7 hus 133 intelligence

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CHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER SEVEN Intelligence

Adulthood and Aging, 6eJohn C. CavanaughFredda Blanchard-Fields

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Defining Intelligence

Learning Objectives

• How do people define intelligence in everyday life?

• What are the major components of the life span approach?

• What are the major research approaches for studying intelligence?

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Intelligence in Everyday Life

• Intelligence involves more than just a particular fixed set of characteristics.

• Laypersons and experts agree on three clusters of intelligence:– Problem-solving ability

– Verbal ability

– Social competence

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The Big Picture: A Life-Span View

• Theories of intelligence have four concepts: – Multidimensional (many domains of intellectual functioning)

– Multidirectionality (distinct patterns of change of abilities)

– Plasticity (degree to which a person’s ability can be modified)

– Interindividual variability (adults differ in the direction of their intellectual development)

• The dual component model of intellectual functioning– Mechanics of intelligence (thinking & information processing)

(reasoning, spatial orientation, perception speed)

– Pragmatics of intelligence (acquired knowledge available within culture)

(everyday cognitive performance & adaptation – verbal knowledge, wisdom, and practical problem solving)

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A Life-Span View of fluid mechanics and crystallized pragmatics

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Research Approaches to Intelligence

• The psychometric approach– Measuring intelligence as a score on a standardized

test• Focus is on getting correct answers.

• The cognitive-structural approach– Ways in which people conceptualize and solve

problems emphasizing developmental changes in modes and styles of thinking

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Developmental Trends in Psychometric Intelligence

Learning Objectives

• What are primary mental abilities? How do they change across adulthood?

• What are secondary mental abilities? What are the developmental trends for fluid and crystallized intelligence?

• What are the primary moderators of intellectual change?

• How successful are attempts at training primary mental abilities?

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Primary Mental Abilities

• Thurston’s five primary mental abilities:– Numerical facility -- basic math skills / reasoning

– Word fluency -- verbal description of things

– Verbal meaning -- vocabulary ability

– Inductive reasoning -- ability to extrapolate from facts to general concepts

– Spatial orientation -- ability to reason in 3D world in which we live

• Two additional abilities added by Schaie:– Perceptual speed -- ability to rapidly find visual details

– Verbal memory – ability to store and recall meaningful language

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Changes with Age

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Age-Related Changes in Primary Abilities

• Data from K. Warner Schaie’s Seattle Longitudinal Study of more than 5,000 individuals from 1956 to 1998 in six testing cycles:– People tend to improve on primary abilities until late

30s or early 40s.

– Scores stabilize until mid-50s and early 60s.

– By late 60s consistent declines are seen.

– Nearly everyone shows a decline in one ability, but few show decline on four or five abilities.

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Decline on one or more cognitive abilities

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Secondary Mental Abilities

• At least six secondary mental abilities have been found

– Fluid IntelligenceAbilities that make you a flexible and adaptive thinker, to draw inferences, and relationships between concepts independent of knowledge and experience

– Crystallized IntelligenceThe knowledge acquired through life experience and education in a particular culture

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Test Performance as a Function of Age

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Moderators of Intellectual Change

• Cohort differences– Comparing longitudinal studies with cross-sectional

show little or no decline in intellectual performance with age

• Information processing– Perceptual speed may account for age-related

decline.

– Working memory decline may account for poor performance of older adults if coordination between old and new information is required.

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Moderators of Intellectual Change (cont.)

• Social and lifestyle variables– Differences in cognitive skills needed in different

occupations makes a difference in intellectual development.

– Higher education and socioeconomic status also related to slower rates of intellectual decline.

– Does a cognitively engaging lifestyle predict greater intellectual functioning?

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• Health– A connection between disease and intelligence has

been established in general and in cardiovascular disease in particular.

– The participants in the Seattle Longitudinal Study who declined in inductive reasoning had significantly more illness diagnoses and visits to physicians for cardiovascular disease.

– Hypertension is not as clear. Severe HT may indicate decline whereas mild HT may have positive effects on intellectual functioning.

