Ian Chang

Period 3

Preview Questions

1. Some cultural differences in intelligence play out on a global scale. In "The Geography of Thought" (Free Press, 2003), Richard Nisbett, PhD, co-director of the Culture and Cognition Program at the University of Michigan, argues that East Asian and Western cultures have developed cognitive styles that differ in fundamental ways, including in how intelligence is understood. People in Western cultures, he suggests, tend to view intelligence as a means for individuals to devise categories and to engage in rational debate, while people in Eastern cultures see it as a way for members of a community to recognize contradiction and complexity and to play their social roles successfully.

2. Heritability is a term used in many articles and through much of the scientific literature and invariably promotes the idea that it relates specifically to inherited traits.  As a result, it is often assumed that the heritability of a particular trait relates to how much influence genetics has on the trait manifesting in an individual.

3. The natural genetic make-up of the body interacts with the environment from the moment of conception. While extreme genetic or environmental conditions can predominate behavior in some rare cases, such as the inability of a mute person to speak regardless of their environment, these two factors generally work together to produce a person’s intelligence level. They are so intertwined that it remains difficult to determine which influence holds the supreme position in shaping intelligence.

4. The concept of the range of reaction helps shed light on how environments influence genes. According to this concept, heredity does not rigidly fix behavior, but instead establishes a range of possible developmental outcomes that

may occur in response to different environments. When a reaction range is extremely narrow, it is said to exhibit canalization. With a highly canalized trait, there are few pathways that development can take, and intense or more specific environmental pushes are required to deflect the course of development.Not only does environment influence genes, but genes also influence the environments to which people are exposed. One way this can happen is for parents with certain genetic predispositions to create a home environment that suits those predispositions, and which may also suit and encourage the inherited predispositions of their children. Another way is for people's inherited tendencies to evoke certain environmental influences from others. A third way is for genes to encourage people to engage in niche picking-seeking out experiences that are compatible with their inherited tendencies.

5. In 1969 the educational psychologist Arthur Jensen published a long article with the suggestion that compensatory education had failed to that date because of genetic group differences. A similar debate among academics followed the publication in 1994 of The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. Their book prompted a renewal of debate on the issue and the publication of several interdisciplinary books on the issue. One contemporary response was a report from the American Psychological Association that found no con clusive explanation for the observed differences between average IQ scores of racial groups. A 2012 review article in the journal American Psychologist and a rejoinder to a reply to that article are some of the latest publications prompted by the debate.

6. There is evidence that IQ scores are influenced by environmental factors that are pervasively and systematically patterned along racial lines in the U.S.  Nonetheless, mean IQ differences among racial groups have been decreasing over the past few decades, perhaps in response to improved educational opportunities for some minority individuals.  Taken together, the evidence suggests that differences in IQ scores are the result of social inequality rather than its cause.

7. The term IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, generally describes a score on a test that rates the subject's cognitive ability as compared to the general population. IQ tests use a

standardized scale with 100 as the median score. On most tests, a score between 90 and 110, or the median plus or minus 10, indicates average intelligence. A score above 130 indicates exceptional intelligence and a score below 70 may indicate mental retardation. Like their predecessors, modern tests do take in to account the age of a child when determining an IQ score. Children are graded relative to the population at their developmental level.

8. IQ tests are designed to measure your general ability to solve

problems and understand concepts. This includes reasoning ability, problem-solving ability, ability to perceive relationships between things and ability to store and retrieve information. IQ tests measure this general intellectual ability in a number of different ways. They may test:

spatial ability: the ability to visualize manipulation of shapes

mathematical ability: the ability to solve problems and use logic

language ability: This could include the ability to complete sentences or recognize words when letters have been rearranged or removed.

memory ability: the ability to recall things presented either visually or aurally

9. Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence was developed about the same time as Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Rejecting traditionally narrow definitions of intelligence, Sternberg defined intelligence as mental activity central to one's life in real-world environments; individuals “succeed” in life when they use mental skills to adapt to, select, and shape external environments. Correspondingly, in the late 1990s, Sternberg changed the name of the theory to the Theory of Successful Intelligence. As per its original name, the theory comprises three types of intelligence: analytical (also referred to as componential); practical (also referred to as contextual) and creative (also referred to as experiential). Analytical intelligence is evoked while analyzing, evaluating, criticizing, reasoning, and judging. Practical intelligence is used while implying, implementing, and using. Creative intelligence is manifested while discovering, inventing, dealing with novelty, and creating. The theory predicts that “intelligent” people will identify their strengths and weaknesses, make the most of their strengths and compensate

for their weaknesses. Individuals are not limited to strength in only one of the three areas; both integrated and uneven profiles of intelligence are possible.

10. Gardner describes eight different kinds of intelligence:

Visual: Good with art and design Linguistic: Good with words Logical: Good with numbers and math Bodily: Good at action, movement and sports Musical: Good with music, tone and rhythm Interpersonal: Good at communicating with others Intrapersonal: Good at self-reflection Naturalistic: Good at appreciating the world and nature

The theory has come under criticism from psychologists and educators who argue that Gardner's definition of intelligence is too broad, and that his eight different intelligences simply represent talents, personality traits and abilities. Despite this, the theory of multiple intelligences enjoys considerable popularity with educators. Many teachers utilize multiple intelligences in their teaching philosophy and work to integrate Gardner's theory into the classroom.

11. Emotional intelligence is a set of abilities which can be measured. Our approach is ability-based and customized. We measure emotional intelligence with the - MSCEIT and customize our recommendations to meet individual and organization needs. Measures of emotional intelligence are available to help you better understand your own, your organizational members or your clients emotional strengths and weaknesses. 

12. Scholarly and popular discussion about nature and nurture relates to the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities nature in the sense of nativism or innatism as compared to an individual's personal experiences nurture in the sense of empiricism or behaviorism in causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

The phrase nature and nurture in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare in his play, The

Tempest: 4.1. Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his half-cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education, and social privilege are often historically passedo genetic offspring, even though wealth, education, and social privilege are not part of the human biological system, and so cannot be directly attributed to genetics.

The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" was termed tabula rasa ("blank slate") by philosopher John Locke. The blank slate view proposes that humans develop only from environmental influences. This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play interacting roles in development, most modern psychologists and other scholars of human development consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge.

One may also refer to the concepts of innatism and empiricism as genetic determinism and environmentalism respectively. These two conflicting approaches have influenced research agendas for a century. While genetic determinism holds that the development is primarily influenced by the genetic code of a person, environmentalism emphasises the influence of experiences and social factors. In the twenty-first century, a consensus is developing that both genetic and environmental agents influence development interactively.

In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (that is, socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.

13. Psychology shares with sociology (and cultural anthropology) a broadly-based interest in understanding a wide variety of human behavior; the disciplines differ from each other in that psychology is principally concerned with the behavior of individuals, while sociologists more commonly study group behavior and the extent to which group

membership (including factors such as race, class, and gender) influences individual behavior.

Psychology has both academic and applied branches. Applied psychology is a therapeutic effort to help people understand their own behavior and cope with their problems. Academic psychology is closer to the mainstream of sociology, placing its central emphasis on understanding such phenomena as learning, thinking, personality formation and functioning, intelligence, memory, and motivation. Academic psychology grew out of biology and is still strongly oriented toward experimental research. Some academic psychologists conduct research into animal behavior and the physiology of the brain, which is sharply distinct from sociological work; others concern themselves with very much the same sort of questions as those that interest sociologists, although always with special emphasis on individual behavior. The two fields meet in the subdiscipline of social psychology, which is commonly taught in both psychology and sociology curricula and which focuses on how human personality and behavior are influenced by an individual’s social environment.