How Should We View Intelligence in Adults

How Should We View Intelligence in Adults? -Most theories are multidimensional, which means that they identify several types of intellectual abilities, though there is disagreement as to the dimensions -Baltes et al.’s three dimensions are multidirectional, interindividual variability, and plasticity -Multidirectional -means that some aspects of intelligence improve while others decline during adulthood -Interindividual variability -means that patterns of change vary between people -Plasticity -means that abilities can be modified under the right conditions -The organization of interrelated intellectual abilities is called the structure of intelligence and is studied by psychometricians -A factor is the interrelated abilities measured by two tests if the performance on one test is highly related to the performance on another. Primary and Secondary Mental Abilities -Primary mental abilities are groups of related skills organized into hypothetical constructs; roughly 25 have been identified -Number: the basic skills underlying our mathematical reasoning -Verbal meaning: our vocabulary ability -Inductive reasoning: our ability to extrapolate from particular facts to general concepts -Spatial orientation: our ability to reason in the three-dimensional world -Word fluency: how easily we produce verbal descriptions of things -Secondary mental abilities are clusters of related primary abilities used as a framework for describing intelligence’s structure; these are difficult to measure directly Fluid and Crystalized -Fluid and crystallized intelligence are secondary mental abilities -Fluid intelligence -being a flexible, adaptive thinker who can make inferences and understand concepts’ relationships; this declines throughout adulthood -Crystallized intelligence -knowledge of facts, definitions, language, etc., acquired by life experience; this improves throughout adulthood -Performance or learning based on underlying skills becomes more difficult with age -Intellectual development varies quite a bit from one set of skills to another Neuroscience Research and Intelligence -Considerable research shows that specific areas in the brain are associated with intellectual abilities, and that developmental changes in these areas are related to changes in performance -The parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) -intelligence comes from distributed and integrated networks of neurons in the parietal and frontal lobes -Research supports the P-FIT model, but it’s still controversial -The neural efficiency hypothesis states that intelligent people process information more efficiently -Evidence is mounting suggesting that this holds merit; how it develops is not yet known Going Beyond Formal Operations: Thinking in Adulthood -Postformal thought -thinking characterized by recognizing that the correct answer varies from one situation to another, that solutions should be realistic, that ambiguity and contradiction are typical, that subjective factors play a role in thinking, and that principled thinking eventually results from careful analysis -Reflective judgment is the way adults reason through real-life dilemmas -Stages 1–3: Prereflective reasoning -Stages 4 & 5: Quasi-reflective reasoning -Stages 6 & 7: Reflective reasoning Integrating Emotion and Logic in Emerging and Young Adulthood -Adults understand that there is more than one right answer -This type of thinking is characterized by the integration of emotion with logic -As they age, adults tend to make decisions and analyze problems not so much on logical grounds alone but rather incorporating pragmatic and emotional grounds as well -The integration of emotion with logic provides the basis for decision making. -This integration can be seen through neuroimaging for emotion and logic processing in the prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, and amygdala Emotional Intelligence -Emotional Intelligence (EI) -refers to people’s ability to recognize their own and others’ emotions, to correctly identify and appropriately tell the difference between emotions, and use this information to guide their thinking and behavior -EI increases with age and may contribute to higher subjective well-being Impression Formation Impression formation -the way we form and revise first impressions about others -Hess and Pullen (1994) found that older adults modify their impression of a person from positive to negative when negative information follows positive -Older adults modify their impression less when positive information follows negative -Younger adults make their impression based on the most recent information and do not show a difference in their impression based on whether the new information was positive or negative