Chapter 9: Thinking and Intelligence
Chapter 9: Thinking and Intelligence Thought: Using what we know The Elements of Cognition Concept: a mental category that groups objects, relations, activities, abstractions, or qualities having common properties. Simplify and summarize information about the world so that it is manageable and so that we can make decisions quickly. Basic concepts: concepts that have a moderate number of instances and that are easier to acquire than those having few or many instances. Prototype: an especially representative example of a concept. For example: which is more representative of sports, football or weight lifting? Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed that language moulds cognition and perception. For example: English only has one word for snow, but the Inuit have many different words for snow (powdered snow, slushy snow, falling snow etc.), so the Intuits notice more differences in snow than English speakers. Overall, vocabulary and grammar affect how we perceive things. Proposition: a unit of meaning that is made up of concepts and expresses a single idea. Cognitive schema: an integrated mental network of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations concerning a particular topic or aspect of the world. For example: gender schemas represent a person’s beliefs and expectations about what it means to be male or female. Mental image: a mental representation that mirrors or resembles the thing it represents; mental images occur in many and perhaps all sensory modalities.
How Conscious Is Thought?
Subconscious thinking Subconscious processes: mental processes occurring outside of conscious awareness but accessible to consciousness when necessary. Many automatic routines are performed “without thinking” – allows us to multitask. For example: eating and reading simultaneously. (In daily life, multitasking is rather inefficient and can cause accidents) Nonconscious thinking Nonconscious processes: mental processes occurring outside of and not available to conscious awareness. For example: the odd experience of having a solution to a problem pop up into mind after you have given up trying to find one.
Implicit learning: learning that occurs when you acquire knowledge about something without being able to state exactly what is it you have learned. For example: some people discover the best strategy for winning a card game without over being able to consciously identify what they are doing. Many of our abilities, from speaking our native language properly to walking up a flight of stairs, are the result of implicit learning. Mindlessness Mindlessness: mental inflexibility, inertia, and obliviousness to the present context. Keeps people from recognizing when a change in a situation requires a change in behaviour. For example: Photocopy study – those who were asked “Can I use the photocopier first because I am in a rush?”, were more likely to agree because they heard the content of the request.
Reasoning Rationally Reasoning: the drawing of conclusions or interferences from observations, facts, or assumptions.
Formal Reasoning: Algorithms and Logic The kind of reasoning you might find on an intelligence test or an entrance exam for medical school. In some formal problems, all you have to do is apply and algorithm: a problem solving strategy guaranteed to produce a solution even if the user does not know how it works. Deductive reasoning: a form of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from certain premises; if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. For example: “All human beings are mortal”, “I am a human being”, and “I am mortal”. Inductive reasoning: a form of reasoning in which the premises provide support for a conclusion, but it is still possible for the conclusion to be false. For example: “I had three great meals at Joe’s restaurant; they sure have good food.” No matter how much supporting evidence you gather, it is always possible that new information will turn up to show you are wrong.
Informal Reasoning: Heuristics and Dialectical Thinking Heuristic: a rule of thumb that suggests a course of action or guides problem solving but does not guarantee an optimal solution. For example trying to predict the stock market. Faced with incomplete information on which to base a decision and may therefore resort to rules of thumb that have proven effective in the past. Dialectical reasoning: a process in which opposing facts or ideas are weighed and compared, with a view to determining the best solution or resolving differences. Consider arguments for and against the problem.
Reflective Judgment 2 prereflective stages tend to assume that a correct answer always exists and that it can be obtained directly through the senses and what “feels right”. 3 quasireflective: stages people recognize that some things cannot be known with absolute certainty and realize that judgments should be supported by reasons, but still only pay attention to evidence that supports their belief. Tend to use, “We all have a right to our own opinion”. 2 reflective stages: people start to understand that nothing is certain and are willing to consider evidence from a variety of sources and reason dialectically.
Barriers to Reasoning Rationally Exaggerating the Improbable (and Minimizing the Probable) This explains why so many people enter lotteries and buy disaster insurance. Affect heuristic: the tendency to consult one’s emotions instead of estimating probabilities objectively. Can be misleading. For example: during reported dangers of “mad cow disease”, beef consumption fell drastically. When a doctor published that it was safe and no longer a concern, beef consumption stayed the same. People focused more on the dangers of getting mad cow, and paid little attention to the reality. Availability heuristic: the tendency to judge the probability of a type of event by how easy it is to think of examples or instances. For example: new accounts of avalanches make people fear skiing even though other aspects of skiing are more dangerous, like not wearing a helmet.
Avoiding Loss Framing effect: the tendency for people’s choices to be affected by how a choice is presented, or framed; for example, whether it is worded in terms of potential losses or gains. For example: “condom has 95% success rate”, or same condom worded with “condom has a 5% failure rate”.
