Thinking and Intelligence
Chapter 9
Thinking and Intelligence
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Thought: Using what we know
Reasoning rationally
Barriers to reasoning rationally
Measuring intelligence: The psychometric
approach
Dissecting intelligence: The cognitive approach
Animal minds
Thought: Using What We Know
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The elements of cognition.
How conscious is thought?
The Elements of Cognition
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Concept
 Mental category that groups objects,
relations, activities, abstractions, or qualities
having common properties.
 A basic concept has a moderate number of
instances and is easier to acquire.
 A prototype is an especially representative
example of a concept.
Proposition
 A unit of meaning that is made up of
concepts and expresses a single idea.
The Elements of Cognition
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Cognitive Schema
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An integrated mental network of knowledge, beliefs, and
expectations concerning a particular topic or aspect of the
world.
Mental Image
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A mental representation that mirrors or resembles the thing
it represents.
How Conscious is Thought?
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Subconscious Processes
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Mental processes occurring outside of conscious
awareness but accessible to consciousness when
necessary.
Nonconscious Processes
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Mental processes occurring outside of and not
available to conscious awareness.
Implicit learning occurs when you have:
 acquired knowledge about something without being
aware of how you did so, and without being able to
state exactly what you have learned.
How Conscious is Thought?
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Mindlessness
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We may act, speak, and make decisions out of habit,
without stopping to analyze what we are doing or why.
Keeps people from recognizing when a change in a
situation requires a change in behaviour.
Mindless processing of information has obvious
benefits, but can also lead to errors and mishaps.
Reasoning Rationally
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Formal reasoning: Algorithms and logic
Informal reasoning: Heuristics and dialectical
thinking
Reflective judgment
Formal Reasoning: Algorithms and Logic
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Deductive Reasoning
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A tool of formal logic in
which a conclusion
necessarily follows from
a set of observations or
propositions (premises).
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Inductive Reasoning
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A tool of formal logic
in which a conclusion
probably follows from
a set of observations or
propositions or
premises, but could be
false.
Informal Reasoning: Heuristics and
Dialectical Thinking
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Heuristic
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A rule of thumb that suggests a
course of action or guides problem
solving but does not guarantee an
optimal solution.
Dialectical Reasoning
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A process in which opposing facts or
ideas are weighed and compared,
with a view to determining the best
solution or resolving differences.
Reflective Judgment
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Skills
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The ability to question assumptions.
Evaluate and integrate evidence.
Relate that evidence to a theory or opinion.
Consider alternative interpretations.
Reach defendable conclusions.
Be able to reassess those conclusions in face of new
information.
Developmental stages include prereflective,
quasi-reflective, and reflective.
Barriers to Reasoning Rationally
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Exaggerating the improbable
Avoiding loss
Biases due to mental sets
The hindsight bias
The confirmation bias
The need for cognitive consistency
Overcoming our cognitive biases
Exaggerating the Improbable
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Availability Heuristic
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The tendency to judge the probability of an event by
how easy it is to think of examples or instances.
For example, in the wake of September 11, most
people overestimated their odds of dying in a
plane crash even though they continued to take
higher risks by driving in their cars.
Avoiding Loss
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People try to minimize
risks and losses when
making decisions.
Responses to the same
choice will differ based
on whether outcome is
framed as gain or loss.
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In the example,
outcomes are the same
in Problems 1 & 2
Biases Due to Mental Sets
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A tendency to solve problems using
procedures that worked before on similar
problems.
Mental sets make learning and problem
solving more efficient.
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For example, we look for patterns in events.
Not helpful when a problem calls for fresh
insights or a new approach.
The Nine-Dot Problem
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Connect all 9 dots
Use only 4 lines
Do not lift your
pencil from the page
after you begin
drawing
The Hindsight Bias
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The tendency to overestimate one’s ability
to have predicted an event once the
outcome is known.
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Also known as the “I knew it all along”
phenomenon.
Common in political judgments, medical
judgments, military decisions.
The Confirmation Bias
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The tendency to look for or pay attention
only to information that confirms one’s
own beliefs.
Test this rule: If a card has a
vowel on one side, it has an
even number on the other
side.
Which 2 cards to turn over?
Need for Cognitive Consistency
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Cognitive Dissonance:
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A state of tension that
occurs when a person
simultaneously holds two
cognitions that are
psychologically
inconsistent, or
when a person’s belief is
inconsistent with his or her
behaviour.
Conditions which may
reduce dissonance
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When you need to justify a choice or decision
you freely made.
