Intelligence

Reni K, Asst. Prof. in General

Education
 • The Concept of
Intelligence
• Theories of Intelligence
• Concept of IQ, EQ, and SQ
Intelligence
and its
measurement
The Concept of Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to learn, carry on the higher process of
thought, especially abstract thinking, and adapt to new situations.

• Binet defines intelligence as the ability of an individual to direct

his behaviour toward a goal.
• According to Piaget, intelligence is adapting to one’s
surroundings.
• Wagnon considers intelligence as the capacity to learn and adjust
to relatively new and changing conditions.
• Wyatt takes intelligence as an ability of the mind to apprehend
relevant relations.

To sum up, intelligence is the global capacity of an individual to act

purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his
environment.
Nature of Intelligence
• It is the ability to learn.
• It is the ability to solve problems.
• It is the ability to deal with abstraction.
• It is the ability to see relevant relationships with objects or ideas.
• It is the ability to apply acquired knowledge to a new situation.
• Intelligence is excellence of performance as manifested in
efficient work.
• It is the analytic and synthetic ability of the mind.

Types of Intelligence
Thorndike has classified intelligence into 3 categories:
• Concrete Intelligence: It is the ability of an individual to
comprehend actual situations and react to them adequately.
• Abstract Intelligence: It is the ability to respond to abstract
symbols like numbers, letters, etc.
• Social Intelligence: It is the ability of an individual to react to
social situations in daily life.
 Monarchic Theory (Unitary Theory)
• Intelligence consists of one factor, a fund of
intellectual competence, which is universal to all
activities of the individual.
• It is the general mental ability of the individual
that enables him to succeed in every sphere of
life. This theory fails to explain why people
perform unevenly in different fields.
Two-factor Theory
• This theory was advocated by Spearman.
According to him, intelligence consists of 2

Theories
factors- a general factor (g) and a specific factor
(s).
• The g-factor is a sort of general mental ability

of running through all the different tasks, while s-

factor is a specific capacity that helps the person
to deal with specific problems.
Intelligence • The g-factor remains constant for an individual
while s-factor varies with the intellectual activity.
• The amount of g and s factors required in an
activity will depend on its nature. Hence
different activities would require different
combinations of g and s factors.
• The s-factors are amenable to influences like
education and training, whereas g-factor is
largely innate.
• Example: An individual’s performance in
Physics is partly due to his general intelligence
(g) and partly due to some specific ability for
Physics (s1) which he might possess. So the
performance in Physics is given by g+s1, or in
Mathematics, his performance may be a result
of g+s2, in English, g+s3 and so on.
Guilford’s Theory of Structure of Intellect (SI Model)
• J.P Guilford explained the structure of
intelligence by proposing a 3-D model by using
the statistical technique of factor analysis.
• According to this model every intellectual
activity can be described in terms of 3 different
basic parameters - operations, contents and
products.
• Operations refer to the act of thinking,
contents refer to the terms in which we think
and products refer to the ideas we come up
with.
• Guilford identified 5 operations, 5 contents,
and 6 products.
• Operations: Evaluation, Converegnt thinking,
Diveregnt thinking, Memory and Cognition. Guilford’s model of the structure of intellect
• Contents: Visual, Auditory, Symbolic, Semantic with 3 parameters and 150 specific factors
may be diagrammatically represented as
and Behavioral. above shown.

