M.A.Kholodnaya. The psychology of intelligence: paradoxes of research. The psychology of intelligence. Structure. Types. Diagnostics

They mean that a person can be studied from the outside like a huge insect. In their opinion, this is impartial, and this is simply inhuman. G. Chesterton

The origins and results of the discussion about the "number" of intelligences: one, two, or many?

For many years, the monopoly in the study of human intellectual capabilities, as you know, belonged to testology. It was within the framework of this direction that the concept of "intelligence" took shape as a scientific psycho-logical category, and it was testology, with an almost 100-year history of researching this mental quality, that was forced to admit its complete impotence in determining its nature. Moreover, A. Jensen, one of the prominent specialists in this field, in one of his publications was forced to declare that the concept of intelligence is generally not suitable for scientific purposes and should be abandoned. M. Hove came to a similar conclusion, stating that the word "intellect" can only be used as a descriptive, purely everyday term due to the absence of any explanatory possibilities for the corresponding concept.<...>... It is quite obvious that these judgments cannot be attributed to the extravagance of the author's positions.

What's the matter? Why is the testological (psychometric) paradigm, despite the powerful methodological support in the form of a huge number of the most diverse, flawless in their psychometric justification tests, the use of strict means statistical analysis in the form of the apparatus of mathematical statistics, the richest experience in the practical application of diagnostic data (in education, professional selection, etc.), could it give rise to a somewhat acceptable concept of intelligence, but, on the contrary, contributed to the growth of sharp criticism of the concept of "intelligence"? Let us emphasize that the drama of the situation is not even in the insignificance of the final theoretical result of testological research (although it is true: "the mountain gave birth to a mouse"), but in its destructiveness, because the refusal to attempt to define intelligence called into question the very possibility of its existence as a real mental formation.

In order to understand the reasons for such an unusual state of affairs (and at the same time once again make sure that it is much more useful to analyze other people's mistakes than to extract belated conclusions from our own), we will try to trace the logic of the formation of ideas about intelligence at different stages of the development of the testological approach.

For the first time, as is known, Fr. Galton. Galton believed that intellectual capabilities are naturally determined by the peculiarities of a person's biological nature and, accordingly, are parallel to his physical and physiological characteristics. Sensory discriminative sensitivity was considered as an indicator of general intellectual abilities. The first research program developed and implemented in late XIX century in London, was focused on identifying the ability to distinguish between size, color, pitch, response time to sowing, along with the determination of weight, height and other purely physical characteristics of the subjects. Several years later, in strict accordance with Galton's views, J. Cattell created a battery of special procedures ("tests") that measure visual acuity, hearing, pain sensitivity, motor reaction time, color preference, etc. Thus, at the initial stage, intelligence was identified with the simplest psychophysiological functions, while emphasizing the innate (organic) nature of intellectual differences between people.

1905 is a watershed year in the study of intelligence. The understanding of the nature of intellectual abilities from this time is influenced by a practical request. A commission set up at the behest of the French Minister of Education, which discussed the issue of children who are lagging in their cognitive development and are unable to learn in regular schools, formulated the task of developing objective procedures for identifying such children in order to place them in special schools. A. Binet and T. Simon tried to solve this purely applied problem by proposing a series of 30 tasks (tests) to measure the level of mental development of a child. In fact, from this moment, the testological paradigm in the study of intelligence begins to form, predetermining the foreshortening of the analysis of the nature of human intellectual capabilities for decades to come.

Test items were grouped by age. For example, for age 6 years, the following tasks were proposed: name your age, repeat a 10-word sentence, indicate ways to use a familiar subject, etc. Assignment for age 12: repeat 7 numbers, find three rhymes for a given word in one minute, interpret pictures, etc.

Level assessment intellectual development was carried out on the basis of correlating the real chronological age of the child with his "mental age". Mental age was defined as the highest age level at which the child could correctly complete all the tasks offered to him. Thus, the mental age of a 6-year-old child who successfully completed all tasks for children aged 6, 7 and 8 was equal to eight years. The discrepancy between mental and chronological ages was considered either an indicator of mental retardation (mental age below chronological age) or mental giftedness (mental age above chronological age). Later, as a measure of the development of intelligence, it was proposed to consider the ratio:

which is called "intelligence quotient"<...>(or abbreviated IQ).

As you can see, unlike Galton, who considered intelligence as a set of innate psychophysiological functions, Binet recognized the influence of the environment on the features cognitive development... That's why intellectual abilities were evaluated by him not only taking into account the formation of certain cognitive functions, including such more complex cognitive processes, like memorization, spatial discrimination, imagination, etc., but also the level of assimilation of social experience (awareness, knowledge of the meanings of words, possession of some social skills, the ability to moral assessments, etc.). Thus, the content of the concept of "intelligence" turned out to be expanded both from the point of view of the list of its manifestations and from the point of view of the factors of its formation. In particular, Wienet was the first to talk about the possibility of "mental orthopedics" (a series of training procedures, the use of which will improve the quality of intellectual functioning).

Nevertheless, it should be noted that in the context of this approach, intelligence was defined not so much as the ability to cognize, but as the achieved level of mental development, manifested in the indicators of the formation of certain cognitive functions, as well as in indicators of the degree of assimilation of knowledge and skills.

So, "the word was spoken" - the idea formulated by Galton and Vine about the possibility of "objective measurement" of human intelligence began its solemn march across countries and continents. Two circumstances contributed to the almost unconditional acceptance of testological concepts as the dominant professional psychological state of mind: firstly, the avalanche-like growth in the number of various intellectual tests, extremely convenient to use, and, secondly, the active use of the statistical apparatus for processing the results of test studies (mainly, factor analysis). Excessive enthusiasm for intellectual tests and excessive reliance on statistical methods served as those two subjective grounds on which the "colossus with feet of clay" - modern testology - was formed. However, let's not get ahead of ourselves with estimates.

