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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2011
Online ISBN:
9780511977244
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511977244
Subjects:
Life Sciences, Personality Psychology and Individual Differences, Cognitive Psychology, Psychology, Psychology: General Interest
Series:
Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology
Collection:
Cambridge Handbooks of Psychology
Information

Book description

This volume provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date compendium of theory and research in the field of human intelligence. Each of the 42 chapters is written by world-renowned experts in their respective fields, and collectively, they cover the full range of topics of contemporary interest in the study of intelligence. The handbook is divided into nine parts: Part I covers intelligence and its measurement; Part II deals with the development of intelligence; Part III discusses intelligence and group differences; Part IV concerns the biology of intelligence; Part V is about intelligence and information processing; Part VI discusses different kinds of intelligence; Part VII covers intelligence and society; Part VIII concerns intelligence in relation to allied constructs; and Part IX is the concluding chapter, which reflects on where the field is currently and where it still needs to go.

Reviews

“Sternberg and Kaufman have assembled nearly all of the foremost intelligence researchers and theorists to produce an absolutely essential volume for anyone who wants to understand the nature – and nurture – of intelligence in its many forms. It is the most thorough, authoritative, and readable sourcebook on the science of intelligence that I have ever seen.”
– Joshua Aronson, New York University, editor of Improving Academic Achievement

“The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence is an extraordinary achievement. Comprehensive, engaging, inspiring, and at times provocative, it leaves no stone unturned – no aspects of intelligence and its consequences unexplored. What is intelligence? Where does it come from? Can it be developed, and if so, how? If you are looking for answers to questions like these, there is no better place to find them than from the world-renowned experts in this remarkable volume.”
– Heidi Grant Halvorson, psychologist, author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals

"...Sternberg and Kaufman brought together a group of scholars and theorists with the expertise and knowledge to compile an important contribution to the field of intelligence studies. This volume consolidates decades of research and theory into an accessible volume.... well-organized and coherent.... offer an excellent resource.... This book would be an excellent addition to the collection of any scholar with an interest in intelligence and a must have for new scholars in the field. I will be recommending this text to our university library so that it may be a resource for my colleagues and our graduate students."
– Professor Christopher A. Was, Kent State University, PsycCRITIQUES

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Contents

Page 1 of 2

Contents
  • Chapter 8 - Intelligence in Childhood
    pp 144-173
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter discusses measuring of intelligence by Francis Galton, J. McK. Cattell, and Alfred Binet. Charles Spearman abhorred the program that would separate the mind into a loose confederation of independent faculties of learning, memory and attention. Although most intelligence researchers today probably accept that the general factor is to stay, they remain sharply divided on its explanation. These disagreements go well beyond a rejection of Spearman's specific suggestions that g is either mental energy or the eduction of relations and correlates. Spearman saw that he needed to provide a psychological or (better still) a neurobiological explanation of g. The two favorite paradigms for this program of research were inspection time (IT) and choice reaction time (RT). Aided by the new technologies of brain imaging, research on intelligence, working memory, and other so-called executive functions has begun to point to some of the brain structures common to them all.
  • Chapter 9 - Intelligence in Adulthood
    pp 174-190
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Intelligence is a relative concept. When it comes to intelligence tests, Wechsler stated his belief that they are valid and useful and that a competent examiner can do much better at evaluating intelligence with them than without them. In the case of intelligence tests, the behavior samples are relevant to cognitive abilities of one sort or another and these abilities, in turn, have a very significant impact in various life outcomes, such as educational and occupational success. In a sense, nearly all of human behavior involves cognitive abilities as these encompass processes that include attention, perception, comprehension, judgment, decision making, reasoning, intuition, and memory, among others. Not all of these are tapped by intelligence tests. However, it also seems clear that not all intelligent behavior is simply a function of the cognitive abilities measured by the tests.
  • Chapter 10 - Intellectual Disabilities
    pp 193-209
  • View abstract

