Controversy of Intelligence: Crash Course Psychology #23

Summary

This script explores the complex nature of intelligence, challenging the idea of a single measure. It discusses the G-factor theory by Spearman and Thurstone's multiple intelligences, as well as Gardner's and Sternberg's models. The script also touches on creativity and emotional intelligence, highlighting their significance alongside cognitive abilities. Historically, it covers the development of intelligence testing, from Galton's eugenics to Binet's tests, and the dark era of IQ tests misuse by the Nazis. It concludes by emphasizing the ongoing debate and the need for a more nuanced understanding of intelligence.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Intelligence is multifaceted and cannot be precisely measured like height or weight; it varies across cultures, ages, and skills.
• 🤔 The concept of intelligence encompasses the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and adapt to new experiences.
• 📊 British psychologist Charles Spearman introduced the G-Factor, suggesting a general intelligence underlying all specific mental abilities.
• 📚 L.L. Thurstone challenged the G-Factor, proposing seven distinct clusters of mental abilities rather than a single general intelligence.
• 🧩 Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests eight different types of intelligence, from logical to musical and interpersonal.
• 🔍 Robert Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence includes analytical, creative, and practical intelligences.
• 🎨 Creativity is a form of intelligence that traditional tests struggle to measure, focusing on divergent thinking and problem-solving.
• 💡 Sherlock Holmes exemplifies high levels of several intelligences, including expertise, imaginative thinking, and a venturesome personality.
• 😕 Emotional intelligence, involving the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions, is a separate aspect that even highly intelligent individuals may lack.
• 📚 The history of intelligence testing is fraught with controversy, from eugenics movements to the misuse of IQ tests for social control.
• 🌟 Current understanding acknowledges intelligence as a real and measurable phenomenon, though its genetic, environmental, educational, and socio-economic components are not fully understood.

Q & A

What is the definition of intelligence discussed in the script?

Intelligence is defined as the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new experiences, rather than a concrete thing that can be measured exactly like height or weight.

What is the G-Factor in the context of intelligence?

The G-Factor, proposed by British psychologist Charles Spearman, is the idea that there is a general intelligence that underlies all specific mental abilities.

How did L.L. Thurstone challenge Spearman's G-Factor theory?

L.L. Thurstone, an American pioneer of psychometrics, challenged Spearman's G-Factor theory by identifying seven clusters of mental abilities through administering 56 different tests to subjects, suggesting that intelligence is not just a single scale.

What is Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences?

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences suggests that there are eight distinct intelligences, ranging from numerical and linguistic skills to understanding physical space and the natural world.

What are the three types of intelligences Robert Sternberg identifies?

Robert Sternberg identifies three types of intelligences: analytical or problem-solving intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence for everyday tasks.

How does creativity fit into the concept of intelligence?

Creativity is considered a form of intelligence that involves the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. Traditional intelligence tests struggle to measure this due to their focus on one correct answer, whereas creativity often involves divergent thinking.

What are the components of creativity as identified by Sternberg?

Sternberg identified five main components of creativity: expertise, imaginative thinking skills, a venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, and a creative environment.

What is emotional intelligence and how is it different from traditional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence, defined by psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer, is the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. It is different from traditional intelligence as it involves social skills and the ability to process social information, which traditional intelligence tests often do not measure.

How did Francis Galton's theories on intelligence lead to the concept of eugenics?

Francis Galton, inspired by his cousin Charles Darwin's theories on natural selection, suggested that intelligence was largely hereditary and could be improved by encouraging 'smart' people to breed, leading to the concept of eugenics.

What was the original purpose of Alfred Binet's intelligence tests?

Alfred Binet's original purpose for creating intelligence tests was to identify children who needed extra help in school, with the belief that intelligence was not fixed and could be improved with proper attention, self-discipline, and practice.

How did the eugenics movement in the United States use intelligence tests?

The eugenics movement in the United States used intelligence tests to enforce sterilization of about 60,000 people, often poor white women, unwed mothers, or prostitutes, based on the belief that they were 'feeble-minded' and should not reproduce.

What is the current understanding of intelligence in light of the historical context?