Already from the beginning of the century, within the framework of the testological paradigm, two lines of interpretation of the nature of intelligence that are directly opposite in their final theoretical results have been formed: one is associated with the recognition of the general factor of intelligence, to one degree or another represented at all levels of intellectual functioning (K. Spearman), the other - with denial of any common principle intellectual activity and the assertion of the existence of a plurality of independent intellectual abilities (L. Thurstone). In itself, such a divergence of positions was very surprising, since these theoretical approaches dealt with the same initial empirical material (effective characteristics of intellectual activity), the same type of measurement procedures (intelligence tests - verbal and non-verbal), the same the same data processing technique (correlation and factor analysis procedures). Nevertheless, many years have been spent on the discussion of the principles of the structure of human intelligence (whether intelligence is a single ability or a "collection" of different abilities), although the result of these long-term discussions turned out, as we will see later, to be quite unexpected.

Spearman's theory of intelligence was based on the fact that there are positive correlations between the results of performing various intelligence tests. If any study noted the absence of such relationships, Spearman attributed this to the influence of measurement errors. In his opinion, the observed correlations are always lower than theoretically expected and this difference is a function of the reliability of correlated tests. If we correct this effect of "weakening", then the magnitude of the bonds will tend to unity. The basis of the connection between individual tests, in his opinion, is the presence in each of them of a certain common principle, called the "general factor of intelligence" ("general factor"). In addition to the "g" factor, the "S" factor was identified, which characterizes the specificity of each specific test task. Therefore, this theory was called "two-factor theory of intelligence"<...>.

Spearman believed that the "g" factor is actually intelligence, the essence of which is reduced to individual differences in "mental energy". After analyzing the tests that most vividly represented the "common factor", Spearman came to the conclusion that the level of mental energy reveals itself in the ability to identify connections and relationships both between the elements of one's own knowledge and between the elements of the content of the test problem.

Indeed, subsequent studies have shown that the following tests usually have the maximum load on the "g" factor: progressive Raven matrices, detection of patterns in a sequence of numbers or figures, verbal analogies (tasks to establish the similarity of two concepts, as well as tasks to establish a connection between two concepts with the subsequent search for a third concept that will reproduce this connection), guessing the content of pictures presented in a visually indefinite form, classifying figures, understanding text, etc. In turn, tests such as recognizing words and numbers, crossing out certain letters, the speed of adding numbers, memorizing, etc. have the minimum load on this factor. J., Thompson, on this basis, concluded that the tasks characterizing the "general intelligence" are "... tasks to identify connections that require going beyond the learned skills, imply the detailing of experience and the possibility of conscious mental manipulation of the elements of the problem situation "<...>.

Thus, Spearman managed to distinguish between the level properties of intelligence (indicators of the formation of the main sensory-perceptual and verbal functions) and its combinatorial properties (indicators of the ability to identify implicitly specified connections in a particular content). In other words, the problem of reproductive and productive manifestations of intellectual activity was first posed.

The only thing that violated the credibility of Spearman's theoretical views was the fact that there were high correlations between certain tests of similar content. This circumstance forced the recognition of the presence of partial cognitive mechanisms (in other words, differing abilities), which, of course, was in no way combined with the idea of ​​"universal unity" of all types of intellectual activity.

Within the framework of L. Thurstone's theory of intelligence, the possibility of the existence of general intelligence was rejected. Having corrected the results of the subjects performing 60 different guest houses, designed to identify the most diverse aspects of intellectual activity, Thurstone obtained more than 10 "group factors", 7 of which were identified by him and called "primary mental abilities *:

"5" - "spatial" (the ability to operate "in the mind" with spatial relationships),

"R" - "perception" (the ability to detail visual images),

"N" _ "computational" (the ability to perform basic arithmetic operations),

"V" - "verbal understanding" (the ability to reveal the meaning of words),

"F" - "fluency" (the ability to quickly find a word according to a given criterion),

"M" - "memory * (the ability to memorize and reproduce information),

"R" - "logical reasoning" (the ability to identify patterns in a series of letters, numbers, figures).

Accordingly, it was concluded that a single IQ indicator cannot be used to describe individual intelligence, but rather, individual intellectual abilities should be described in terms of the profile of the level of development of primary mental abilities, which are manifested independently of one another and are responsible for a strictly defined group of intelligent operations. Therefore, this theory was called "multivariate theory of intelligences.

However, it quickly became clear that the idea of ​​a multitude of independent "types of intelligence" cannot be accepted unconditionally. Thus, it was noted that positive correlations are generally observed between the tests used by Thurstone. This fact forced us to return to the idea of ​​a common cognitive “denominator” for most of the test performances. In addition, second-order factor analysis (that is, factorization of the correlations of all possible pairs of factors) showed the possibility of combining "primary mental abilities" into a more generalized factor, similar to Spearman's factor "g"<...>.

Thus, since the results of Thurstone's research did not exclude the possibility of the existence of a "common factor", in the same way the results of Spearman - the existence of "group factors", it turned out that both the two-factor and multivariate theories of intelligence are actually one theory dealing with the description one and the same phenomenon with emphasis in it either general (Spearman) or specific (Thurstone).

Nevertheless, the further development of ideas about the nature of intelligence in its testological understanding was associated with the substantiation, on the one hand, of the "integrity" of intelligence, on the other hand, its "multiplicity".

The first line is represented by the works of R. Cattell, F. Vernon, L. Humphrace and others. Thus, Cattell, using a large set of tests and the procedure of factor analysis (oblique rotation technique), obtained a number of primary factors. He took these data as the basis for second-order factor analysis.

As a result, he was able to describe 5 secondary factors. Two of them characterize the Spearman factor, but already divided into two components: gc - "crystallized intelligence", represented by tests for vocabulary, reading, taking into account social norms, etc., and the factor gf - "fluid intelligence", represented by tests to identify patterns in a series of figures and numbers, the amount of RAM, spatial operations, etc. In addition to these basic intellectual abilities, Cattell identified three additional factors: gv - "visualization" (the ability to manipulate images in solving divergent problems), gm - "memory" (the ability to store and reproduce information) and gs - "speed" (the ability to maintain a high pace response)<...>.

According to Cattell, crystallized intelligence is the result of education and various cultural influences, its main function is to accumulate and organize knowledge and skills. Fluid intelligence characterizes the biological capabilities of the nervous system, its main function is to quickly and accurately process current information. Thus, instead of one ("general") intellect, two intelligences have appeared, which, according to Cattell, have radically different mechanisms.