When you need to justify behaviour that conflicts
with your view of yourself.
When you need to justify the effort put into a
decision or choice.
Justification of Effort
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The tendency of individuals
to increase their liking for
something they have worked
hard for or suffered to attain.
A common form of
dissonance reduction.
After listening to a boring
group discussion, those who
went through severe
initiation to join, rated it
most highly. (Aronson & Mills,
1959)
Measuring Intelligence:
The Psychometric Approach
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Defining intelligence
The invention of IQ tests
Can IQ tests be culture-free?
Defining Intelligence
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Intelligence
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g factor
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An inferred characteristic of an individual, usually
defined as the ability to profit from experience,
acquire knowledge, think abstractly, act purposefully,
or adapt to changes in the environment.
A general intellectual ability assumed by many
theorists to underlie specific mental abilities and
talents.
Psychometrics
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The measurement of mental abilities, traits and
processes.
The Invention of IQ tests
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Binet believed we should measure a child’s
mental age.
Binet and Simon developed a test which
measured memory, vocabulary, and perceptual
discrimination.
Mental age was divided by chronological age and
multiplied by 100 to get a IQ or intelligent
quotient score.
Now IQ scores are derived from norms provided
for standardized intelligence tests.
The Psychometric Approach
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IQ scores are distributed
“normally”
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Bell-shaped curve
Very high and low scores
are rare
68% of people have IQ
between 85-115
 99.7% between 55-145
Can IQ Tests be Culture Free?
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Attempts to make IQ tests culture fair and culture
free have backfired because different cultures
have different problem-solving strategies.
Cultural values and experiences affect a person’s:
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Attitude toward exams,
Comfort in the settings required for testing,
Motivation
Rapport with test provider,
Competitiveness, and
Ease of independent problem solving.
Expectations, Stereotypes and IQ
Scores
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Scores are affected by expectations for
performance.
These expectations are shaped by cultural
stereotypes.
Stereotype threat
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A burden of doubt one feels about his or her
performance due to negative stereotypes about his or
her group’s abilities.
Research has shown effects of stereotype threat on
many visible minorities, low-income people, women,
and elderly people.
An Illustration of Stereotype Threat
Beyond the IQ Test
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Many argue for the continued use of IQ
tests because of their ability to predict
school success and identify gifted and nongifted students.
Critics contend that IQ tests are only a
limited assessment of intelligence.
Dissecting Intelligence: The
Cognitive Approach
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The triarchic theory
Domains of intelligence
Motivation and intellectual success
Sternberg's Triarchic Theory
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Componential - a.k.a. “Analytic”
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Experiential - a.k.a. “Creative”
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Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating.
This type of processes correlates best with IQ.
Inventing or designing solutions to new problems.
Transfer skills to new situations.
Contextual - a.k.a. “Practical”
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Using (i.e., applying) the things you know in
everyday contexts.
Domains of Intelligence
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Emotional intelligence
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The ability to:
identify your own and other people’s emotions
accurately,
 express your emotions clearly, and
 regulate emotions in yourself and others.
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Appears to be biologically based (Damasio,
1994)
Motivation and intellectual
success
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Comparing the 100 most successful men
with 100 least successful, researchers
found that motivation, not IQ made the
difference.
Motivation to work hard at intellectual
tasks differs as a function of culture.
North American children are as
knowledgeable as Asian children on
general skills.
Beliefs about intelligence
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Asian parents, teachers, and students are more
likely to belief that math ability comes from
studying.
North Americans more likely to view ability as
innate.
North American parents had lower academic
standards for kids.
North American children did not value education
as much.
Animal Minds
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Animal intelligence
Animals and language
Thinking About the Thinking of Animals
Animal Intelligence
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Cognitive Ethology
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The study of cognitive processes in
nonhuman animals.
Studies in cognitive ethology have shown
evidence that some animals can
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Anticipate future events.
Use numbers to label quantities.
Coordinate activities with other animals.
Animals and Language
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Language is a critical element of human
cognition.
Many animal species can be taught to
communicate in ways that resemble language.
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Chimpanzees and bonobos converse using
American Sign Language and symbol board
systems
An African grey parrot has been taught to count,
classify, and compare objects using English
words
Whether these behaviours are language
depends on how you define “language.”
Thinking About Animal Thinking
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Anthropomorphism
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The tendency to falsely attribute human
qualities to nonhuman beings.
Anthropodenial
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The tendency to think, mistakenly, that
human beings have nothing in common with
other animals.