    Summary

    British psychologist Charles Spearman proposed a conception of intelligence perhaps most widely (though by no means universally) accepted by authors and users of intelligence tests. This chapter discusses Cattell and Horn's Gf-Gc Model, Carroll's Three-Stratum hierarchy, integration of Horn-Cattell and Carroll models to form CHC theory and applications of CHC Theory-Cross-Battery Assessment and Test Development. Stanovich argues for separating mental abilities measured by intelligence tests (MAMBIT) from other abilities, such as rational decision making, Sternberg's three components of successful intelligence, and Gardner's eight intelligences. Factor-based theories of intelligence have proliferated since Spearman started the ball rolling more than a century ago. The time has come for developers of individual clinical tests of intelligence to broaden their basis of test construction beyond the analytic dimension of Sternberg's triarchic theory and to begin to embrace the assessment of both practical intelligence and creativity.
  • Chapter 11 - Prodigies and Savants
    pp 210-234
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter describes cited contemporary models of intelligence for each of the three levels: psychometric, physiological, and social. The contemporary models that bridge more than one level are examined. The chapter discusses the extended theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence (Gf-Gc theory), the three-stratum theory, the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory, and critique of the psychometric level and its models. According to the dual process (DP) theory intelligent behavior can be explained through a hierarchical structure of directed and spontaneous mental processes. Sternberg notes that his analytic, practical, and creative aspects of intelligence could be applied to Gardner's domains of intelligences. Similarly, neuroimaging studies could examine areas of the brain that are activated before and after the acquisition of expertise. The psychometric, physiological, and social levels and their current models have headed the field of intelligence down three productive paths. Perhaps the time has come for these paths to converge into one.
  • Chapter 13 - Sex Differences in Intelligence
    pp 253-272
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter attempts to broadly outline the current understanding of the etiology of intelligence and intelligence-related processes. First, it describes the major concepts that have primarily guided studies of the etiological bases of intellectual abilities and disabilities. Then, the chapter discusses the state of the field's understanding of cases of intellectual abilities and disabilities. A point of view on the Chinese initiative as presented in the CNN electronic publication is described. The chapter describes the major concepts that have been and are used to explore the connection between the genes and intelligence. The evidence pertaining to observations that the genome is a major source of the variations in individuals' intellectual abilities and disabilities is discussed. Studies of various indicators of information processing speed have been prominent in the field of intelligence due to the observation that these indicators reliably correlate with various aspects of intelligence, especially, with the g factor.
  • Chapter 14 - Racial and Ethnic Group Differences in Intelligence in the United States
    pp 273-292
  • Multicultural Perspectives
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter focuses on the influence of environmental factors, especially instruction. It provides some of the more compelling reasons for believing that intelligence is changeable as a consequence of environmental factors. Beliefs, especially about intelligence, can have large effects, both beneficial and detrimental, on cognitive performance. Many researchers have identified working memory capacity as a factor that limits performance on cognitively demanding tasks. There is considerable agreement among many researchers on intelligence that both nature and nurture play major roles in determining intelligence and cognitive performance, despite differences of opinion regarding the relative contributions of the two types of factors. The obvious conclusion is that those who aspire to increase intelligence or to enhance people's ability to perform cognitively demanding tasks, by instruction or other environmental means, are not tilting at windmills but are pursuing a reasonable goal.
  • Chapter 15 - Race and Intelligence
    pp 293-306
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter considers the fact that intelligence and achievement can be predicted from infancy and has theoretical implications. A classic issue in the study of intelligence is whether there is a single, general intelligence or whether there are multiple intelligences. The debate as to whether the nature of intelligence is continuous or discontinuous over age has a long history in the field of developmental psychology. One approach to understanding the biochemical bases of disordered intellectual functioning early in life is to study the effects of the common bodily biochemicals on cognitive functioning in populations with known neurological dysfunction. The study of the origins of intelligence in infancy by measures of early cognitive functioning may aid in clarifying theoretical issues, contribute to a methodologically integrated study of intelligence across a number of scientific disciplines, and, eventually, aid in reducing the incidence of intellectual disability.
  • Chapter 16 - Animal Intelligence
    pp 309-327
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter discusses a core problem that has plagued the study of intelligence for decades, the complexity of behavior. The central tenets of dynamic systems, which underpin efforts to analyze the organization and development of behavior in its complexity are outlined, keeping person and context connected and treating variability as the starting point for analysis. The classic approaches to intelligence, psychometric, Piagetian, nativist, and dynamic/constructivist are reviewed. The chapter explains how disputes between them have illuminated learning sequences, resolved important questions, and paved the way for a dynamic approach to intelligence are shown. The dynamic skill theory framework, emphasizing its conceptual origins in dynamic systems, ways that it has advanced understanding variability and consistency in intelligence, and its relevance to understanding childhood intelligence are introduced. The areas where dynamic systems concepts and models have generated usable knowledge directly relevant to intelligence, learning, and the practice of education are considered.
  • Chapter 17 - The Evolution of Intelligence
    pp 328-350
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter focuses on the types of human abilities and their correlates, although practical intelligence and tacit knowledge are reviewed. One of the remarkable features of human intelligence is its relative stability of individual differences over years, even decades. When longitudinal data are collected on the same person over time, it is possible to compute correlations of ability test scores across that interval. Older adults may also be effective at using strategies that enhance cognition in everyday life, such as through the use of external aids or behavioral routines that support timely remembering of what to do and when to do it. The study of adult cognitive and intellectual development is entering a vibrant new phase, one in which the advances in statistical methods for modeling individual differences are being integrated with designs and measures that permit a subtle understanding of individual differences in cognitive change.

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