Subsequently, it turned out that the division of general intelligence into two types of mental abilities - crystallized and fluid - is rather arbitrary. First, according to Cattell himself, the factors gc and dm "- correlated with each other at the level r = 0.40-0.50, and both of these factors with approximately the same weight included the same tests characterizing the ability to establish semantic relationships (test analogies and the test of formal judgments.) Secondly, L. Humphreys, reinterpreting Cattell's data, received a single so-called "intellectual and educational factor", which simultaneously includes both gc and gs<...>.

So, Cattell identified two sides in the work of the intellect: one of them is determined by the peculiarities of the structure and functioning of the brain, the other - by the influences of the environment. Nevertheless, the fact of the interdependence of gc, and d1 (by the way, it is characteristic that these two dimensions are most highly correlated in persons with a similar educational and cultural level) again raised the question of the nature of some general mechanism, to one degree or another penetrating all types of intellectual activity and predetermining the available level of both gc and gf. In other words, Cattell's studies, starting with the assertion of the existence of Spearman's "g" -factor, actually proved the multiplicity of the structure of intelligence, but at the same time again forced to return to the idea of ​​general intelligence - this time in a different, non-Spearman interpretation.

A similar line in the interpretation of intelligence, associated with the emphasis on a single basis of intellectual activity, is characteristic of J. Raven's research. Working on the problem of the sources of mental retardation and using the Stanford-Binet intellectual scale, Raven noted the cumbersomeness of the latter and the difficulty of interpreting the results obtained.

As a student of Spearman, he, after him, adhered to the point of view that mental abilities include two components: productive (the ability to identify connections and relationships, come to conclusions not directly presented in a given situation) and reproductive (the ability to use past experience and learned information).

Trying to find a way to measure the productive capabilities of intelligence, Raven created a special test focused on diagnosing the ability to identify patterns in the organization of a series of successively complex geometric shapes ("test of progressive matrices")<...>.

It has been repeatedly noted that Raven's test is one of the "cleanest" measurements of "g". In addition, the productive properties of intelligence diagnosed using Raven's matrices are much better at predicting a person's intellectual achievements compared to reproductive properties diagnosed using verbal tests such as the vocabulary test.<...>... Subsequently, the success of the Progressive Matrix test was interpreted as an indicator of the ability to learn based on the generalization (conceptualization) of one's own experience in the absence of external indications<...>.

Thus, at this stage, within the framework of the testological paradigm, a significant step was made in the development of ideas about the nature of intelligence, due to the understanding of the fact that intelligence cannot be reduced to the degree of expression of certain cognitive functions or to a set of acquired knowledge. Intelligence is defined as a productive ability that provides the ability to identify connections and relationships of reality.

Further deepening of the idea of ​​"integrity" of human intelligence is characterized by the development of hierarchical theories of intelligence. So, F. Vernoi, on the basis of factor analysis, obtained the factor "g", which includes about 52% of all intellectual functions. This factor breaks down into two main group factors: U. ED) (verbal-digital-educational) and K: M (mechanic-spatial-practical). These factors, in turn, break down into the so-called secondary group factors that characterize private intellectual abilities. The latter also break down into a number of specific factors that represent each individual test methodology and form the lowest, fourth level of this intellectual hierarchy.<...>.

In a more complex form, the idea of ​​the hierarchical structure of various manifestations of intellectual activity was developed in the radial-level theory of intelligence by L. Guttman. According to this author, tests can differ both in the degree of difficulty with respect to the same ability (for example, within the framework of the ability to operate with numbers, different tests may differ in the level of difficulty of their execution), and in the type of difficulty with respect to the same ability (for example , tasks for identifying patterns can be presented on different types of material in the form of numbers, concepts, assessments of the behavior of other people, etc.). In the first case, we can talk about the "simple order of complexity" ("vertical" principle of organizing test items), in the second - about the "circular order of complexity" ("horizontal" principle of organizing test items)<...>.

The main theoretical result of the above studies was the recognition of the existence of "general intelligence", that is, a certain unified basis, with a greater or lesser proportion represented in different types of intellectual activity. In turn, the value of the position on the hierarchical organization of intellectual functions was in the allocation of higher and lower levels of intellectual activity, as well as in the idea of ​​the presence of controlling influences in the system of intellectual components varying degrees community.

Subsequently, the idea of ​​"general intelligence" was transformed into the idea of ​​the possibility of assessing the level of general intelligence on the basis of summing up the results of a certain set of tests. The so-called intellectual scales appeared, including a set of verbal and non-verbal subtests (for example, Wechsler's intellectual scale for adults included 11 subtests, Amthauer's intellectual scale - 9 subtests). Individual assessment of the "level of general intelligence" was defined as the sum of the scores for the success of all subtests. In this case, we are faced with an actual substitution of concepts: the measurement of "general intelligence"<...>has become a measurement of "intelligence on average"<...>.

The second line in the development of ideas about the nature of intelligence in the framework of the testological paradigm is associated with the further development of Thurstone's idea of ​​the "plurality" of intellectual abilities. A striking example such an approach is the structural model of intelligence by J. Guildford (Guildford, 1965). Unlike Thurstone's theory, in which factor analysis was a means of identifying "primary abilities," in Guilford's theory, factor analysis served as a means of proving a previously constructed theoretical model of intelligence, postulating the existence of 120 highly specialized independent abilities. In particular, when constructing a "structural model of intelligence" Guilford proceeded from three main criteria that allow describing and specifying three aspects (sides) of intellectual activity. 1. Type of mental surgery performed:

• 1) cognition - recognition and understanding of the presented material (for example, to recognize an object by an indefinite silhouette);
• 2) convergent productivity - searching in one direction when receiving one single correct answer (summarize several concepts in one word);
• 3) divergent productivity - searching in different directions when receiving several equally correct answers (name all possible ways of using a familiar subject);
• 4) assessment - a judgment about the correctness (consistency) of a given situation (find an actual or logical inconsistency in the picture);
• 5) memory - memorization and reproduction of information (remember and name a number of numbers).
• 2. Content of the material of intellectual activity:
• 1) candy (real objects or their images);
• 2) symbolic (letters, signs, numbers);
• 3) semantic (meaning of words);
• 4) behavioral (actions of another person and oneself);
• 3. Varieties of the final product:
• 1) units of objects (write the missing letters into words);
• 2) classes of objects (sort items into groups);
• 3) relationships (establish connections between objects);
• 4) systems (identify the rule for organizing a set of objects);
• 5) transformations (change and transform the given material);
• 6) implications (to foresee the result within the framework of the situation "what will happen if ..."). Thus, on the one hand, to be theoretically consistent, then, according to Guildford, to confidently determine the level of intellectual development of a particular person in the fullness of his intellectual abilities, 120 tests (5x4x6) must be used. On the other hand, if we are consistent from the standpoint of common sense, then this idea is obviously futile. Note that in this and similar situations, one involuntarily recalls the old and still unanswered question about the measure of the balance between the considerations of a high theory and considerations of common sense as one of the criteria for the truth of scientific knowledge.

