I want to talk about theories of intelligence in this post. As you know, intelligence has been a long-debated topic since IQ has become popular around the world. However, there are many distinguish perspectives towards intelligence. Some of them stated that intelligence can be considered as just general intelligence whilst some of them advocated it could be seen in a variety of form, which is the perspective of multiple intelligences approach (i.e., Gardner and Sternberg). Let’s look at 5 theories, which are mostly mentioned in the intelligence literature, by touching just main points of them. The Theory of General Intelligence (g-factor) The general intelligence theory is the best-known, most praised, most vilified psychometric model of intelligence (Hunt, 2011). This theory was proposed by Charles Spearman (Spearman, 1904). Defining the general intelligence approach, Spearman stated that a student’s grade in a class could be considered as a measure of the sum of a student’s generalized intelligence and the student’s unique abilities and knowledge relevant to the class (Hunt, 2011). So, in this theory, if someone who score high in one area, he or she also tend to score highly in other areas, which is ultimately refers to the notion of “general intelligence” (g-factor). The Theory of Primary Mental Abilities This theory was proposed by L. L. Thurstone (1938), and he explained that there were seven clusters of primary mental abilities, which are verbal comprehension, word fluency, spatial visualization, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, numerical ability, and associative memory. Similarly, this theory has same framework with general intelligence theory except for the number of factors that it has. The Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence According to Cattell (1963), intelligence consists of two parts, which are fluid intelligence and crystallized Intelligence. Fluid intelligence refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems and performing activities whilst Crystallized Intelligence refers to accumulated knowledge throughout life (Horn, Donaldson, & Engstrom, 1981). From adolescence to older, fluid intelligence is decreasing while crystallized intelligence is increasing. Shortly, fluid intelligence is related to the ability to learn new things, to think abstractly and to solve problems. On the other hand, crystallized intelligence is related to learning and past experiences. The Theory of Multiple Intelligence Gardner is another important scientist in the field of intelligence. After plenty of research, he concluded that the notion of a single intellect, measurable by a single instrument, was inadequate. Then, he offered a new definition of intelligence that allowed evaluation of candidate abilities or skills; and specified a limited set of capacities (Gardner, Kornhaber, and Chen, 2018). There are eight validated intelligences in this theory: Linguistic intelligence, Logical-mathematical intelligence, Spatial intelligence, Musical intelligence, Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, Interpersonal intelligence, Intrapersonal intelligence, and Naturalist intelligence. The theory had originally seven intelligences, and then he added naturalist intelligence, existential intelligence, and pedagogical intelligence. However, he has not carried out research sufficient to determine whether two intelligences, except naturalist intelligence, adequately meet the aforementioned criteria. That’s why MI theory is including eight validated intelligences areas (Gardner, Kornhaber, and Chen, 2018). The Triarchic Theory of Intelligence According to Sternberg (2015), traditional ability tests, originating with those of Binet and Simon (1916) and Spearman (1904), are less than comprehensive because they so strongly focus on analytical (and also memory-based) skills without also assessing creative, practical, and wisdom-based skills. Therefore, he proposed a triarchic (three-part) theory of intelligence that is including analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence. Sternberg (2018) state that analytical skills are used to analyze, compare and contrast, evaluate, judge, and critique a newspaper article whilst creative skills are used to create, invent, design, imagine, discover, explore, and innovate. As Sternberg’s theory, research supported that creativity is not highly correlated with analytical intelligence (Furnham & Bachtiar, 2008). On the other hand, creativity is sometimes linked to some of the basic abilities measured by g, including the abilities to remember information, to learn from experience, and to think abstractly (Bink & Marsh, 2000). The other part of the theory is practical intelligence, which refers to intelligence that cannot be gained from books or formal learning. It is used to put ideas into practice, apply, implement, use, utilize, and execute. It is kind of street smarts or intelligence learned from life experiences. References Bink, M. L., & Marsh, R. L. (2000). Cognitive regularities in creative activity. Review of General Psychology, 4(1), 59–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.4.1.59 Cattell, R. B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 54(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0046743 Furnham, A., & Bachtiar, V. (2008). Personality and intelligence as predictors of creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(7), 613–617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.06.023 Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed. New York: Basic Books. Gardner, H., Kornhaber, M., & Chen, J. (2018). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences; Psychological and Educational Perspectives. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The Nature of Human Intelligence, (pp. 116-130). Cambridge University Press. Horn, J. L., Donaldson, G., & Engstrom, R. (1981). Apprehension, memory, and fluid intelligence decline in adulthood. Research on Aging, 3(1), 33–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/016402758131002 Hunt, Earl. (2011). Psychometric Theories. In E. Hunt, Human Intelligence, (pp. 79-111). Cambridge University Press. Spearman, C. (1904). 