitative concepts and relationships and to manipulate numerical symbols.
Reading and writing ability (Grw)
Reading and writing skills.
Short-term memory (Gsm)
The ability to work with working memory to inform awareness and use it from moment to moment.
Long-term storage and retrieval (Glr)
The ability to file more experiences and information to long-term memory storage and to be able to retrieve the information in the process of thinking.
Visual processing (Gv)
Think with visual patterns, including the ability to store and recall visual representations. Perception, analysis, and synthesis of visual information,
Auditory processing (Ga)
Think with auditory patterns, including the ability to store and recall auditory representations. Perceive, analyze, and synthesize of auditory information, including the ability to process and discriminate speech sounds that may be presented under distorted conditions.
Processing speed (Gs)
The ability to perform automatic cognitive tasks, particularly when measured under pressure to maintain focused attention.
Decision/reaction time/speed (Gt)
Reflects the immediacy with which an individual can react to stimuli or a task (not to be confused with Gs),
Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, suggested that there are many ways in which to assess intelligence as biophysical potential and broke it down into 9 types (+ 2 after 1983) of intelligence. This approach, whilst more complex and less measurable seems to me to be more realistic. People have many diverse ways to process information.
1. Musical-rhythmic and harmonic
The capacity for sensitivity to sounds, rhythm, pitch, timbre, and tone. People with a high musical intelligence normally have good pitch and may even have absolute pitch,
2. Visual-spatial
The ability to visualize with the mind's eye. Spatial ability is one of the three factors beneath g in the hierarchical model of intelligence.
3. Verbal-linguistic
A facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories, and memorizing words along with dates. Verbal ability is one of the most g-loaded abilities.
4. Logical-mathematical
An ability to apply logic, abstractions, reasoning, numbers, and critical thinking. The ability to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system. Logical reasoning is closely linked to fluid intelligence and general intelligence (g factor)
5. Bodily-kinaesthetic
The core elements of the bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence are control of one's bodily motions and the capacity to handle objects skillfully. Gardner elaborates to say that this also includes a sense of timing, a clear sense of the goal of physical action, along with the ability to train responses.
People who have high bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence should be generally good at physical activities such as sports, dance, acting, and making things.
6. Interpersonal (emotional Intelligence)
In theory, individuals who have high interpersonal intelligence are characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments, motivations, and their ability to cooperate to work as part of a group.
7. Intrapersonal
This area has to do with introspective and self-reflective capacities. This refers to having a deep understanding of the self; what one's strengths or weaknesses are, what makes one unique, being able to predict one's own reactions or emotions.
8. Naturalistic
This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one's natural surroundings Naturalistic intelligence was proposed by Gardner in 1995. "If I were to rewrite Frames of Mind today, I would probably add an eighth intelligence – the intelligence of the naturalist. It seems to me that the individual who is readily able to recognize flora and fauna, to make other consequential distinctions in the natural world, and to use this ability productively (in hunting, in farming, in biological science) is exercising an important intelligence and one that is not adequately encompassed in the current list.”. Examples include classifying natural forms such as animal and plant species and rocks and mountain types. This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers.
This sort of ecological receptiveness is deeply rooted in a "sensitive, ethical, and holistic understanding" of the world and its complexities – including the role of humanity within the greater ecosphere.
9. Existential
Gardner did not want to commit to a spiritual intelligence but suggested that an "existential" intelligence may be a useful construct, also proposed after the original 7 in his 1999 book. The hypothesis of an existential intelligence has been further explored by educational researchers.
Additional types of Intelligence.
10. Pedagogic
The ability to teach others and to impart information.
11. Humour.
A sense of humor. [This may seem an odd category to add in, but perhaps if you consider the agility of mind that is needed, the associative thinking, the creative thinking involved, it makes more sense].
Several neurophysiological factors have been correlated with intelligence in humans, including the ratio of brain weight to body weight and the size, shape, and activity level of different parts of the brain. Specific features that may affect IQ include the size and shape of the frontal lobes, the amount of blood and chemical activity in the frontal lobes, the total amount of grey matter in the brain, the overall thickness of the cortex, and the glucose metabolic rate. Yet none of this sheds any light on what intelligence actually is, or what we mean when we say that someone is intelligent.
What seems to me to be missing from all these lists is creativity. The ability to fashion something new and novel that has value. Creativity is one of the key skills [intelligences] sited by most governments as most valuable in a modern economy. Yet none of the list mentions it. Probably because it is difficult to measure and hard to evaluate a future impact without considering the effect on its audience.
The concept of intelligence is one of those things that we all sort-of know what it means but becomes very difficult to pin down. What seems clear is that it’s not a single capacity, ability, or skill, but a mental method or strategy for processing in order to take meaningful action across a range of situations.
Closer to creative thinking?