Guilford, as you know, stood on the position of a fundamental denial of the reality of the general factor of intelligence, referring, in particular, to the low correlations between the results of the performance of various intelligence tests. However, the subsequent verification of the structural model showed that, firstly, when controlling the reliability of the tests used by Guilford, up to 98% of all test indicators are positively correlated with each other at different levels of significance.<...>and, secondly, the indicators of "independent" measurements are actually combined into more general integrative factors, for example, the operations "cognition" and "convergent productivity" turned out to be practically identical on symbolic material (letters, numbers, words)<...>.

Note that later Guilford himself came to the conclusion that when assessing certain abilities it is necessary to appeal to integral indicators: in particular, to measure the capabilities of semantic memory, one must take into account its varieties of final "products", and to measure the efficiency of semantic processes - all types of "operations" and "products".

Later versions of the testological theories of intelligence did not seem to have introduced any fundamental changes to the system of initial testological attitudes. So, A. Jager, within the framework of his "Berlin model of the structure of intelligence", built on the basis of a survey of students high school using 191 tests, he postulated two dimensions of intellectual activity: operations (including speed, memory, creativity and complex information processing processes) and content (including verbal, digital, figurative-visual). General intelligence, in his opinion, is a product of "intersections" of all types of operations and all types of content.<...>.

J. Carroll, using factor analysis to process his test data, but relying on the ideas of cognitive psychology (in particular, on the position of the decisive importance of the information processing process), received 24 factors of intelligence: mental manipulation with images, verbal fluency, syllogistic inferences, sensitivity to a contradiction, etc.<...>.

As you can see, in all testological theories of intelligence (two-factor, multifactorial, hierarchical, cubic, radial-level), the concept of the so-called "factors of intelligence" "varies in a different form in the range from 1 to 120.

As a result, testology could not give an unambiguous answer to the naive, but nevertheless quite legitimate question: "How many intelligences actually exist?" In addition, like the sword of Damocles, for many decades the same question hung over all these theories: are these factors real intellectual formations of the type of "primary mental abilities" or is it just a form of classification of the tests used?

Let's try to summarize some of the results. Discussions that lasted for many decades and associated with an attempt to establish a certain understanding of the nature of intelligence, ultimately led to a paradoxical result. Proponents of the idea of ​​"general intelligence" in their attempts to measure it as a single intellectual ability were forced to make sure that general intelligence is nothing more than a formal statistical abstraction in relation to many different manifestations of intellectual activity. In turn, representatives of the idea of ​​intelligence as a "collection of abilities" were also forced to come to the conclusion about the presence of the all-pervading influence of some common principle, represented in various types of intellectual performance.

Thus, the circle was closed. Apparently, it was precisely the acuteness of the state of affairs in testological studies of intelligence that led A. Jacksen, the ideologist of testology and an ardent supporter of the use of intellectual tests, to the pessimistic statement that "it is meaningless to discuss - to give a question to which there is no answer - the question of whether what intelligence really is "<...>... Isn't it strange: testological theories, built on objective methods of measuring intelligence, led testology to the recognition that the study of intelligence as a mental reality is impossible<...>.

Rice. 2. The productive properties of intelligence revealed in testological studies (in the rectangles indicated by solid lines, the types of intelligence described in the testological theories are indicated: in the dotted rectangles - the main criterion for their selection; on the axes - functions of each type of intelligence; on the boundaries of the sectors - the intellectual qualities of persons demonstrating high success in the corresponding type of intellectual activity).

Cold ML Psychology of Intelligence: Research Paradoxes. Tomsk: Publishing house of Vol. un-that. Moscow: Publishing house "Bars", 1997. - pp. 16-32.

Mental activity distinguishes a person from other living beings. Intelligence is one of these types of activity, which has levels and coefficient of its manifestation. You need to develop your intellect so that it is at a high enough level.

What is intelligence?

Intelligence is understood as cognitive activity that allows you to accept, comprehend and solve any problem.

Thanks to intelligence, a person can assimilate new experience, knowledge, and adapt to new circumstances. The intellectual activity of a person includes:

• Feeling.
• Perception.
• Memory.
• Performance.

The psychology of intelligence

At all times, people have been studying intelligence. However, Piaget's theories became the main teaching, who divided the first directions in the adaptation of the child to environment in the form of assimilation (clarification of the situation with the help of existing knowledge) and accommodation (assimilation of new information). In psychology, according to Piaget's theory, the following stages of the development of intelligence are distinguished:

1. Sensomotor. It manifests itself in the first years of life, while the child is studying the world... The scientist called the appearance of his own judgments the first intellectual activity.
2. Preceding operations. The world is gradually becoming diverse for a child, but he is still able to solve simple tasks and operate with elementary concepts.
3. Specific operations. When the child begins to focus on his own judgments and take specific actions.
4. Formal operations. The teenager already has certain ideas about the world, which enrich his spiritual world.

However, not all people develop their intelligence evenly. There are tests developed by psychologists that show at what level of development a person is.

Intelligence level

To solve certain problems, a person resorts to such levels of intelligence as concrete and abstract.

1. Concrete intelligence allows you to complete everyday tasks using existing knowledge.
2. Abstract intelligence allows you to operate with concepts and words.

The level of intelligence can be measured using a special IQ test developed by G. Eysenck. The test is presented in the form of a scale, which is divided into divisions from 0 to 160. The majority of people have an average level of intelligence - it is 90-110. If you are constantly engaged in your development, then you can increase the level by 10 points. Only 25% have high intelligence (more than 110 points). Among them, only 0.5% of the population reaches the mark of more than 140 points. The remaining 25% have low intelligence - less than 90 points.

