【Psychology】Chapter 10— Section Review/Main Points
* All the following abstractions are excerpted from <Psychology>, Peter O. Gray, 5th edition
Chapter 10 — Reasoning and Intelligence.
Section 1 — How People Reason I: Analogies and Induction
We reason largely by perceiving similarities between new events and familiar ones.
— Analogies as a Basis for Reasoning
Analogies are similarities in behavior, functions, or relationships in otherwise different entities or situations.
Scientists and even nonscientists often use analogies to make sense of observations and generate new hypotheses.
Analogies are commonly used in legal and political persuasion.
Some tests measure an individual's ability to see and apply analogies, which is a good predictor of success in graduate school or jobs requiring complex problem-solving.
— Inductive Reasoning
In inductive reasoning, or hypothesis-testing, a new principle or proposition is infer based on specific observations or facts. We are quite good at inductive reasoning, but are susceptible to certain biases.
The availability bias is our tendency to give too much weight to information that comes more easily to mind than does other relevant information.
The confirmation bias leads us to try to confirm rather than disconfirm our current hypothesis. Logically, a hypothesis cannot be proven, only disproven.
The predictable-world bias leads us to arrive at predictions through induction even when events are actually random.
Section 2 — How People Reason II: Deduction and Insight
Deduction and insight contribute to problem-solving ability.
— Concrete Nature of Deductive Reasoning
Deduction is the derivation of conclusions that must be true if the premises are true. Syllogisms are classic examples of deductive-reasoning problems.
Older theories suggested that we reason by applying formal logic to the formal structure of such problems, irrespective of specific content. Newer theories recognize that we are biased toward using content knowledge even when it causes us to reason incorrectly.
Our deductive reasoning is also concrete in that we tend to construct diagrams or mental models to represent problem information and then examine them to "see" the solution.
— Insight
The mutilated-checkerboard problem and the candle problem are often used to study insight, where sudden solutions come from seeing things in a new way.
Insight often derives from abandoning a mental set (a habitual way of perceiving or thinking). Often this begins with realizing that the current approach is not working.
Paying attention to aspects of the problem and materials that might otherwise be overlooked can help to lead to insight.
A happy or playful frame of mind tends to broaden the scope of perception and thought and thereby promote insight.
Section 3 — Effects of Culture and Language on Thought
Culture and language can affect perception, memory, and reasoning.
— Cross-Cultural Differences in Perception and Reasoning
Unschooled non-Westerners do not deal with Western-style logic problems in the same way that Westerners do; they take a more concrete, practical, and functional approach.
Compared with analytical Westerners, people from East Asian cultures perceive more holistically — that is, in a more contextual, integrated, and relational way. This focus on wholes as opposed to parts can affect memory and reasoning.
— Effects of Language
The term linguistic relativity refers to differences in perceiving, remembering, and thinking that result from differences in language.
Speakers of languages that use an absolute rather than an egocentric frame of reference think differently about spatial relations and are more able to discern and remember the absolute positions of objects.
Compared to European languages, Asian languages use number words that more directly reflect the base-10 number system. This appears to make learning the base-10 system faster and easier for Asian children.
The generic use of words such as man and he leads to interpretations slanted toward male examples.
Section 4 — The Practice and Theory of Intelligence Testing
Efforts to characterize and measure intelligence have both practical and theoretical goals.
— History of Intelligence Testing
Galton proposed that intelligence reflects the biological capacity for mental quickness and sensory acuity.
Binet regarded intelligence as a loose set of higher-order mental abilities that can be increased by schooling. His tests used school-related questions and problems.
Most modern intelligence tests are rooted in Binet's approach and use a variety of verbal and nonverbal subtests.
— Validity of Intelligence Testing
To gauge the validity of intelligence tests, researchers examine how well they predict school and career success.
IQ scores correlate moderately well with school grades and with job performance, especially for jobs that require considerable judgment and reasoning.
— Nature of General Intelligence
Spearman proposed that general intelligence or g is a single factor that contributes to all types of mental performance.
Cattell believed that g consists of two factors rather than one — fluid and crystallized intelligence.
Modern measures of mental quickness show that it is related to general intelligence, possibly through effects on working-memory capacity.
Sternberg proposed that the efficiency of mental self-government accounts for individual differences in intelligence.
The prefrontal cortex plays a primary role in mental self-government and fluid intelligence.
General intelligence may have been selected for in nature because it helps us deal with evolutionarily novel problems.
Section 5 — Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Intelligence
We must be careful in how we ask and how we try to answer nature-nurture questions.
— IQ Differences Within a Culture Group
The reasonable version of the nature-nurture question asks whether genetic or environmental variation contributes more to observed IQ differences within a population.
Heritability is the extent to which variation in a trait (e.g., IQ), within a particular population, derives from genetic differences among the individuals.
Twin studies have shown that, within a population, genetic variation accounts for about half of IQ variance in children and for more than that in adults.
Effects of the shared family environment (aspects of the environment shared by children growing up in the same home) on IQ are temporary; they disappear in adulthood.
Evidence suggests that intellectual involvement increases fluid intelligence over time, and the reverse is also true.
— IQ Differences Between Cultural Groups
Heritability coefficients for IQ within groups cannot be legitimately used to explain the source of average IQ differences between groups (e.g., racial or cultural groups).
The average black-white IQ difference found in the United States is related to the social designation of black or white rather than to the degree of African or European ancestry.
Involuntary minority status is particularly likely to reduce a group's IQ.
Historical increases in IQ also suggest the strong influence of cultural factors — in this case, factors such as changes in technology and prenatal care.