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Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns

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Abstract

Presents findings of a task force established by the American Psychological Association to report on the issues of what is known and unknown about intelligence. Significant conceptualizations of intelligence are reviewed, including the psychometric approach, theories of multiple forms of intelligence, cultural variations, theories of developmental progressions, and biological approaches. The meaning of intelligence test scores, what they predict, and how well they predict intelligence is discussed. Genetic factors and intelligence, focusing on individual differences, conventional IQ tests, and other tests intended to measure cognitive ability, are described. Environmental factors such as social and biological variables are discussed, and sex and ethnic group differences are addressed. Recommendations for future research are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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... However, the theory is not without controversies and criticisms and has been analyzed mainly concerning its empirical perspective. Gardner did this in the wake of the psychometric demeanor of intelligences theories such as; Spearman's g-factor proposition that asserted that there is an ISP of generalized intelligences (Neisser et al., 1996). He pointed out that these models exaggerated the cognitive parameter and were blind to the variability of intelligence. ...
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... Two sets of linear regression analyses were conducted in each cohort sample to predict academic performance. Since reasoning is consistently found to be a significant predictor of academic achievement (Georgiou et al. 2020;Neisser et al. 1996) and gender differences in academic achievement are also well documented (Marsh and Yeung 1998;Torppa et al. 2018), we used gender and reasoning as control variables in Model 1 (the baseline model). Model 2 included gender, reasoning, and the two CPS components as the predictors. ...
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... Achievement is defined in specific terms as "performance outcomes that indicate the extent to which a person has accomplished specific goals that were the focus of activities in instructional environments, specifically in school, college, and university" (Steinmayr et al., 2015). In contrast, intelligence is conceived in general terms, often based on how individuals process information to solve life's problems and to adapt to the environment (Neisser et al., 1996). Achievement tests are used to assess students for placement into programs designed for the highly intelligent, such as the gifted programs, while the assessment of intelligence constructs like goals setting, problem solving, information processing, creativity, novelty, critical thinking, and self-monitoring are seldom conducted (Kaplan, 2019). ...
... Thus, there is a need to examine gang affiliated AISB as subgroup. IQ score differences between delinquent adolescents (e.g., gang affiliated youth) and non-delinquent adolescents are typically about eight points, or a half standard deviation (Neisser et al. 1996;Yun and Lee 2013). In one study of Los Angeles, California gangs, Klein (1971) reported that the median IQ was 84. ...
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Two issues that complicate behavioral genetic analyses are the interaction and correlation between genetic and environmental influences. In the present report, the effects of genotype-environment interaction and correlation on behavioral genetic studies (twin and adoption studies) are examined. The analysis suggests that genotype-environment interaction may bias twin study estimates of genetic and environmental influence but need not affect adoption studies. On the other hand, genotype-environment correlation may affect both twin and adoption study estimates of genetic and environmental influence, the direction of the effect depending on the sign of the correlation. New tests of genotype-environment interaction and correlation, using adoption data, are proposed. (27 ref)
Chapter
Cyril Burt (1961) has set forth the following hypothesis with regard to social mobility (or “social promotion”): . . . in a highly organized society, the discrepancies between the general intelligence of the children and the occupational class into which they are born is bound to produce a large and fairly constant amount of “basic mobility,” quite apart from any deliberate changes in the political or educational structure of the society.