Low IQ is inherent in oligophrenics. The average coefficient is observed in most of the population. Geniuses have a high coefficient.

Intelligence, according to psychologists, is always maintained at the level of its development to which a person came. A. Lazursky identified 3 intellectual activities:

1. Low - the absolute inability of the individual.
2. Medium - good adaptation to the environment.
3. High - the desire to modify the environment.

IQ tests are very popular. However, their diversity is not always a good indicator. The more varied the tasks in the test, the better, which allows you to test a person for the development of various types of intelligence.

The following factors affect the level of IQ:

• Heredity and family. Family wealth, food, education and quality communication between relatives play an important role here.
• Gender and race. It is noted that after 5 years of age, boys and girls differ in their development. This is also influenced by race.
• Health.
• Country of Residence.
• Social factors.

Types of intelligence

Intelligence is the flexible part of the individual. It can be developed.

A person becomes harmonious if he develops all types of intelligence:

• Verbal - includes speech, writing, communication, reading. For its development, it is necessary to learn languages, read books, communicate, etc.
• Logical - logical thinking, reasoning, problem solving.
• Spatial - operating with visual images. Development takes place through drawing, sculpting, finding exits from the labyrinths.
• Physical - coordination of movements. Develops through dancing, sports, yoga, etc.
• Musical - feeling the rhythm, understanding music, writing, singing, dancing.
• Social - understanding the actions of other people, establishing relationships with them, adapting to society.
• Emotional - understanding your own and others' emotions, the ability to manage and recognize them.
• Spiritual - self-improvement and self-motivation.
• Creative - creating something new, producing ideas.

Intelligence diagnostics

The question of intelligence worried many psychologists, which allowed them to start developing various tests to identify the levels and quality of intelligence development. As a diagnosis of intelligence, the following are often used:

1. Raven's progressive matrices. It is necessary to establish a connection between the figures and select the missing one among the proposed ones.
2. Intelligence research test according to Amthauer.
3. Goodenough-Harris test. It is proposed to draw a person. Then obscure elements are discussed.
4. Free Cattell test

Thinking and intelligence

One of the types of intellectual activity is thinking. Here a person operates with concepts and judgments. He ponders, which allows him to see the solution of the assigned tasks in the future.

Thinking is an ongoing process that is constantly changing, depending on the available knowledge. It is purposeful and purposeful. A person learns something new through what he already knows. Thus, thinking is mediated.

Intelligence allows you to solve problems in your mind, using the existing knowledge and skills. The relationship between these concepts is often confusing. However, under the intellect is perceived the mind of a person, and under thinking - his ability to think. If intelligence is often understood as a person's knowledge, then thinking is his ability to use this knowledge and come to certain conclusions and judgments.

How to develop intelligence?

Intelligence must be developed because it is a flexible part, its intellectual activity. Development is influenced by genetic and hereditary factors, as well as the conditions in which a person lives.

From birth, certain inclinations are given, which a person then uses. If during the development of the fetus or at the genetic level, certain diseases are transmitted to the child, then a low level of intelligence may develop. However, the birth of a healthy child allows him in the future to have an average or high level of intelligence.

Without the environment, a person will not be able to develop effectively. Without the participation of society, intelligence will remain at a low level, no matter what intellectual inclinations a person is endowed with. The family plays an important role in this: its material wealth, social status, atmosphere, attitude towards the child, quality of food, home furnishings, etc. If the parents do not work with the child, then he cannot develop high intellectual abilities.

Also, the formation of intelligence is influenced by the personality of the person himself, which determines the direction of his mental development.

Usually, for the development of intelligence, various games for logic, memory, thinking, etc. are used. These are backgammon, rebuses, puzzles, riddles, chess, etc. Computer games with these directions are becoming popular today.

At school, the child is taught mathematics and exact sciences. This allows you to structure your thinking, make it consistent, orderly. Knowledge of something new can be connected to this process. When a person receives new knowledge, then his intellect expands, becomes richer and more multifaceted.

While maintaining curiosity and a desire to improve oneself, a person contributes to his constant development. Although, according to some scientists, intelligence always remains at the same level, no matter how you develop it.

What is emotional intelligence?

Today, emotional intelligence has become a popular concept, which, according to some psychologists, plays a greater role than IQ. What it is? This is the ability of a person to recognize and understand his own emotions, manage them and direct them to the right channel... It also includes a person's ability to understand the feelings of others, control them and influence the mood of people. Developed emotional intelligence allows you to eliminate.

Almost all people have some level of emotional intelligence. You can go through all the stages of development, or you can get stuck at one of them:

1. Understanding and expressing emotions.
2. Using emotions as intellectual motivation.
3. Awareness of your own and others' emotions.
4. Emotion management.

What is Social Intelligence?

Social intelligence is understood as the ability of an individual to understand and manage other people's emotions, to feel their state and to influence it. The development of this skill depends on the social adaptation of a person.

J. Guilford identified 6 factors that allow the development of social intelligence:

1. Perception of behavioral cues.
2. Isolation of the main behavioral signals from the general stream.
3. Understanding relationships.
4. Understanding the motivation for the manifestation of specific behavior.
5. Understanding how behavior changes depending on the situation.
6. Anticipating another person's behavior.

Human life experience, cultural knowledge and study, existing knowledge and erudition are involved in the formation of social intelligence.

Intelligence of a child

Even in the womb, the development of intelligence begins, which depends on the woman's lifestyle and the information that she receives. A child's intellectual activity depends on many factors: genes, nutrition, environment, family environment, and more.

The main emphasis is on how parents communicate with the child, what exercises they offer to develop their intellect, how often they explain certain phenomena, how often they visit various places, etc. The intellect itself does not develop. In the beginning, a lot depends on what and how the parents do with the child.

Outcome

Intelligence allows a person to become educated and socially fit. Every year he increasingly begins to use his intellectual abilities, which affect memory, thinking, attention and even speech. Their development is influenced by their parents and the environment. The result depends on how favorable circumstances a person was surrounded by from an early age.

In everyday communication, the concepts of "ability" and "intelligence" are often used interchangeably. This is not surprising, since it is difficult to imagine a capable, gifted or genius person with low intelligence. In this regard, it is advisable to consider intelligence in terms of the problem of abilities.

