Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

The Nature of Intelligence299different tests tended to be similar. That is, people who didwell or poorly on a test of one mental ability, such as verbalability, tended also to do well or poorly on the other tests.Spearman recognized that particular individuals mightexcel in specific areas. However, Spearman (1904) believedthat a factor he called general intelligence, or theg factor, was responsible for their overall performance ontests of mental ability. Psychologists who follow this approachtoday think that intelligence can be described asa single measure of general cognitive ability, or g factor(Gottfredson, 1998). Thus, general mental abilitycould accurately be expressed by a single number,such as the IQ score. Lewis Terman’s approach tomeasuring and defining intelligence as a single, overallIQ score was in the tradition of Charles Spearman. Interms of Spearman’s model, Tom would undoubtedly score very highly on any testthat measured g factor or general intelligence. For example, when he took the SATas a high school junior, he scored in the top 3 percent in math and received a perfectscore on the writing section.Louis L. ThurstoneIntelligence Is a Cluster of AbilitiesPsychologist Louis L. Thurstone disagreed with Spearman’snotion that intelligence is a single, general mentalcapacity. Instead, Thurstone believed that there wereseven different “primary mental abilities,” each a relativelyindependent element of intelligence. Abilities suchas verbal comprehension, numerical ability, reasoning,and perceptual speed are examples Thurstone gaveof independent “primary mental abilities.”To Thurstone, the so-called g factor was simplyan overall average score of such independent abilitiesand consequently was less important than an individual’sspecific pattern of mental abilities (Thurstone,1937). David Wechsler’s approach tomeasuring and defining intelligence as a pattern of differentabilities was very similar to Thurstone’s approach.Charles Spearman (1863–1945) Britishpsychologist Charles Spearman (1904)believed that a single factor, which hecalled the g factor, underlies many differentkinds of mental abilities. To Spearman,a person’s level of general intelligencewas equivalent to his or her level of“mental energy.”Louis L. Thurstone (1887–1955) Americanpsychologist Louis Thurstone studied electricalengineering and was an assistant toThomas Edison before he became interestedin the psychology of learning. Thurstonewas especially interested in themeasurements of people’s attitudes andintelligence, and was an early critic of theidea of “mental age,” believing that intelligencewas too diverse to be quantified ina single number or IQ score.Howard Gardner“Multiple Intelligences”More recently, Howard Gardner has expanded Thurstone’s basic notion of intelligenceas different mental abilities that operate independently. However, Gardnerhas stretched the definition of intelligence (Gardner & Taub, 1999). Rather thananalyzing intelligence test results, Gardner (1985, 1993) looked at the kinds ofskills and products that are valued in different cultures. He also studied braindamagedindividuals, noting that some mental abilities are spared when others arelost. To Gardner, this phenomenon implies that different mental abilities are biologicallydistinct and controlled by different parts of the brain.Like Thurstone, Gardner has suggested that such mental abilities are independentof each other and cannot be accurately reflected in a single measure of intelligence.Rather than one intelligence, Gardner (1993, 1998a) believes, there are“multiple intelligences.” To Gardner, “an intelligence” is the ability to solve problems,or to create products, that are valued within one or more cultural settings.Thus, he believes that intelligence must be defined within the context of a particularculture. Gardner (1998b) has proposed eight distinct, independent intelligences,which are summarized in Figure 7.7 on the next page.