Intelligence tests

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School exams are, generally speaking, the first kind of tests we take. They find out how much knowledge we have gained. But do they really show how intelligent we are? After all, isn’t it a case that some people who are very successful academically don’t have any common sense?

Intelligence is the speed at which we can understand and react to new situations and it is usually tested by logic puzzles. Although scientists are now preparing advanced computer technology that will be able to “read” our brains, for the present tests are still the most popular ways of measuring intelligence.

IQ – or “Intelligence Quotient” tests have been around for nearly 100 years now.

The first tests were designed in the early 1900s by French psychologist Alfred Binet, but their use was limited to children until World War I, when the tests were given to two million American military recruits. The tests measured both general knowledge and the ability to reason logically, and the results were used to decide who should get which job, and to find the most intelligent recruits for training as future army officers. Their use was greatly expanded when the war ended.

The vast majority of people fall somewhere in between. They score around 100. Only 2% of people are at the “genius” level of 130 and more. There are fewer women than men at genius level, but fewer at the bottom as well.

MENTAL RETARDATION

There are hundreds of known causes of mental retardation. Many of them are biological, genetic, chromosomal, prenatal, perinatal, postnatal in origin. It can be the result of environmental influence such as sensory or maternal deprivation.

A person is considered mentally retarded if: 1) his IQ is below 70;

2) if there is evident deficit in adaptive functioning; 3) if he is under 18.

There are 4 general categories of classifying mental retardation:

EDUCATIONAL DISADVANTAGE

In one way or another, psychologists have been connected with educational problems. Very often psychologists help children and adults with educational disadvantage. Some children have specific learning difficulties, so they find some kinds of information very hard to learn. If they are in a special school environment, where teachers pay much attention to training them, they can often learn much more than in ordinary school.

One of the specific learning problems which educational psychologists often diagnose is dyslexia. People with dyslexia often have difficulty in identifying letters, so this problem is known as word-blindness. If dyslexia is a result of an accident and injury to the person’s brain, it is called acquired dyslexia.

There are also two kinds of dyslexia. One of them is known as surface dyslexia. In this case people have problems with recognizing letters and spelling.

Another kind of dyslexia is called deep dyslexia. It is connected with problems of deeper understanding words. People who suffer this type of dyslexia have difficulty in understanding words which are hard to visualize. For example, they understand words like “cheese”, but have more problems with words like “power”.

Sometimes the problems which educational psychologists encounter are wider than learning disorders. For example, the problem known as childhood autism seems to be an emotional and personal disorder. Children con not relate to the people in their lives. Kanner in 1943 identified four characteristics of autism as a general syndrome:

1. Children are unable to form relationships with other people. They do not think of people as human being but rather as bodies.
2. Children are unable to play spontaneously. They do not understand a play where one should pretend.
3. Children have difficulty with speech. Some of them never learn to talk, others don’t speak like other children. For example, they may not understand reflexive pronouns: they call themselves “you” and address another person as “I”.
4. Children insist on routines and repeated activities. They become very upset if their routines are interrupted.

Unfortunately, these two problems are only a small part among a vast number of problems which educational psychologist will meet.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

It is possible that a scientist can see the future by watching four-year-olds with a sweet. The researcher invites the children into a playing room. You can have this sweet right now, he says. But if you wait while I go out for a few minutes, you can have two sweets when I get back. And then he leaves.

Some children grab the sweet the moment he is out the door. Some wait a few minutes and then give in. But others are determined to wait. They cover their eyes, they put their heads down, they try to play games.

Then the researcher returns, he gives these children their sweets. And then, science waits for them to grow up.

By the time the children reach high school, something remarkable has happened. A survey of the children’s parents and teachers showed that those who as four-year-olds were strong-minded enough to hold out for another sweet generally grew up better adjusted, more popular, confident and dependable teenagers. The children who couldn’t resist the temptation were more likely to be lonely, easily frustrated and stubborn.

Why does natural talent develop in some people and disappear in others? This is where we recall sweets. When a child could resist the temptation, it was a triumph of the reasoning brain over the impulsive one. It is a sign, in short, of emotional intelligence.

In his book “Emotional Intelligence” Daniel Goleman says that brain power as measured by IQ actually matters less than qualities of mind like understanding one’s feelings, empathy (being sensitive to other people’s feelings) and the ability to manage your own emotions. EQ is not the opposite of IQ, they compliment each other. Among the factors of success, researchers generally agree that IQ counts for 20%: the rest depends on anything from luck, to social class and emotional intelligence. In the business world, according to personnel executives, IQ gets you a job, but EQ gets you promotion.

TWO WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

The human memory is an incredibly powerful tool, but few of us make the most of it. In these days of high performance even greater demands are made on our memory, so what can we do to make it work more efficiently? The ancient Greeks realized that, in order to remember anything, you have to associate it with something that is already fixed in your mind. They invented memory aids or “mnemonics”. Verbal mnemonics can be words or rhymes containing, for example, the first letters of the items of a list be remembered. These were popular in Victorian schools, where memorizing lists was a major part of education.

Although modern educationalists tend to look down on this method of learning, it is still sometimes necessary, as any medical student will tell you. Visual mnemonics have recently been found to be especially powerful. So next time you have to remember how items are related, say for exam, create a “mind map”. You can draw a plan with items radiating from a central point and use different coloured pens to make the relationship between items clear. You learn as you draw and then the visual image is easy to recall.

ЗМІСТ

Psychology as a science ………………………………………………..... 3

What do psychologists do? ................................................................ 4

Biological processes………………………………………………… …… 5

The nervous system …………………………………………………….. 6

The brain …………………………………………………………………. 7

Brain Power………………………………………………………………. 8

Stress and anger ………………………………………………………... 9

States of consciousness…………………………………………………...9

Hypnosis…………………………………………………………………. 10

Sleep and dreams ……………………………………………………….11

Drugs …………………………………………………………………….. 11

Personality ……………………………………………………………….....12

Theories of personality ………………………………………………….13

Personality at ten is the key to success in adult life ………………… 17

People meet people ……………………………………………………..17

Personality quiz. How easily are you tempted?. ……………………..18

Personality quiz. Are you prejudiced?................................................19

Intelligence………………………………………………………………… 21

Theories of intelligence …………………………………………………21

Which kind of clever is your child? …………………………………….22

Multiple intelligences test ……………………………………………….24

What makes one person more intelligent than the other?.................25

How to bring up a superstar?.............................................................26

Beauty attracts but it’s brains that count ………………………………27

Do men really know best?..................................................................28

Intelligence tests …………………………………………………………28

Mental retardation ………………………………………………………. 29

Educational disadvantages…………………………………………….. 29

Emotional intelligence …………………………………………………...30

Two ways to improve your memory ……………………………………31