Intelligence is one of the most complex mental abilities of a person.... In understanding its essence, the opinions of psychologists differ. Difficulties arise even in the very definition of intelligence. Here are some of the definitions.

Intelligence is the ability to think.
Intelligence is a type of adaptive behavior aimed at achieving a goal.
Intelligence is a characteristic of the rational mental functions of the human psyche.
Intelligence is an integral characteristic of human cognitive processes.
Intelligence is a person's ability to adapt to their environment.
Intelligence is a concept designed to explain the reasons for differences between people in solving complex problems.
Intelligence is a person's global ability to act rationally, think rationally and cope well with life's circumstances.
Intelligence is a relatively stable structure of the mental faculties of an individual.

There is a crisis in the concept of "intelligence". In this regard, there are proposals to abandon this concept altogether (D. Carroll, S. Maxwell) or replace it with others, for example, "adaptability" or "mental structure" (D. Möller and others).

A generalized definition can be as follows: intelligence is a system of mental processes that allow a person to use their abilities to assess the situation, accept rational decisions and organizing appropriate behavior in a changing environment.

In the problem of intelligence, a clear boundary has not been established between the concepts of "intelligence", "mind" and "thinking", which consider different, but interrelated aspects of the personality. An attempt to correlate these concepts within common problem human abilities leads to the following diagram.

Intelligence can be thought of as the ability to think... At the same time, intelligence is not associated with morality, empathy, philanthropy, profession, and even with an elite education. Obviously, this is exactly what A. Einstein had in mind: “You should not deify the intellect. He has mighty muscles, but no face. "

Thinking is a process through which intelligence is manifested, realized. Mind is a generalized characteristic of a person's cognitive capabilities, the process of thinking. The mind is a whole complex of qualities, so closely related that, taken separately, they manifest themselves in a different way. When a person is called smart, this assessment applies simultaneously to many of his qualities.

As for the structure of intelligence, at present, due to the complexity of both the phenomenon itself and the imperfection of its formulation, it is difficult to propose a full-fledged model of it. There is an accumulation of information on this unique mental education. In the meantime, the available results are largely due to the specifics of the scientific positions of scientists. The concept of intelligence includes from several to tens of factors. Naturally, this makes it difficult to assess intelligence as an integral phenomenon.

In the structure of intelligence, various researchers distinguish several components:

General intelligence(factor G, from the English general-general) - a set of mental properties of a person that predetermine the success of any activity, adaptation to the environment and a high rate of information processing. General intelligence is provided by general abilities. For example, a person's communication skills are in demand by many types of activities: managerial, pedagogical, artistic, diplomatic.

Special intelligence(factor S, from English spesial -special) - a set of mental properties that are necessary to solve narrow problems in a particular type of activity. This type of intelligence is provided by special human abilities. Examples of special intelligence include:
- professional intelligence focused on the specialization of activities (musical, mathematical);
- problem-oriented social intelligence interpersonal relationships, interaction of business partners.

Potential intelligence- determines the ability of a person to think, abstract and reason. The name is due to the fact that this intelligence "matures" by about 20 years (according to R. Ket-tell).

Crystalline Intelligence- “crystallizing” in a person in the process of accumulating knowledge, skills and abilities while adapting to the environment and assimilating the values ​​of society.

Intellect A is an innate part of the intellect, its "humus".

Intelligence B is the result of the interaction of intelligence A with the environment around a person in the course of his life.

There are other approaches to understanding the structure of human intelligence. Thus, L. Thurstone identified a set of 12 independent abilities that determine intelligence, calling them primary mental potencies (speed of perception, associative memory, verbal flexibility, etc.). D. Guildford's "cubic" model of intelligence includes 120 components that characterize the content of mental activity (what the individual's thoughts are doing), its operations (how it is implemented) and the result mental activity(in what form is the information being processed).

Thus, despite all the differences in views on the problem, the common thing is the multicomponent nature of the phenomenon of "intelligence", its close connection with cognitive mental processes, innate and social factors.

For many people, "psychological intelligence" is a new concept. It just so happens that in Western culture, intelligence is more understood as the ability to think about something inanimate (how best to drive a nail into a board or how to pave the way between points A and B). Since the Middle Ages, the business sector has developed mainly in this direction. A person was presented only as a variant of a cog in a complex mechanism, and at the same time, the presence of a soul in an employee was perceived by managers as a disadvantage. Only in the twentieth century, the human factor received a major role among other components of the business process.

The psychology of managing people and business relationships increasingly began to occupy the minds of people who want to reach the top of their professional career.

Psychological education is clearly not keeping pace with the changing needs of the business side of our lives. Psychology appeared in school programs quite recently, and then at first it was not at all in a professional version, since teachers preferred to talk more with children about the psychology of family relations. As a result, the modern adult is faced with the need to form his own psychological intelligence almost independently and with great delay. At the same time, many make a fairly common mistake, the essence of which boils down to the fact that the nature of psychological intelligence is somewhat different from its natural science version.

For the formation of psychological intelligence, it is not enough to study the relevant literature. In addition to being well-read, it is necessary to properly develop your feelings, develop observation to the nuances of human behavior, including your own, as well as the ability to perceive and analyze the slightest movements and states of the soul. This rather serious and far from always habitual work on oneself requires completely different talents than the encyclopedic erudition of a crossword writer and winner of a quiz show. The Eastern cult of self-observation and meditation has already become fashionable in our society, but has not yet become a daily habit.

Psychological intelligence in business has several main areas of application:

# personnel Management;

# professional interaction with colleagues;

# personalized interaction with business partners, clients;

# promotion of products to the market.

If everything is more or less clear with the first three directions, then with regard to the promotion of goods and services, it should be emphasized that marketing is essentially a synthesis of economics and psychology. It is difficult to say which component is more important in this hybrid, since it depends on the nature of the products and the strategy of the company's market behavior. It is important to understand that planning such types of systemic impact on potential consumers, such as advertising and PR-actions, is unthinkable without knowledge of the psychology of a potential consumer, psychological mechanisms making a decision on the purchase, selection of one or another competing product.