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Moderators of Intellectual Change (cont.)

• Relevancy and appropriateness of tasks– Traditional tests have high correlation with tests that

have been updated to measure actual tasks faced by older persons.

• Modifying primary abilities– Training seems to slow declines in some primary

abilities.

• Project ADEPT and Project ACTIVE– Ability-specific training does improve in primary

abilities.– Effect varies in ability to maintain and transfer gains.

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• Other attempts to train fluid abilities– Schaie and Willis’ cognitive training showed

improvement in spatial and reasoning abilities both with people whose abilities were declining and improvement in those whose abilities had stabilized.

• Long-term effects of training– Seven year follow-up to the original ADEPT showed

significant training effects.– 64% of trained group’s performance was above the

pre-training level compared to 33% of the control group.

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Qualitative Differences in Adults Thinking

Learning Objectives

• What are the main points in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?

• What evidence is there for continued cognitive development beyond formal operations?

• What is the role of both emotion and cognition in cognitive maturity?

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Qualitative Differences in Adults Thinking

Piaget’s Theory• Basic concepts

– Assimilation• Use of currently available information to make sense out

of incoming information

– Accommodation• Changing one’s thought to make a better approximation

of the world of experience

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Piaget’s Theory• Sensorimotor Period

– Object permanence (objects exist when out of sight)

• Preoperational Period– Egocentrism (belief that all people and objects experience the world as they do)

• Concrete Operations Period– Classification, conservation, mental reversing

• Formal Operations Period– Abstract thought; (solutions to problems people have not seen or encountered)

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Going Beyond Piaget: Postformal Thought

• Developmental progressions in adult thought– Reflective judgment (how people reason through delimas)

– Optimal level of development (highest level of info processing possible)

– Skill acquisition (process by which people learn new abilities)

• Three thinking Styles– Absolutist

Belief there is only on correct solution & personal experience provides the answer.

– RelativisticRealizing there are many sides to an issue; answer depends on the circumstance

– Dialectical See the merits in different viewpoints but can synthesize them into a workable solution

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Everyday Reasoning and Problem Solving

Learning Objectives

• What are the characteristics of older adults’ decision making?

• What are optimally exercised abilities and unexercised abilities? What age differences have been found in practical problem solving?

• What is encapsulation, and how does it relate to expertise?

• What is wisdom, and how does it relate to age and life experience?

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Decision Making

• Younger adults make decisions quicker than older adults.

• Older adults– Search for less information to arrive at a decision– Require less information to arrive at a decision– Rely on easily accessible information

Why is this?

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Problem Solving• We use our intellectual abilities to solve problems.

– Some people are better than others at problem solving.

– Why is that? Could it have to do with the kinds of abilities we use regularly versus the ones we use only occasionally?

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Denny’s Model of Unexercised andOptimally Exercised Abilities

• Unexercised ability– The ability a normal, healthy adult would exhibit without

practice or training (fluid intelligence)

• Exercised ability– The ability a normal, healthy adult would demonstrate

under the best conditions of training or practice (crystallized intelligence)

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Practical Problem Solving

• Observed Tasks of Daily Living (OTDL)(food prep, medicine intake, telephone use)

– OTDL scores were directly influenced by: • Age• Fluid intelligence• Crystallized intelligence

– OTDL scores were indirectly influenced by:• Perceptual speed• Memory• Several aspects of health

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Expertise

• Older adults compensate for poorer performance through their expertise.– Expertise helps the aging adult compensate for losses

in other skills. Learned via experience alternative ways to solve problems / make decisions

• Encapsulation– The processes of thinking (like attention & memory) become

connected to the products of thinking (such as knowledge

about world history).– Adult knowledge becomes more and more specialized

based on experience

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Wisdom – (growth of expertise and insight)

– Involves practical knowledge– Is given altruistically– Involves psychological insights– Based on life experience

• Implicit conceptions of wisdom are widely shared within a culture and include:– Exceptional level of functioning– A dynamic balance between intellect, emotion, and

motivation– A high degree of personal and interpersonal

competence– Good intentions

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