Evolution of the Concept of Intelligence the Essay

Evolution of the Concept of Intelligence

The concept of IQ is relatively recent, despite the widespread cultural tendency to regard intelligence as a discrete and measurable category that has existed since time began. Intelligence tests were initially constructed with a relatively straightforward purpose -- to discern which children could flourish in the rigid French school system. After the French government passed a law requiring all French children attend school, it commissioned Alfred Binet and his colleague Theodore Simon to identify which children exhibited cognitive deficits. Binet focused upon skills that were not necessarily 'taught' to children, such as "attention, memory and problem-solving skills," to ensure that children from more privileged backgrounds did not have an advantage on the test (Cherry 2010). Binet also created a distinction between children able to answer more advanced questions only older children were capable of solving and average children. "Based on this observation, Binet suggested the concept of a mental age, or a measure of intelligence based on the average abilities of children of a certain age group" (Cherry 2010).

The Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman adapted and standardized the Binet test. The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale was the first test to create a scaled numerical representation of intelligence. 100 was considered to be 'average,' meaning that the child's mental age and chronological age were the same. As intelligence testing became more 'en vogue,' even the U.S. Army administered it to new recruits, to determine which men were most fit for leadership training.The increased diversity of the U.S. demanded a standardized assessment of a recruit's ability to perform. "The Army Alpha was designed as a written test, while the Army Beta was administered orally in cases where recruits were unable to read" (Cherry 2010). However, in retrospect, these tests have been highly criticized for the fact that the Beta test was actually harder, relatively speaking, than the Alpha test and thus discriminated against individuals of disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, an accusation that continues to dog intelligence testing (Reynolds 2000).

Today, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and the Stanford-Binet test are the most frequently-administered tests of intelligence. "While they do not lend themselves perfectly to some views of intelligence, they have historically been fairly good predictors of school achievement" (Machek 2003). Both tests presume to some degree the existence of what has been called a g-factor, or a general intelligence factor that can be generalized across a variety of different types of applications, spanning from numerical to verbal applications, although the tests have been substantially revised to allow for greater variation in responses from individuals of a wider variety of cultural backgrounds than when the tests were first designed.

The notion of the g-factor has been challenged by Howard Gardner's concept of 'multiple intelligences.' "Gardner attacked the idea that there was a single, immutable intelligence, instead suggesting that there were multiple, distinct intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal, existential and naturalist….....