'General intelligence,' objectively determined and measured. The American Journal of Psychology, 15(2), 201–293. https://doi.org/10.2307/1412107 Sternberg, R. J. (2015). Successful intelligence: A model for testing intelligence beyond IQ tests. European Journal of Education and Psychology, 8(2), 76-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejeps.2015.09.004 Sternberg, R. J. (2018). Successful Intelligence in Theory, Research, and Practice. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The Nature of Human Intelligence, (pp. 116-130). Cambridge University Press. Thurstone, L.L. (1938). Primary mental abilities. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. In this post, I firstly will seek to explain and discuss reverse conditional probability. After, to demonstrate its relation to emotional assessment, I will touch on four critical factors, and discuss these four criteria in terms of emotional production and perception. In order to understand reverse conditional probability, we should first understand what exactly reverse inference is. Reverse inference can be considered as the process to predict someone’s emotion by looking at his/her facial configuration. For instance, consider you see someone cry, you infer that this person is sadness. What you did here basically is that you assumed the cry reveals this person’s emotional side due to the fact that you normally cannot measure it directly. To assess emotions effectively, two inferences should be taken into account, which are emotion expression and emotional perception. However, reverse inference requires conditional probability, which is -considering the same example- the probability of sadness happening given the presence of cry is not equal to the probability of cry happening given the presence of sadness. The cry should be considered as just one of the components of the expression of sadness. So, cry also might be one of another components of the expression of another emotion like happiness because it is obvious that people sometimes cry when they are happy. Similarly, the probability of cry happening given the presence of sadness is not equal to the probability of sadness happening given the presence of cry. When we see a person feeling sadness, it might be that he/she is not crying. As can be seen, these two conditional probabilities are not equal to each other. Four criteria have to be met to do an emotional assessment correctly. These are reliability, specificity, generalizability, and validity (Barrett et al., 2019). Only if a facial muscle movement significantly meets these four factors, then we can confirm this pattern of facial configuration is the expression of an emotion. Let’s look at the same example; if the relation sadness and cry is met four criteria, then we can conclude that cry is the expression of sadness instead of it is just a cry. Regarding emotional expression, reliability needs to be remarkable to infer that there is a significant relationship between the proposed expression and the emotion. The proposed expression should be observed more than by chance. According to Barrett et al. (2019), reliability in the process of emotion production is related to a forward inference, which is when you see a person's sadness, the likelihood of observing a cry behavior should be significantly high. With specificity criteria, a facial configuration should express only just one emotion category in order to be unique. For example, cry (facial expression) should express just sadness instead of happiness, fear, and so forth. When emotional expressions, which are reliable and specific, generalize across a different population (adult, infant, toddler, blind, etc.) and different conditions, these emotional expressions can be generalizable. Considering the same example, if cry (facial configuration) is the same for a different population, it is generalizable. Although an emotional expression is met with three factors, the last criteria, which is validity, should also be met to justify a reverse inference. Validity refers to demonstrate that an individual at issue is really in the expected emotional situation (Barrett et al, 2019). With validity, the proposed facial expression provides accurate inferences about the individual’s real emotions. In the same example, cry provides accurate inferences for people if it demonstrates the related person is really in the expected situation. In terms of emotional perception, the same four factors should be considered to assess emotions. Reliability in the process of emotional perception is related to reverse inference. I mean when we see a person cry (facial configuration), we should be able to infer that person is sadness. As above, this should be more than a chance so that we can say cry is the emotional expression of sadness reliably. Regarding specificity, if cry is the diagnostic expression of sadness, then a cry facial configuration should be considered as sadness instead of fear, happiness, and so on. When emotional perception studies that have reliability and specificity replicate across different populations and situations, it means the results can generalize across different people and situations. Lastly, if a perceiver can infer correctly about a person’s emotional situation by observing her/his facial configuration, the emotional perception is valid to infer accurate inferences. Consequently, reverse conditional probability and its relation to emotional assessment were discussed in this post by using four key criteria in terms of emotional expression and emotional perception. What about core affect issue? Does it have any effect on assessing emotions? (Wilson-Mendenhall, Barrett, & Barsalou, 2013). Let's talk about the topic of core affect in one of the next post 😉 References Barrett, L. F., Adolphs, R., Marsella, S., Martinez, A. M., & Pollak, S. D. (2019). Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20(1), 1–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930 Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., Barrett, L. F., & Barsalou, L. W. (2013). Neural Evidence That Human Emotions Share Core Affective Properties. Psychological Science, 24(6), 947–956. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612464242 This post begins with a short definition of Ekman’s universality of emotions. Subsequently, it examines some criticisms about Ekman’s ideas. Ekman’s universality of emotions assumes that there are six universal core emotions that are intrinsic, consistent across cultures, and biologically existed since we are born. According to the theory, those six universal emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. In short, Ekman’s universality of emotions claims that there is six universal emotion regardless of culture and situation and facial expression of those core emotions is including a set of facial movements so that someone can recognize how a person feels by observing their voice tones, facial movements etc. However, there are some criticisms about Ekman’s universality of emotions. Firstly, Lisa Feldman Barrett says that according to Ekman’s universality of emotions, individuals cannot hide their feelings because their faces are powerless, and emotions are universal. However, the problem with this is that people can do fake behaviours and fake emotions. The reason is that it is possible to experience any feeling without using any facial configuration. Another point that scholars criticize Ekman’s universality of emotions is that Ekman focuses on just the human face. However, what about the whole body? For instance, body movements, voice tone, or changes in skin tone etc. Those have a vital role in perceiving and showing emotions. Consider a person’s skin changed but her/his face is the same. Can we say this person feels the same emotion?! It is an irrefutable fact that physiology affects emotions, emotions affect physiology. Lastly, the theory of constructed emotion offered by Russell and Barrett does not agree with the ideas of Ekman’s universality of emotions. The reason is that the main concept of the theory of constructed emotion is that language and culture play a pivotal role in categorizing emotions. Thus, people who have different backgrounds have different emotional expressions and different emotional perceptions. For instance, students who have different backgrounds and learn the same foreign language have difficulty in understanding each other even though they feel the same emotions. Besides, what about the arousal level of emotions? High arousal sadness and low arousal sadness have the same facial expression? AuthorMehmet Hilmi Saglam (UBC) Psychometric and Multiple Intelligence Approaches The ability to understand the world and to use resources correctly in dealing with challenges to be successful in life is the main point of the concept of intelligence (Wechsler, 1950; Gardner, 1983; Sternberg, 1985). Therefore, researchers seek to explain intelligence by using different models. Although there are several models in the literature, two major models, psychometric and multiple intelligence, will be discussed in this post. While the psychometric model focuses on the structural definition of intelligence, the multiple intelligence model examines how many intelligences are there and their types. This essay begins with the definition, development of the psychometric model, and criticisms about this model. Subsequently, it discusses the definition of the multiple intelligence model and specifically two major theories in this model (Multiple intelligence by Gardner & Triarchic theory of intelligence by Sternberg), and some criticisms about multiple intelligence models. Psychometric theories aim to understand the structure of intelligence. The main strategy in the psychometric model is the use of factor analysis to examine patterns of individual differences in test scores. There are several theories engaging in the structural definition of intelligence: Spearman’s g factor, Thurstone’s primary mental abilities, Cattell’s two type intelligence model, and Horn’s hierarchical model. While Spearman advocated that the most important factor is the general factor or g-factor, Thurstone disagreed with the idea of Spearman and he offered the theory of primary mental abilities, which is including seven factors. According to Spearman, if someone’s g factor is high (e.g., people who did well on a mental-ability test), they are more likely to do well on others. However, Thurstone indicated that there are multiple factors instead of just two factors (g factor & specific factor). On the other hand, Cattell focused on two types of intelligence: fluid intelligence, which is problem-solving and reasoning abilities measured by a test, and crystallized intelligence, which is including vocabulary, general information, and knowledge about a specific field (Nisbett et al, 2012). The last theory is Horn’s hierarchical model, which is kind of combination of Cattell’s Gf and Gc, and the g factor model. There are three stratums and stratum I is including 71 abilities, the figure for stratum II is 7 abilities, and the last stratum III is g factor. Despite all these theories, there are some criticisms about psychometric models. The first critique is that psychometric models said nothing about the process underlying intelligence. Even though it is crucial to discuss factors of intelligence such as g factor or fluid ability, another critical thing is to say something about what is going on in individuals’ minds. Secondly, some scholars argue that specialized abilities are more vital than the g factor because they explain individual differences. Third, culture can be considered as a confounding variable in psychometric theories. A single test might measure completely different abilities in different cultures. The last thing is that intelligence tests unfortunately were not built on a theory of intelligence. That’s why test development and interpretation are affected negatively by this situation. Although there are some criticisms about this model, it is obvious that these