Summ Intelligence

Question 1: What is Intelligence? Why are definitions of Intelligence controversial and seldom agreed upon?

Answer:

According to the AllWords Dictionary (2006), intelligence is the ability of using judgment, imagination, reasoning, understanding, experience, knowledge and memory with the purpose of solving problems adapting to new situations. The American Psychological Association has further elaborated this definition by explaining the fact that individuals differ from each other in overcoming obstacles by taking thought, engaging in various forms of reasoning, learning from experience, adapting effectively to the environment, and understanding complex ideas (Neisser et al., 1996). Apart from these literary definitions of Intelligence, psychologists have attempted to define the concept as well. For instance, Anastasi (1992) explain that intelligence is not a single, unitary ability but a composite of several functions. In a similar fashion, Burt (1957) posited that intelligence is a quality that is not emotional or moral but intellectual. However, Boring (1923) explain that intelligence is what is measured by intelligence tests. Gardner (1993), on the other hand, presented the fact that intelligence is the ability to creating products or solving problems that are valued in a particular cultural setting. As the time passed away, researchers developed definitions of the concept of intelligence in the field of artificial intelligence as well. For example, Fogel (1995) explain the any system with the ability of generating adaptive behaviors for meeting goals in a range of environment is intelligent. Godertzel (2006) put it in other words as following, "intelligence is achieving complex goals in complex environments. As it is evident from the different definitions presented over the time, the task of providing a single definition of the concept of Intelligence is beyond the boundaries of possibility. Primarily, noticing the definition of Intelligence is the correct one. Nevertheless, some of them are more general, precise and concise than the others. For this reason, the definitions of Intelligence remain controversial and are seldom agreed-upon.

Question 2: What are Intelligence tests used for and what ethical concerns are involved in using Intelligence testing?

Answer:

The primary purpose of intelligence tests used to measure someone's intellectual potential how to diagnose intellectual disabilities. Formally, they were called the intellectual quotient tests. Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, was the first person to create intelligence test in 1990s. The modern intelligence testing, particularly in the United States, terms from the work of Henry Goddard. He is a psychologist who translated the Binet test from French to English (White, 2000). However, the word of Goddard remains controversial due to his argument that adults with low intellectual quotient should not procreate (Greenwood, 2015). Fortunately, such viewpoints are not much appreciated in today's society. For this reason, several types of intelligence tests are being run today such as Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1995), Peabody Individual Achievement Test (Markwardt, 1989), Universal Nonverbal Intelligence (Bracken & McCallum, 1998), and Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Terman & Merrill, 1960), to name a few. Reliability, validity and bias are three major issues in overall psychological testing today. The assessment of intelligence tests primarily depends upon one's perspective. On one end of the discussion, intelligence testing have the potential of identifying talented students but they fairly lack the ability to judge the true ability of a person. For instance, the intelligence tests presented by Gardner (1993) measure mathematical, verbal, physical, mechanical, musical and social skills of a student. In a similar fashion, the tri-archic Theory of Intelligence by Robert Sternberg revolves around practical, creative, analytical intelligence. However, none of these intelligence tests discusses common sense. Additionally, the assessment of intelligence testing results differs on the grounds of sex, education level, living standards, culture, and race. Therefore, it remains difficult for the psychologists to design and intelligence test concerning all of the variables.

References

A. Anastasi. What counselors should know about the use and interpretation of psychological tests. Journal of Counseling and Development, 70(5):610– 615, 1992.

B. Goertzel. The Hidden Pattern. Brown Walker Press, 2006.

Bracken, B. A., & McCallum, R. S. (1998). Universal nonverbal intelligence test. Chicago: Riverside Publishing Company.

C. L. Burt. The causes and treatments of backwardness. University of London press, 1957

D. B. Fogel. Review of computational intelligence: Imitating life. Proc. of the IEEE, 83(11), 1995.

E. G. Boring. Intelligence as the tests test it. New Republic, 35:35–37, 1923.

Greenwood, J. D. (2015). Intelligence defined: Wundt, James, Cattell, Thorndike, Goddard, and Yerkes. In Handbook of Intelligence (pp. 123-135). Springer, New York, NY.

H. Gardner. Frames of Mind: Theory of multiple intelligences. Fontana Press, 1993.

Markwardt, F. C. (1989). Peabody individual achievement test-revised: PIAT-R. Circle Pines: American Guidance Service.

Terman, L. M., & Merrill, M. A. (1960). Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Manual for the third revision, Form LM.

U. Neisser, G. Boodoo, T. J. Bouchard, Jr., A. W. Boykin, N. Brody, S. J. Ceci, D. F. Halpern, J. C. Loehlin, R. Perloff, R. J. Sternberg, and S. Urbina. Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. American Psychologist, 51(2):77–101, 96

Wechsler, D. (1955). Manual for the Wechsler adult intelligence scale.

White, S. H. (2000). Conceptual foundations of IQ testing. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 6(1), 33.