The Fairness Bias There are some circumstances where we try to avoid loss altogether. If your friend has $20, and you play a game to decide how much he will give you, you will accept any offer given, as it is better than nothing.
The Hindsight Bias The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have predicted an event once the outcome is known; the “I knew it all along phenomenon”.
The Confirmation Bias The tendency to look for or pay attention to only information that confirms one’s own belief.
Mental Sets The tendency to solve problems using procedures that worked before on similar problems. This sometimes leads us to see meaningful patterns that don’t exist.
The Need for Cognitive Consistency Cognitive dissonance: a state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, or when a person’s belief is incongruent with his or her behaviour. Postdecision dissonance: in the theory of cognitive dissonance, tension that occurs when you believe you may have made a bad decision. You are typically likely to reduce dissonance under three conditions: 1. When you need to justify a choice or decision that you freely made 2. When you need to justify behaviour that conflicts with the view of yourself 3. When you need to justify the effort put into a decision or choice Justification of effort: the tendency of individuals to increase their liking for something that they have worked hard or suffered to attain; a common form of dissonance reduction.
Overcoming Our Cognitive Biases Mental biases can be a good thing for selfconfidence and selflessness. Mental biases can get us into trouble because they can be selfdefeating, harmful and incorrect.
Measuring Intelligence: The Psychometric Approach Intelligence: 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. Psychometrics: the measurement of mental abilities, traits, and processes. Factor analysis: a statistical method for analyzing the intercorrelations among various measure or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait, ability, or aptitude (factor). g factor: a general intellectual ability assumed by many theorists to underlie specific mental abilities and talents. When people decide who is intelligent, individuals compare the features of wellknown individuals with their notions of what trait constitutes intelligence. Interestingly, people are more likely to think a person is intelligent if that person is similar to themselves.
The Invention of IQ Tests Originally created in 1904 to identify children who were slow learners. Binet’s Brainstorm: responses of “dull” children resembled those of ordinary children of younger ages. Mental age (MA): a measure of mental development expressed in terms of the average mental ability at a given age. Intelligence quotient (IQ): a measure of intelligence originally computed by dividing a person’s mental age by his or her chronological age and multiplying by 100; it is now derived from norms provided for standardized intelligence tests. Scores approximate a normal shaped curve. The IQ Test Comes to North America: Lewis Terman revised Binet’s test and established norms for North American children (StanfordBinet Intelligence Scale). Two decades after, David Wechsler designed another test just for adults (Wechslet Adult Intelligence Scale). Tested both verbal and nonverbal skills. When test came to North America, it was no longer about bringing slow children up to scale, but measuring “natural ability”. People’s performance on IQ and other tests, may depend on their own expectations about how they will do, and those are affected by cultural stereotypes. Individuals can also experience stereotype threat: a burden of doubt a person feels about his or her performance, due to negative stereotypes about his or her group’s abilities.
Dissecting Intelligence: The Cognitive Approach Assumes that there are many kinds of intelligence and emphasizes the strategies people use when thinking about a problem and arriving at a solution.
The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Robert Sternberg) A theory of intelligence that emphasizes informationprocessing strategies, the ability to creatively transfer skills to new situations, and the practical application of intelligence. Three aspects of intelligence: 1. Componential Intelligence: refers to the informationprocessing strategies you draw on when you are thinking intelligently about a problem – recognizing and defining, selecting a strategy, mastering and carrying out the strategy, and evaluating results. Metacognition: the knowledge or awareness of one’s own cognitive processes, and the ability to monitor and control those processes. 2. Experiential or creative intelligence: refers to your creativity in transferring skills to new situations. People with this intelligence cope well and learn quickly. 3. Contextual or practical intelligence: refers to the practical application of intelligence, which requires you to take into account the different contexts in which you find yourself. You know when to adapt to the environment. Contextual knowledge allows you to acquire tacit knowledge: strategies for success that are not explicitly taught but that instead must be inferred.
Domains of Intelligence One of the most important kinds of nonintellectual “smarts” may be emotional intelligence: the ability to identify your own and other people’s emotions accurately, express your emotions clearly, and regulate emotions in yourself and others.
Motivation, Hard Work, and Intellectual Success Once you are motivated to succeed intellectually, you need selfdiscipline to reach your goals. Why do Chinese do better in math than North Americans? 1. Beliefs about intelligence – North American people believe that mathematical ability is innate. 2. Standards: North American parents have far lower standards for their children’s performance. 3. Values – North American students do not value education as much as Asian students.