Today, intelligence is understood as a real and measurable phenomenon that is influenced by a complex interplay of genetic, environmental, educational, and socio-economic factors. However, there is still much to learn about the nature of intelligence.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 Understanding Intelligence

This paragraph explores the complexity of defining intelligence, noting that it cannot be measured like physical attributes and varies across cultures and individuals. It introduces the question of whether intelligence is a single ability or a range of skills and talents. The paragraph also touches on the influence of creativity, innovation, genetics, environment, and education on intelligence. It discusses the concept of emotional intelligence and the historical use of intelligence tests, which have been controversial and problematic, with a dark history involving Nazis. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the complexity and ongoing debate surrounding intelligence in psychology.

05:01

🔍 Theories of Intelligence

This section delves into various theories of intelligence. It starts with Charles Spearman's G-Factor, suggesting a general intelligence underlying specific mental abilities. It contrasts this with L.L. Thurstone's theory of seven distinct mental abilities. The paragraph then discusses Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory, which identifies eight different intelligences, and Robert Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, which categorizes intelligence into analytical, creative, and practical forms. The section also addresses the challenges of measuring creativity and emotional intelligence, using Sherlock Holmes as an example to illustrate the components of creativity identified by Sternberg.

10:01

📚 History of Intelligence Testing

This paragraph covers the history of intelligence testing, starting with Francis Galton's eugenic ideas and moving to the development of mental age testing by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon. It discusses how Binet's tests were intended to help children, but were misused to label and limit opportunities for certain individuals. The paragraph details how IQ testing was linked to the eugenics movement in the US and how it was used to justify sterilization and other atrocities. It also touches on the Nazi's misuse of intelligence testing for their own dark purposes. The section concludes by emphasizing that while intelligence is a measurable phenomenon, there is still much to learn about its components and the best ways to assess it.

Keywords

💡Intelligence

Intelligence refers to the capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and applying knowledge. In the video, it is explored as a multifaceted concept that varies across cultures, ages, and skill sets. The script discusses the difficulty in defining intelligence precisely and touches on various theories attempting to capture its essence.

💡G-Factor

The G-Factor represents the idea of a general intelligence that underlies all specific mental abilities. British psychologist Charles Spearman introduced this concept, suggesting that while individuals may have unique talents, they are all manifestations of this overarching intelligence. The script uses the G-Factor to illustrate the historical attempts to quantify intelligence.

💡Multiple Intelligences

Multiple Intelligences is a theory proposed by Howard Gardner, which suggests that intelligence is not singular but rather consists of eight distinct types, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, and spatial. The video uses this theory to argue that intelligence is diverse and cannot be captured by a single measure.

💡Creativity

Creativity is the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable. The script discusses how traditional intelligence tests struggle to measure creativity, which is a form of 'divergent thinking'. It is highlighted as an important aspect of intelligence that goes beyond traditional metrics.

💡Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. Defined by psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer, it is a form of intelligence that is distinct from cognitive abilities. The video uses Sherlock Holmes as an example to illustrate high cognitive intelligence coupled with low emotional intelligence.

💡IQ Test

An IQ Test, or Intelligence Quotient test, is a method for assessing human intelligence. The script traces the history of IQ tests from their inception by Alfred Binet to their misuse in eugenics, emphasizing the dark history and ongoing controversy surrounding their application.

💡Eugenics

Eugenics is the pseudoscientific study aimed at improving the genetic quality of the human population. The video discusses how eugenics was used to justify social policies like forced sterilization, based on the results of intelligence tests, revealing the ethical issues tied to the measurement of intelligence.

💡Factor Analysis

Factor Analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of fewer unobserved variables called factors. Spearman used factor analysis to correlate different mental abilities, which is mentioned in the script as part of his approach to understanding intelligence.

💡Savants

Savants are individuals who possess extraordinary mental abilities in very specific areas while having difficulty with other mental functions. The script refers to savants to argue for the existence of multiple intelligences, as they often demonstrate one exceptional ability alongside more limited general cognitive functions.

💡Divergent Thinking

Divergent Thinking is a problem-solving and thinking method that involves many possible solutions or answers. The video contrasts this with traditional intelligence tests that typically have one correct answer, suggesting that creativity and divergent thinking are undervalued in standard intelligence assessments.