theories provide researchers different perspectives, and they were supported by some empirical studies. Regarding multiple intelligence models, the theory of multiple intelligence and the theory of triarchic intelligence are the most widely accepted theories across the globe. Multiple intelligence proposed that there are seven to nine intelligence (i.e., kinesthetic, verbal, interpersonal, etc.). In the concept of multiple intelligence theory, a person might be strong in a specific area like verbal intelligence, or he/she might be strong more than one area like strong each verbal, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence. In terms of strengths of the theory, having a variety of intelligence helps people better understand their strengths and provides a unique perspective for educators to identify their students. Otherwise, let’s consider if a student is assessed by general intelligence (g-factor) concept and he/she has a high level of general ability, it means he/she is smart and has the potential to do many things. What if he/she has not a high level of general ability? Do we think he/she has not the capacity to do many things? At this point, the theory of multiple intelligence offers a variety of intelligence for people. However, although it is a unique theory, there are some criticisms about that. First, some scholars demonstrated that Gardner’s definition of intelligence is too broad. In addition, the definition of intelligence in this theory can also represent talents, personal traits, and abilities. So, what are the differences among these terms? The last critique is that the theory of multiple intelligence has a lack of supporting empirical research. In terms of Sternberg’s Triarchic theory, it has three interacting factors, which are analytic, creative, and practical. Analytic intelligence refers to book smart or general intelligence whilst practical intelligence focuses on real-world success. Creative intelligence means the ability to generate new ideas. The most point of strength is that this theory was supported by empirical research. Regarding criticisms about Sternberg’s theory, scholar states that the theory needs more research to be reliable and validated. The difference between Gardner’s theory and Sternberg’s theory is that Triarchic theory focuses on what intelligence is whilst multiple intelligence theory examines how individuals use their intelligence in different ways. In conclusion, theories in the psychometric model of intelligence examine the structure of intelligence by using factor analysis, theories in the multiple intelligence model, as the name suggests, focus on manifold (multiple) intelligence by seeing intelligence as broad. AuthorM. Hilmi Saglam (The University of British Columbia) Many fields such as psychology, education, economy, sociology have been very interested in the field of leadership (Greenleaf, 1970; Spears, 1995; Black, 2010; Brown, 2010; Yukl, 2010) due to the fact that leadership is an interdisciplinary subject (Fındıkçı, 2012). The history of leadership definition dates back to Plato's time (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2013). Therefore, it should not be surprising that the concept of leadership is as diverse as the people involved in the work (Hoy & Miskel, 2015). Mainly, leadership approaches can be divided into two stages. The first stage is the traditional leadership approach which is defined as leadership having authority, control, and restrictions. On the other hand, modern types of leadership are accepted as modern leadership approaches such as transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Servant leadership is one of the modern types of leadership.
The phrase “servant leadership” was used by Robert K. Greenleaf in his essay called “The Servant as Leader”, published in 1970. In that essay, he said: “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead” Looking at the words “servant” and leader”, it seems that they have opposite meanings. However, combining them in a creative and meaningful way, a paradox emerges, and servant leadership occurs (Yılmaz, 2013). Water, as an example, is very similar to the servant leader. What I mean by that is that water is made up of two elements, which are hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen is flammable but oxygen is not. Combining them in a specific formula, 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen, water can be getting. Hydrogen is used to burn a thing; however, water is used to put out the fire instead of starting them. Servant leadership is a kind of water in this example. Even though becoming a leader as a servant does not make sense to the mind, but it is highly effective and that’s why servant leaders like prophets have been still influencing people across the globe. This is just an example of how the servant leadership approach can be so effective to affect people and achieve the organization’s goals. The main idea of servant leadership is that the leader serves others (their followers) to enhance their personal development by using one vitally crucial technique, leading by example. Let’s think about children. Leading by example, or can be called "being role-model" in the perspective of pedagogy, is vitally important to be able to shape children’s behaviours and thoughts. Similarly, a servant leader is a model for their followers, and he/she seek to lead them by being an example. Servant leadership is a leadership understanding that values people, develops them, helps them to act originally, leads people's well-being, and encourages the sharing of power and status for each individual's good (Laub, 1999). According to Fındıkçı (2012), a servant leader is a heartfelt person who is the passenger of the love path. Considering all facts about the servant leadership approach, it can be a solution instead of a problem, an answer instead of a new question, and it can help leaders lead their followers by using a different way, which is to serve them rather than being served by them. |
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