There are still such insolvent pseudo-marketers who believe that in order to sell products, it is enough to set an adequate price, inform the world about its existence, and buyers will resort to them themselves. This market position has long been defeated in the fight against competitors who are actively looking for a way to the heart and wallet of the consumer. Dry, rational behavior in the modern market is less and less successful, as the majority of consumers prefer to receive additional emotions with the purchased product or service. In principle, it can be argued that recently, emotional packaging of products has become an increasingly important component of marketing.

In the process of work, psychological intelligence performs the following functions.

Exploring the needs of each engagement partner. This aspect professional activity we have discussed in detail in previous publications on the factors of career success.

Predicting the reaction of people to any influence on them from your side, or to a particular change in the situation that is beyond your control. Many managers or professionals whose work depends on other people fail in their professional activities due to the fact that they are more focused not on achieving the desired result, but on conducting an event designed for this. At first glance, the phrase you just read may seem silly if you do not understand that before you do something about other people, you need to carefully check their possible reaction. Otherwise, you run the risk of facing a completely different effect that you expected when holding a promotion.

For example, in advertising, it is first customary to test advertising materials on a small group of people that adequately represent the target audience of the impact, and only after obtaining the expected effect to launch advertising products into mass use. In principle, exactly the same work is useful for any professional whose activities are related to the impact on people. Before you do anything, you should ask yourself the question: "Will people react to my impact exactly as I planned?" The search for an answer can be conducted in different ways. Someone prefers live testing, when, for example, a boss, before signing an important order affecting the entire workforce, consults with a subordinate who is his typical representative. Another can do with the power of his psychological intellect, considering himself to be well aware of the psychology of his interaction partners and capable of mentally simulating the development of a situation.

Formation of an individual approach to a specific person. Let us recall one very important truth: all people are different. Meanwhile, most people in their work act as if they do not know it. To some extent, they can be understood, since the application of one universal approach to all at once requires less economic costs, and it is not so troublesome. But such a strategy of influencing people can seriously reduce the effectiveness of the measures taken. For example, there are people (and there are quite a lot of them) who perceive information very poorly by ear, preferring to see everything with their own eyes. If the company's management makes an important announcement only through corporate radio, then some part of the workforce will simply not pay attention to it. And there are also those to whom information reaches only if you contact them personally. And this should not be taken as a capricious show off - this is an individual feature of their psyche. There can be a great many such circumstances that induce a professional to resort to an individual approach in his business relationship. Therefore, first it is necessary to identify these individual characteristics of the interaction partners, and then think about the ways of their adequate behavior.

Formation of an average approach to the target group. Often we find ourselves in a situation where, with all our understanding of the effectiveness of an individual approach to people, it is very difficult and too expensive to implement it (for example, if this is an advertising campaign designed for a large audience). In this case, you need to be able to choose just such a universal approach to interaction partners so that its effect is as much as possible.

Imagine the following situation: in the target group of exposure there is one blind person, and all the rest are sighted, and many of them do not perceive information well by ear. The specialist is aware of the presence of a blind person in the target group and decides to choose an auditory method of influence for his action. How adequate would such an approach be? A blind person may hear the message, but a tangible part of the group will simply not pay attention to the information provided. It is clear that this option for a professional solution will not be the most effective of all.

A good knowledge of the psychological nature of the people who make up the target group of influence often makes it possible to choose an intermediate approach between individual and universal options to increase the effectiveness of the campaign. If the target audience clearly breaks up into several more or less homogeneous groups, then in relation to each of them you can choose an adequate method of influence that gives maximum effect... In the above example, you can use a visual method to influence a group, and a blind person should not be too lazy to communicate information individually in an audio version (for example, by phone or in person).

Having figured out what the business variety of psychological intelligence is, consider the ways of its formation and development. At the beginning of the article, a skeptical assessment of the book version of psychological education was given. However, it should be clarified that reading the relevant literature is extremely important for the formation of psychological intelligence, only this should by no means be limited. It should be emphasized that a good source of useful knowledge can be both literature on scientific psychology and books by experts in everyday wisdom - everyone must make a choice based on the individual characteristics of their perception and personal preferences.

The next important source of psychological intelligence is practical training in various training centers corresponding profile. All kinds of trainings and other forms of group work of a psychological orientation will help in practice to perceive the phenomena and mechanisms described in the books, the individual characteristics of various types of people, as well as in the training mode to master new behaviors for oneself in interaction with other people.

The third component of psychological education is individual work. Group forms of classes provide a huge amount of practical knowledge and impressions, which subsequently must be carefully assimilated on their own. A lot of time in individual work is spent observing people, including yourself. An attempt to understand the peculiarities of the psyche of each person usually includes both the search for the reasons for the already committed actions, and the prediction of further actions. Comparing the actual development of events with your predictions provides rich food for working on mistakes. Moreover, such an everyday experiment for the purpose of psychological education can also contain active actions, when you, with your test influences on certain people, provoke them to some kind of reaction and compare the effect obtained with your expectations.

Naturally, only self-examination makes it possible to penetrate into the innermost and inaccessible depths of the human soul, therefore psychological introspection should take important place in self-education. But one analysis of your own psyche should not be limited, since the synthesis of something new in your behavior, in your feelings will give you important information about the possibilities (and limits of possibilities) of the human psyche in its development, in the formation of new formations. This will help you subsequently be more adequate in your expectations and requirements in relation to other people. For example, if you have for a long time accustomed yourself to self-discipline when completing your own work plan for the day, then you will not demand that subordinates develop this ability in themselves the next day, and this will save you from conflicts with them, since they, of course would consider your demands unfair.

In the next publication, we will talk about such a manifestation of intelligence as continuous professional orientation throughout his career, allowing a person to eventually come exactly where he planned.

In a number of psychological concepts, intelligence is identified with a system of mental operations, with a style and strategy for solving problems, with the effectiveness of an individual approach to a situation that requires cognitive activity, with a cognitive style, etc.

Intellect is a relatively stable structure of an individual's mental abilities, which includes acquired knowledge, experience and the ability to further accumulate and use them in mental activity. The intellectual qualities of a person are determined by the range of his interests, the amount of knowledge.

In a broad sense, intelligence is the mental abilities of a person, the totality of all cognitive processes. In a narrower sense - mind, thinking. In the structure of human intelligence, the leading components are thinking, memory and the ability to behave intelligently in problem situations.