• Products: Units, Classes, Relations, Systems,

Transformations and Implications.
Multifactor Theory (Anarchic Theory)
• Theory advocated by E.L Thorndike.
• According to this theory, intelligence is formed by the combination of a number
of separate independent factors. These are numerical reasoning, vocabulary,
classification, sentence completion, etc.
• Each of these factors is a minute element promoting a specific type of activity.
• Any intellectual activity is dependent upon a greater number of these minute
factors operating together.
Primary Mental Abilities (Thurstone)
• In 1938, [Link], proposed a group factor theory to explain intelligence
in terms of 7 primary mental abilities.
• He used the statistical technique of factor analysis to identify and isolate the
elements that make up intelligence.
• The abilities identified were:
• Verbal Comprehension: ability to understand the meaning of words. The test
measures vocabulary, reading, comprehension, verbal analogies, etc.
• Words Fluency: ability to think of words rapidly, as in anagrams or rhyming
tests.
• Number: ability to quickly and accurately carry out mathematical operations.
4. Space: ability for spatial visualization as well as mentally transforming spatial
figures.
5. Memory: ability to recall verbal stimuli such as a word pair or sentence.
6. Perceptual speed: ability to grasp visual details, similarities, and differences
between pictured objects.
7. Reasoning: ability to find a general rule on the basis of presented instances.
Involves skill in a variety of inductive, deductive, and arithmetic reasoning tasks.
Multiple Intelligence Theory
• In 1983, Howard Gardner devloped the theory of multiple intelligences - Frames
of Mind, which originally postulated 7 types of intelligence. He then added a
Naturalistic Intelligence and entertained the possibility of an Existential
Intelligence.
•• The 9 types of intelligence
Bodily-Kinesthetic as postulated
Intelligence by Gardner
7. Intrapersonal are:
Intelligence
• Interpersonal Intelligence 8. Musical (Rhythmic) Intelligence
• Logico-Mathematical Intelligence 9. Verbal or Linguistic Intelligence
• Naturalistic Intelligence
• Visual (Spatial) Intelligence
• Existential Intelligence
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
• The potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body to solve problems.
• It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements.
• Individuals with a strong kinesthetic intelligence internalize information through
bodily sensations, respond quickly and intuitively to physical stimuli,
demonstrate well-developed motor skills, and strive to learn by doing.

Interpersonal Intelligence
• The capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, and desires of other
people. It allows people to work effectively with others.
• Individuals with strong Interpersonal intelligence show heightened capability to
jointly complete tasks with others, willingness to offer and accept input, ability to
persuade others, awareness and concern for others, a skill for meaningfully
relating to others, seek group support, enjoy collaborative work and display a
winning personality.
Logico-Mathematical Intelligence
• The capacity to reason deductively, analyze problems logically, carry out
mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically.
• This intelligence is commonly associated with mathematical and scientific
thinking.
• Individuals with strong logical intelligence seek order, reason scientifically,
identify relationships, like completing puzzles, excel at calculating, analyze
abstract ideas, and manipulate functions.
Naturalistic Intelligence
• Enables you to recognize, categorize, and draw upon certain features of the
environment.
• Individuals with strong naturalistic intelligence are intrinsically organized,
demonstrate empathy with nature, enjoy sorting and organizing materials, and
respond to semantic mapping activities.
• They possess higher natural orientation (identification with living organism and
their environment), superior attribute orientation (finding common traits among
items), higher ability of categorization (identify categories by attribute), higher
hierarchical reasoning (ranking items by significance and relationship), and
higher schematic memory (internalizing and recalling information by attribute,
 Visual (Spatial) Intelligence
• The potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined
areas.
• Individuals with strong spatial intelligence exhibit a heightened ability to assess
information based on principles of design and aesthetics, solve problems using
spatial orientation, think in divergent ways, see possibilities before engaging
them in the physical world, and show the ability for creating, building, arranging,
decorating etc.
Existential Intelligence
• The ability to be sensitive to, or have the capacity for, conceptualizing or tackling
deeper or larger questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life,
why we are born, why we die, how we got here, etc.
• It involves having a heightened capacity to appreciate and attend to the
cosmological enigmas that define the human condition, an exceptional awareness
of the metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological mysteries that have been a
perennial concern for people of all cultures.
Intrapersonal Intelligence
• The capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one’s feelings, fears, and
motivations. In Gardners view, it involves having an effective working model of
ourselves and being able to use such information to regulate our lives.
• An individual with high Intrapersonal intelligence possesses a realistic knowledge
of their feelings attitudes, and outlook.
• They show improved ability in setting principles and moral priorities, monitoring
thoughts, actions, and behaviors, and showing an awareness of their thought
process (metacognition).

Musical Intelligence
• Involves the skill in performance, composition, and appreciation of musical
patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches,
tones, and rhythms.
• According to Gardner, Musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel to
Linguistic intelligence.
• Individuals with strong Musical intelligence show heightened listening ability, and
seek patterns in new information, respond to cadence (rhythm) in language, and
use patterning to both internalize and recall skills, ideas and cocnepts.
Verbal or Linguistic Intelligence
• Involves sensitivity to spoken and
written language, the ability to learn
languages, and the capacity to use
language to accomplish certain goals.
• This intelligence includes the ability to
effectively use language to express
oneself rhetorically (symbolically) or
potentially, and language as a means to
remember information.
• Individuals with strong Linguistic
intelligence, think and remember
through internal language, apply rules of
languages to new and different contexts
explain and express oneself verbally and
in writing.