Activity: Mensa Workout

Take (an abbreviated version of)

the Mensa workout.

You have 12 minutes.

Mensa Workout: Tally your Score
1. 1600 (sally likes perfect squares)
2. 6 (1 typist types 1 page in 2 minutes)
3. 21:00
4. C
5. 5 (1/10 of 400 is 40, 1/4 of 40 is 10, 1/2 of 10 is 5)
6. 20
7. 10 (each syllable is worth 5)
8. 25 (apples=7, bananas=8, strawberries=3, cherries=2)
9. 10 meters ( sqrt(3*3 + 4*4) * 2. They make 2 right ∆ )
10. 8 (Circle has one line, octagon has eight)
11. It is not really sensible to rely on something that has not
yet happened and may not ever happen.
12. No (the other 800 elephants can be any mix of all blue
and pink and green stripes)
Mensa Workout: Your ‘IQ’
• 12 / 12 – 100% (you’re in!)
• 11 / 12 – 92% (close but no banana)
• 10 / 12 – 83% (hmmmm, work on it)
• 9 / 12 – 75% (well… maybe another day)
• 8 / 12 – 66% (ditto)
• 7 / 12 – 58% (ditto)
• 6 / 12 – 50% (average)
• 5 / 12 – 42% (having a bad day?)
• 4 / 12 – 33% (owie)
• 3 / 12 – 25% (double owie)

2 / 12 – 17% (triple owie)

1 / 12 – 8% (are you conscious?)

0 / 12 – 0% (are you alive?)

How ya’ feeling now?

Ready to learn??
Intelligence: Outline
 What is Intelligence?
 What is IQ?
 What does IQ predict?
 Factors that Influence IQ scores
 The general psychometric approach
 Various Theories of Intelligence
 Sternberg’s Computational Theory of IQ
 Barab & Plucker’s Distributed Intelligence Approach
What is Intelligence?
 Activity:
 Summarize in a single sentence what intelligence
means to you.
 List up to 5 attributes that characterize highly
intelligent people
______________________________________
 Observation: Intelligence means different
things to to different people
 “adaptive thinking or action” (Piaget, 1997)
 abstract thinking, effective problem solving
(Sternberg, 1997)
 analogical reasoning, discerning pattern,
speed of processing (~Mensa)
 What is IQ?
 Intelligence quotient (IQ): A numerical measure of a
person’s performance on an intelligence test relative to
the performance of other examinees
 Test Norms: standards of normal performance on IQ
tests based on the average & range of scores of a large,
representative sample of test takers
 IQ = MA/CA = 100
What does IQ predict?
 IQ tests measure intellectual performance, not capacity
 A person’s IQ can vary considerably over time
 Schooling, which largely reflects cultural values, actually
improves IQ test performance

What does IQ Predict?

 Scholastic Achievement
 grades, likelihood of dropping out or graduating HS, likelihood
of completing college
 Occupational Status/Performance
 White-collar workers consistently score higher in IQ than
manual blue-collar workers (er…)
 IQ correlates with performance on the job
 Health, Adjustment, Life Satisfaction
 Terman longitudinal study: High IQ children tended to walk/talk
sooner, exhibit better health, better emotional adjustment,
more moral maturity, more leadership
 HOWEVER… twice as likely to show depression, feelings of
social isolation
Factors that Influence IQ
Why do people differ so dramatically in IQ?
 Nature (Hereditary Influences)
 Roughly 1/2 of the variation in IQ scores results from
genetic differences (twin studies, adoption studies)

 Nurture (Environmental Influences)

 Small to moderate correlation btwn IQs of children in
same house but genetically unrelated (adoption
studies)
 Social & Cultural Correlates – Best predictors of
children’s IQ related to home environment:
 Infancy
 Parental involvement
 Age-appropriate play materials
 Variety in daily stimulation
 Preschool
 Parental warmth
 Stimulation of language & academic behaviors
Intelligence: Outline
 What is Intelligence?
 What is IQ?
 What does IQ predict?
 Factors that Influence IQ scores
 The general psychometric approach
 Various Theories of Intelligence
 Sternberg’s Computational Theory of IQ
 Barab & Plucker’s Distributed Intelligence Approach
General Psychometric Approach

 A theoretical perspective that portrays intelligence as

a trait (or set of traits) on which individuals differ

 Goal: to identify precisely what those traits might be

& to measure them

 Responsible for the development of

standardized intelligence tests

Problem:
Little agreement on the structure
of intelligence…
Theories of Intelligence
 Alfred Binet
 Single Component: Mental age: measure of intellectual
development reflecting level of age-graded problems a child is
able to solve
 Spearman’s g
 General factor (g) + some special abilities (s) specific to
particular tests
 Thurstone ‘s view 1. Spatial ability
 Spearman’s g really equals 2. Perceptual speed
7 “primary mental abilities”
3. Numerical reasoning
 Guildford 4. Verbal meaning
 5 Content 5. Word fluency
x 6 Mental Operations 6. Memory
x 6 Products 7. Inductive reasoning
180 distinct mental abilities
 Hierarchical Models of Intelligence
 model of the structure of intelligence in which a broad, general
ability factor (g) is at the top of the hierarchy, with a number of
specialized ability factors nested underneath
Sternberg’s Triarchic
Theory of Intelligence
 Criticism of other models: Too strong a focus on
what child knows rather than processes by which
knowledge is acquired, retained & used to solve
problems.

 Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence - a recent

computational theory of intelligence that emphasizes
three aspects of intelligent behavior not normally
tapped by IQ tests:

a) The context of the action (cultural/historical period)

b) The person’s experience with the task/situation
(response to novelty or automation)
c) The information-processing strategies the person applies
to the task/situation (problem representation, strategies,
monitoring, efficiency, speed)
Distributed Intelligence
Approach (Barab & Plucker)
 Distributed Cognition
 Cognition is distributed among individuals
 Knowledge is socially constructed thru collaborative efforts
to achieve shared objectives in cultural surroundings
 Information is processed between individuals & the tools
& artifacts provided by culture
 Where then lies IQ?
 An individual’s competence is situation specific
 What makes one person-in-situation more intelligent than
another is its contextualized functional value
 The ability to act intelligently is accomplished or engaged
rather than possessed
 Educators must develop smart contexts, not smart people
 Activity
Read: “What you see is what you
get” in light of the film just viewed.

Write a 1-2 paragraph response

to the article.