The concepts of "intelligence" and "intellectual characteristics" of a person are close to the more frequently used concepts - abilities, general and special abilities. General abilities include, first of all, the properties of the mind, and therefore, general abilities are often called general mental abilities or intelligence.

Some definitions of intelligence can be cited: intelligence as the ability to learn, intelligence as the ability to think abstractly, intelligence as the ability to adapt and solve problems.

The definition of intelligence as a set of general abilities is associated with the works of S. L. Rubinstein and B. M. Teplov. We can say that the intellectual personality traits play a big role in the overall success of the activity. Abilities are considered as regulators of activity, and intellectual activity is distinguished into a unit in which mental abilities and the motivational structure of a person are synthesized.

In general, the concept of "intelligence" in the psychological literature has at least three meanings: 1) the general ability to learn and solve problems, which determines the success of any activity and underlies other abilities; 2) the system of all cognitive abilities of the individual (from sensation to thinking); 3) the ability to solve problems without external trial and error (in the mind), the opposite of the ability to intuitive knowledge.

Intelligence, as V. Stern believed, is a certain general ability to adapt to new living conditions. An adaptive act, according to Stern, is the solution of a life task carried out by means of action with a mental ("mental") equivalent of an object, through "action in the mind", or, according to Ya. D. Ponomarev, "in the internal plan of action." According to L. Polani, intelligence is one of the ways of acquiring knowledge. But, in the opinion of most other authors, the acquisition of knowledge (assimilation, according to Piaget) is only a side side of the application of knowledge in solving a life task. In general, the developed intellect, according to Piaget, manifests itself in universal adaptability, in achieving "equilibrium" between the individual and the environment.

Any intellectual act presupposes the activity of the subject and the presence of self-regulation during its execution. According to M.K. Akimova, the basis of intelligence is precisely mental activity, while self-regulation only provides the level of activity necessary for solving the problem. This point of view is adjoined by E.A. Golubeva, who believes that activity and self-regulation are the basic factors of intellectual productivity, adding to them also working capacity.

One way or another, but in the view of the nature of intelligence as an ability, there is a rational kernel. It becomes noticeable if you look at this problem from the point of view of the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious in the human psyche. Even V.N. Pushkin considered the thought process as the interaction of consciousness and subconsciousness. At different stages of solving the problem, the leading role from one structure passes to another. In an intellectual act, consciousness dominates, regulates the decision process, and the subconscious acts as an object of regulation, that is, in a subdominant position.

Intellectual behavior is reduced to the acceptance of the rules of the game, which the environment imposes on the system with the psyche. The criterion of intellectual behavior is not the transformation of the environment, but the opening up of the possibilities of the environment for the adaptive actions of the individual in it. At least, the transformation of the environment (creative act) only accompanies the purposeful activity of a person, and its result (creative product) is a “by-product of activity,” in Ponomarev's terminology, which is or is not realized by the subject.

V.N. Druzhinin gives the primary definition of intelligence as a certain ability that determines the overall success of a person's adaptation to new conditions.

The mechanism of intelligence manifests itself in solving a problem in the internal plan of action ("in the mind") with the dominance of the role of consciousness over the unconscious. V.N. Druzhinin presents the concept of intelligence from the point of view of a "cognitive resource". There are two explications of the content of the concept of "cognitive resource". The first - structural - can be called the "display-screen" model. Suppose that there is a minimal structural unit responsible for information processing - a cognitive element. Similar elements are associated with each other. The number of cognitive elements determines the success of solving intellectual problems. The complexity of any task is related to the number of cognitive elements that represent it in the cognitive resource. If the set of elements required to represent the task is greater than the cognitive resource, the subject is not able to construct an adequate representation of the situation. The representation will be incomplete in any significant detail.

An individual cognitive resource may be appropriate for a task. In this case, the problem is solved as a particular one, without attempts to generalize the methods of solution to others. Finally, an individual cognitive resource may exceed the resource required by a task. The individual has a free reserve of cognitive elements, which can be used for: 1) solving another parallel problem ("the phenomenon of Julius Caesar"); 2) attracting additional information(inclusion of the task in a new context); 3) varying the conditions of the problem (transition from one problem to a multitude of problems); 4) expanding the search area ("horizontal thinking").

M.A.Kholodnaya identifies a minimum of the basic properties of intelligence: 1) level properties characterizing the achieved level of development of individual cognitive functions (both verbal and non-verbal) and presentation of reality, underlying processes (sensory difference, operative memory and long-term memory, volume and distribution of attention, awareness in a certain content area, etc.); 2) combinatorial properties, characterized by the ability to identify and form various kinds of connections and relationships in the broad sense of the word - the ability to combine in various combinations (spatio-temporal, cause-and-effect, categorical-meaningful) components of experience; 3) procedural properties that characterize the operational composition, techniques and reflection of intellectual activity up to the level of elementary information processes; 4) regulatory properties characterizing the effects of coordination, management and control of mental activity provided by the intellect.

The operational understanding of intelligence grew out of the primary understanding of the level of mental development, which determines the success of any cognitive, creative, sensorimotor and other tasks and manifests itself in some universal characteristics of human behavior.

From the point of view of modern ideas about intelligence, not all tasks can be at least somehow correlated with it. But the idea of ​​the universality of intelligence as an ability that affects the success of solving any problems has been reinforced in models of intelligence.

Typical variants of the multidimensional model, in which a set of primary intellectual factors is assumed, are the models of J. Guildford (a priori), L. Thurstone (a posteriori) and, from Russian authors, V.D.Shadrikov (a priori). These models can be called spatial, single-level, since each factor can be interpreted as one of the independent dimensions of the factor space.

Hierarchical models (C. Spearman, F. Vernon, P. Humphreys) are multilevel. Factors are placed at different levels of community: at the top level

- the factor of total mental energy, at the second level

- its derivatives, etc. Factors are interdependent: the level of development of a common factor is related to the level of development of particular factors.

Thinking is an active function of the intellect and is improved according to the laws and logic. Such mental operations as analysis, synthesis, comparison, judgment and inference are independent categories, but they are carried out on the basis of intellectual capabilities, experience and knowledge.

Thinking is intelligence in action.

By the nature (depth, breadth of coverage, independence, degree of compliance with the truth) judgments and inferences, which are the final results of the thinking process and the completion of complex mental operations, we judge the intelligence of a person.