Animal Minds Animal Intelligence Chimpanzees place in a room with boxes. Experimenters tied bananas up high on the wall. Some chimps stacked the boxes on top of each other to reach the bananas, which implies some sort of sudden mental insight. Cognitive ethology: the study of cognitive processes in nonhuman animals. One of the most controversial questions about animal cognition is whether any animals besides human beings have a theory of mind. Theory of mind: a system of beliefs about the way one’s own mind and the minds of others work, and of how individuals are affected by their beliefs and feelings. Some researchers believe hat the great apes, dolphins, dolphins, and elephants have certain abilities that reflect a theory of mind.
How Conscious Is Thought?
Subconscious thinking Subconscious processes: mental processes occurring outside of conscious awareness but accessible to consciousness when necessary. Many automatic routines are performed “without thinking” – allows us to multitask. For example: eating and reading simultaneously. (In daily life, multitasking is rather inefficient and can cause accidents) Nonconscious thinking Nonconscious processes: mental processes occurring outside of and not available to conscious awareness. For example: the odd experience of having a solution to a problem pop up into mind after you have given up trying to find one.
Implicit learning: learning that occurs when you acquire knowledge about something without being able to state exactly what is it you have learned. For example: some people discover the best strategy for winning a card game without over being able to consciously identify what they are doing. Many of our abilities, from speaking our native language properly to walking up a flight of stairs, are the result of implicit learning. Mindlessness Mindlessness: mental inflexibility, inertia, and obliviousness to the present context. Keeps people from recognizing when a change in a situation requires a change in behaviour. For example: Photocopy study – those who were asked “Can I use the photocopier first because I am in a rush?”, were more likely to agree because they heard the content of the request.
Reasoning Rationally Reasoning: the drawing of conclusions or interferences from observations, facts, or assumptions.
Formal Reasoning: Algorithms and Logic The kind of reasoning you might find on an intelligence test or an entrance exam for medical school. In some formal problems, all you have to do is apply and algorithm: a problem solving strategy guaranteed to produce a solution even if the user does not know how it works. Deductive reasoning: a form of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from certain premises; if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. For example: “All human beings are mortal”, “I am a human being”, and “I am mortal”. Inductive reasoning: a form of reasoning in which the premises provide support for a conclusion, but it is still possible for the conclusion to be false. For example: “I had three great meals at Joe’s restaurant; they sure have good food.” No matter how much supporting evidence you gather, it is always possible that new information will turn up to show you are wrong.
Informal Reasoning: Heuristics and Dialectical Thinking Heuristic: a rule of thumb that suggests a course of action or guides problem solving but does not guarantee an optimal solution. For example trying to predict the stock market. Faced with incomplete information on which to base a decision and may therefore resort to rules of thumb that have proven effective in the past. Dialectical reasoning: a process in which opposing facts or ideas are weighed and compared, with a view to determining the best solution or resolving differences. Consider arguments for and against the problem.
Reflective Judgment 2 prereflective stages tend to assume that a correct answer always exists and that it can be obtained directly through the senses and what “feels right”. 3 quasireflective: stages people recognize that some things cannot be known with absolute certainty and realize that judgments should be supported by reasons, but still only pay attention to evidence that supports their belief. Tend to use, “We all have a right to our own opinion”. 2 reflective stages: people start to understand that nothing is certain and are willing to consider evidence from a variety of sources and reason dialectically.
Barriers to Reasoning Rationally Exaggerating the Improbable (and Minimizing the Probable) This explains why so many people enter lotteries and buy disaster insurance. Affect heuristic: the tendency to consult one’s emotions instead of estimating probabilities objectively. Can be misleading. For example: during reported dangers of “mad cow disease”, beef consumption fell drastically. When a doctor published that it was safe and no longer a concern, beef consumption stayed the same. People focused more on the dangers of getting mad cow, and paid little attention to the reality. Availability heuristic: the tendency to judge the probability of a type of event by how easy it is to think of examples or instances. For example: new accounts of avalanches make people fear skiing even though other aspects of skiing are more dangerous, like not wearing a helmet.
Avoiding Loss Framing effect: the tendency for people’s choices to be affected by how a choice is presented, or framed; for example, whether it is worded in terms of potential losses or gains. For example: “condom has 95% success rate”, or same condom worded with “condom has a 5% failure rate”.
The Fairness Bias There are some circumstances where we try to avoid loss altogether. If your friend has $20, and you play a game to decide how much he will give you, you will accept any offer given, as it is better than nothing.
The Hindsight Bias The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have predicted an event once the outcome is known; the “I knew it all along phenomenon”.
The Confirmation Bias The tendency to look for or pay attention to only information that confirms one’s own belief.
