304: General Mental Intelligence

General Mental Intelligence

THE CONCEPT OF g

Today in class we talked about the concept of g, or a general mental intelligence.  Binet took the concept of g and adapted it to include two kinds of intelligence; fluid and crystalized.  People can have a fluid intelligence, these are the abilities that allow us to reason, thin, and acquire new knowledge, or crystallized intelligence, which is the knowledge and understanding that we have acquired.  So what is your understanding of intelligence?  Is there really some sort of general mental intelligence that could encompass all types of intelligence or does it need to be more specific?

THE FIRST IQ TEST

The Binet-Simon Scale (1905) was designed to identify children with mental limitations.  It was revised in 1916 and the concepts of intelligence quotient (IQ), mental age, and chronological age were introduced into the results (the Binet today has a mean of 100 and a SD of 15).   

SUBTEST SCORING

There are 10 subtests and they all have scaled scores (mean of 10, SD of 3).  To be a scaled score is like being a z-score except they have a different mean and SD.