💡Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of the various standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence. The script explains how IQ was historically calculated and how it was used in the context of eugenics and social policy, highlighting its limitations and ethical concerns.

Highlights

Defining intelligence is complex and varies across cultures, ages, and skill sets.

Intelligence is not a single, measurable attribute like height or weight.

Intelligence encompasses the ability to learn, solve problems, and adapt to new experiences.

Charles Spearman proposed the G-Factor, a general intelligence underlying all mental abilities.

L.L. Thurstone challenged the G-Factor, suggesting multiple clusters of mental abilities.

Howard Gardner introduced the theory of multiple intelligences, including eight distinct types.

Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence includes analytical, creative, and practical intelligence.

Creativity is a form of intelligence that traditional tests struggle to measure.

Sherlock Holmes exemplifies high levels of creative intelligence but lower emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence, as defined by Salovey and Mayer, involves perceiving, understanding, managing, and using emotions.

Francis Galton's work on intelligence was the precursor to eugenics, a dark chapter in the history of intelligence testing.

Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence tests to help educate children, not to label them.

IQ tests were misused in the early 20th century to enforce sterilization and limit opportunities for certain groups.

The Nazis used intelligence testing to justify their horrific eugenic policies.

Intelligence is a measurable phenomenon, but its components are not fully understood.

Modern understanding of intelligence is ongoing, with debates about testing methods and their implications.

Transcripts

Smarty pants, egg head, brainiac.

You've heard terms like these before, maybe you've even been on the receiving end of one

of them.

But actually, defining intelligence is a lot trickier than just coming up with new names

for smart people.

I mean, intelligence isn't like height or weight; you can't just toss them on a scale

and give it an exact measurement.

It has different meanings for different cultures and ages and skill sets.

So what is intelligence?

It's a question that doesn't give us a lot of answers, but it does open a bunch of other

equally important and interesting questions.

Like, what influences it?

And how can it be assessed?

Is it a single, general ability, or does it cover a range of aptitudes and skills and

talents?

How do things like creativity and innovation factor in?

Or genetics or environment, or education?

And what about emotional intelligence?

Most agree that it's best to think of intelligence not of a concrete thing so much as a concept,

the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new

experiences.

We've often used intelligence tests, to assess and compare mental aptitude, but these tests

have a long, complex and dark history.

I mean there are Nazis involved so, yeah.

So as you'll see, there are reasons that intelligence is one of the most hotly debated subjects

in psychology.

It's complicated and controversial.

[Intro]

What if I'm the world's greatest Rubik's cube solver but a terrible speller?

Or a truly gifted artist who's barely mastered long division?

Could anyone say I was intelligent or not based on those different aptitudes, or would

it be more accurate to measure my brainpower on several different scales?

Around the turn of the twentieth century, British psychologist Charles Spearman suggested

that yes, we do have one comprehensive general intelligence that underlies all of specific

mental abilities.

He called it the G-Factor.

Spearman conceded that while people may have special talents like basket weaving or saxophone

solos or doing crossword puzzles, those things still fell under "G".

And he helped develop a statistical procedure called factor analysis to try to determine

how certain clusters of skills might correlate with another one.

Like, say someone who tests well in spatial skills might be good with numbers.

We might then refer to that cluster of skills, that factor, as spatial-numeric reasoning.

But to Spearman, the G-factor was something of an uber-factor connected to all intelligent

behavior from architecture to healing to survival skills, and it's why people who do well on

one kind of cognitive test tend to do well on others.

But as you can imagine, reducing intelligence to a single numerical test score was and is

problematic.

L.L.

Thurstone, an American pioneer of psychometrics and one of Spearman's first challengers, was

not into ranking people on a single scale.

Thurstone administered 56 different tests to his subjects then used them to identify

seven clusters of mental abilities.

By this system, you might turn out to be great at like verbal comprehension but less stellar

at something like numerical ability.

Sounds fair.

But when researchers followed up on his findings, they actually did see that high scores in

one aptitude usually meant good scores in the others, essentially backing up some evidence

for some kind of G-factor.

Even though their ideas did not often align, Spearman and Thurstone together paved the

way for more contemporary theories on intelligence.