Mental Sets The tendency to solve problems using procedures that worked before on similar problems. This sometimes leads us to see meaningful patterns that don’t exist.
The Need for Cognitive Consistency Cognitive dissonance: a state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, or when a person’s belief is incongruent with his or her behaviour. Postdecision dissonance: in the theory of cognitive dissonance, tension that occurs when you believe you may have made a bad decision. You are typically likely to reduce dissonance under three conditions: 1. When you need to justify a choice or decision that you freely made 2. When you need to justify behaviour that conflicts with the view of yourself 3. When you need to justify the effort put into a decision or choice Justification of effort: the tendency of individuals to increase their liking for something that they have worked hard or suffered to attain; a common form of dissonance reduction.
Overcoming Our Cognitive Biases Mental biases can be a good thing for selfconfidence and selflessness. Mental biases can get us into trouble because they can be selfdefeating, harmful and incorrect.
Measuring Intelligence: The Psychometric Approach Intelligence: 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. Psychometrics: the measurement of mental abilities, traits, and processes. Factor analysis: a statistical method for analyzing the intercorrelations among various measure or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait, ability, or aptitude (factor). g factor: a general intellectual ability assumed by many theorists to underlie specific mental abilities and talents. When people decide who is intelligent, individuals compare the features of wellknown individuals with their notions of what trait constitutes intelligence. Interestingly, people are more likely to think a person is intelligent if that person is similar to themselves.
The Invention of IQ Tests Originally created in 1904 to identify children who were slow learners. Binet’s Brainstorm: responses of “dull” children resembled those of ordinary children of younger ages. Mental age (MA): a measure of mental development expressed in terms of the average mental ability at a given age. Intelligence quotient (IQ): a measure of intelligence originally computed by dividing a person’s mental age by his or her chronological age and multiplying by 100; it is now derived from norms provided for standardized intelligence tests. Scores approximate a normal shaped curve. The IQ Test Comes to North America: Lewis Terman revised Binet’s test and established norms for North American children (StanfordBinet Intelligence Scale). Two decades after, David Wechsler designed another test just for adults (Wechslet Adult Intelligence Scale). Tested both verbal and nonverbal skills. When test came to North America, it was no longer about bringing slow children up to scale, but measuring “natural ability”. People’s performance on IQ and other tests, may depend on their own expectations about how they will do, and those are affected by cultural stereotypes. Individuals can also experience stereotype threat: a burden of doubt a person feels about his or her performance, due to negative stereotypes about his or her group’s abilities.
Dissecting Intelligence: The Cognitive Approach Assumes that there are many kinds of intelligence and emphasizes the strategies people use when thinking about a problem and arriving at a solution.
The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Robert Sternberg) A theory of intelligence that emphasizes informationprocessing strategies, the ability to creatively transfer skills to new situations, and the practical application of intelligence. Three aspects of intelligence: 1. Componential Intelligence: refers to the informationprocessing strategies you draw on when you are thinking intelligently about a problem – recognizing and defining, selecting a strategy, mastering and carrying out the strategy, and evaluating results. Metacognition: the knowledge or awareness of one’s own cognitive processes, and the ability to monitor and control those processes. 2. Experiential or creative intelligence: refers to your creativity in transferring skills to new situations. People with this intelligence cope well and learn quickly. 3. Contextual or practical intelligence: refers to the practical application of intelligence, which requires you to take into account the different contexts in which you find yourself. You know when to adapt to the environment. Contextual knowledge allows you to acquire tacit knowledge: strategies for success that are not explicitly taught but that instead must be inferred.
Domains of Intelligence One of the most important kinds of nonintellectual “smarts” may be emotional intelligence: the ability to identify your own and other people’s emotions accurately, express your emotions clearly, and regulate emotions in yourself and others.
Motivation, Hard Work, and Intellectual Success Once you are motivated to succeed intellectually, you need selfdiscipline to reach your goals. Why do Chinese do better in math than North Americans? 1. Beliefs about intelligence – North American people believe that mathematical ability is innate. 2. Standards: North American parents have far lower standards for their children’s performance. 3. Values – North American students do not value education as much as Asian students.
Animal Minds Animal Intelligence Chimpanzees place in a room with boxes. Experimenters tied bananas up high on the wall. Some chimps stacked the boxes on top of each other to reach the bananas, which implies some sort of sudden mental insight. Cognitive ethology: the study of cognitive processes in nonhuman animals. One of the most controversial questions about animal cognition is whether any animals besides human beings have a theory of mind. Theory of mind: a system of beliefs about the way one’s own mind and the minds of others work, and of how individuals are affected by their beliefs and feelings. Some researchers believe hat the great apes, dolphins, dolphins, and elephants have certain abilities that reflect a theory of mind.
