Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T13:30:36.865Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - The biological basis of intelligence

from Part I - Human abilities in theoretical cultures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Get access

Summary

The difficulties attending cross-cultural comparisons in intelligence are well known, and are emphasised throughout this book. In large part, these differences derive from a choice between two different paradigms of intelligence, namely those of Sir Francis Galton and those of Alfred Binet, a choice made early in the history of intelligence testing on the basis of inadequate analysis and empirical study, and one giving rise to many of the difficulties encountered in this field. This fateful choice preferred the approach of Binet to that of Galton, and a brief discussion of these two paradigms may provide a useful introduction to this chapter's topic.

The differences between the approaches of Binet and Galton are manifold, but centre in the main around three major points. The first concerns the concept of intelligence itself. For Galton, intelligence was a unitary ability, underlying all intellectual cognitive tasks, differences in which accounted for the differential abilities of people to solve problems, learn complex material, and carry out many different cognitive tasks of everyday life. Binet, on the other hand, believed in the existence of a large number of separate abilities, including some, such as suggestibility, which we would not normally count as part of intelligence. According to him, intelligence would just be the average for a given person of all these independent and separate abilities, and hence not a unitary factor at all. This debate has continued over the years, with psychologists like Spearman, Burt, and Vernon postulating the existence of a general factor of intelligence, while others, such as Guilford (Guilford & Hoepfner, 1971), postulate a large number of independent abilities, reaching, to date, the astonishing sum of 120 in the case of Guilford.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×