For example, American psychologist Howard Gardner views intelligence as multiple abilities

that come in different forms.

He references instances of brain damage where one ability may be destroyed while others

stay perfectly intact.

Savants usually have some limited metal abilities but one exceptional ability when it comes

to like, computing figures or memorizing the complete works of Shakespeare.

To Gardner, this suggests that we have multiple intelligences beyond the G-factor.

In fact, he believes that we have eight intelligences, ranging from our skills with numbers and words

to our ability to understand physical space and the natural world.

American psychologist Robert Sternberg tends to agree with Gardner, though he boils them

down into three intelligences: analytical, or problem-solving intelligence, creative

intelligence, or the ability to adapt to new situations, and practical intelligence for

everyday tasks.

Both of these models seem reasonable, too, and Gardner and Sternberg's work has helped

teachers appreciate students' variety of talents.

But research has suggested that even these different ways to be smart are also linked

by some underlying general intelligence factor.

So what about other less tangible forms of intelligence, like creativity, our ability

to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable?

How can a test that demands one correct answer account for more creative solutions, so-called

"divergent thinking".

Well, traditional intelligence tests can't, and so far, while we do have some tests that

look at creative potential, we don't have a standardized system for quantifying creativity.

But Sternberg and his colleagues have identified five main components of creativity, which

are useful for framing our understanding of what creative intelligence is and how it works.

If you go through the list, you know who I think is really great at almost all of them?

Sherlock Holmes.

Hear me out.

First we've got expertise, or a well-developed base of knowledge.

This just means knowing a lot about a lot.

Whether it's arcane poisons, jellyfish behavior, or how to recognize a secret passage behind

a book shelf, expertise provides the mind with all sorts of data to work with and combine

in new ways.

Obviously Sherlock has incredible imaginative thinking skills, too, which provide him with

the ability to see things in new ways, recognize patterns and make connections.

He loves nothing more than rehashing these breadcrumb trails for the dopey constables

at the end of the case.

Sternberg also thought a venturesome personality contributes to creativity.

By hanging around opium dens and chasing thugs and generally courting danger, Sherlock routinely

seeks new experiences, tolerates risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles.

And everyone knows he's driven by intrinsic motivation.

I mean, he wants to help the widow discover the thief and everything, but really, Sherlock

is driven by his own interest and sense of challenge.

He gets pleasure from the work itself.

And finally, Sherlock benefits from a creative environment which sparks, supports, and refines

his ideas.

For so affectionately maintaining this environment on Sherlock's behalf, we largely have Dr.

Watson to thank.

Sherlock was obviously an academic and creative genius, but he was pretty weak in another

form of intelligence: the emotional kind.

Emotional intelligence, defined in 1997 by psychologist Peter Salovey and John Mayer

-- no, not, not that one-- is the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

I don't know about you, but I know plenty of smart people who have a hard time processing

social information.

The most brilliant mathematician may struggle to communicate with colleagues, neighbors,

or staff at the local deli.

Likewise, Sherlock often annoys, offends, or even baffles those around him.

Perceiving emotions means being able to recognize them in faces, and even in music, film, and

stories.

Understanding emotions relates to being able to predict them and how they might change.

And managing emotions comes down to knowing how to appropriately express yourself in various

situations.

And finally, emotional intelligence also means using emotions to enable adaptive or creative

thinking; like knowing how to manage conflict or comfort a grieving friend or work well

with others.

Much like creative intelligence, emotional intelligence can be measured to some degree

through testing, but there's no standardized way to, like, assign a numerical value.

So if we can't perfectly quantify things like creativity or emotional smarts, how did we

come up with a way to measure intelligence?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, it's a sordid story.

The first attempts to do it in the western world began with English scientist Francis

Galton in the 1800s.

Taking a page from his famous cousin Charles Darwin's theories on natural selection, Galton

wondered how that premise might extend to humans' natural ability when it came to intelligence.

He suggested that our smarts have a lot to do with heredity, so if we encouraged smart

people to breed with each other, we could essentially create a master race of geniuses.

If that sounds a little sketchy, it's because it was, like, really, really sketchy!!

This study of how to selectively and supposedly improve the human population, especially by

encouraging breeding in some people and discouraging it in others, is called "eugenics".

A term Galton himself coined, and I'll get back to, in a minute.

But around the turn of the twentieth century when eugenics was taking off, the French government

mandated that all children must attend school.

Many of these kids had never been in a classroom and teachers wanted to figure out how they

could identify kids who needed extra help.

Enter Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, two French psychologists who were commissioned

to develop a test to measure a child's so-called mental age.

The concept of a kid's mental age is essentially the level of performance associated with a

certain chronological age.

So if six year old Bruno tests as well as the average six year old, he'd have a mental

age of six.

Binet believed that his tests could measure a child's current mental abilities, but that

intelligence wasn't a fixed, inborn thing.

He believed a person's capabilities could be raised with proper attention, self-discipline

and practice.

In other words, he was no eugenicist.

He was hoping that his tests would improve children's education by identifying those

who needed extra attention.

But Binet also feared that these tests would, in the wrong hands, be used to do just the

opposite: labeling children as "lost causes", limiting their opportunities.

And wow, was he on to something because that is pretty much exactly what happened.

German psychologist William Stern used revisions of Binet and Simon's work to create the famous

intelligence quotient, or IQ measurement.

At the time, your IQ was simply your mental age, divided by your chronological age, multiplied

by a hundred.

So for example Bruno is six, and so is his mental age, so his IQ ranks at a hundred,

but his little sister Betty is a four year-old with a mental age of five, so her IQ would

be 125.

That formula works pretty well for measuring kids, but it falls apart when it comes to

adults who don't hit measurable developmental steps like kids do.

I mean there's no real difference between a mental age of 34 and 35.

But Stanford professor Lewis Terman started promoting the widespread use of intelligence

tests in the early 1900s, and with his help the US government began the world's first

massive ministration of intelligence tests, when it assessed World War I army recruits

and immigrants fresh off the boat.

Unlike Binet, Terman did use these numerical findings as a kind of label, and he thought

his tests could, as he put it: "ultimately result in curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness".

This kind of testing played right into eugenicists' sensibilities, and soon the eugenics movement

in the US had a pretty good fanclub, raising money from the Carnegie's and Rockafeller's

and with proponents working at Harvard and Columbia and Cornell.

In the first half of the 21st century, intelligence tests were used to enforce the sterilization

of about 60,000 people, around a third of whom were in California.

Most were poor white women, often unwed mothers or prostitutes.

Other eugenics efforts persisted later into the century, and there is evidence of poor

African American, Native American, or Latina women being forcibly or covertly sterilized

in large numbers as recently as the 1970s.

But do you know who really loved their eugenics?

The Nazis.

Hitler and his cronies took the idea of intelligence testing to even darker conclusions.

The Nazis were all about selecting against so-called "feeble-mindedness" and other undesirable

traits as they sought to strengthen what they saw as their Aryan nation.

They sterilized or simply executed hundreds of thousands of victims based of their answers

to IQ test questions that were really more abut adhering to social norms than measuring

actual intelligence.

Questions like: "Who was Bismarck?"

and "What does Christmas signify?"

So you can see how this terrifying history still makes some people leery of how such

tests are administered, interpreted, and weighted.

Today we understand that intelligence, as defined by all the people we've talked about

here, does appear to be a real and measurable phenomenon.

But no one can say that they've disentangled all of the would-be genetic, environmental,

educational, and socio-economic components of it.

In the end, it's best to think of intelligence as something about which we've still got a

lot to learn.

And next week, we'll talk about how we test intelligence today and the problems we still

face in doing it.

Today, your intelligent mind learned about the history of how we think about and define

different types of intelligence, what the G-factor is, and how Sherlock Holmes is incredibly

intelligent but emotionally unintelligent.

You also learned about the history and methods of intelligence testing, IQ scores, and how

eugenics turned to the dark side, and has since made even talking about intelligence

kind of controversial.

Thank you for watching, especially fto our Subbable subscribers who make Crash Course

possible.

To find out how you can become a supporter, just go to Subbable.com/crashcourse.

This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant

is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.

Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script supervisor is Michael Aranda, who

is also our sound designer, and the graphics team is Thought Cafe.