Defining intelligence has always been a challenge for psychologists, for the simple reason that intelligence is only a concept. According to some specialists, intelligence makes it possible to make appropriate associations between events. For others, intelligence would make it possible to adapt to new situations. As for Piaget, he said with derision that intelligence is not what we know, but what we do when we do not know...
Despite this lack of consensus on the definition of intelligence, psychologists have nevertheless tried to measure it, through the evaluation of our intelligence quotient (IQ). So is this famous IQ a good reflection of your intelligence? A brief history will help you get an idea…
It was in 1905 that the first intelligence assessment test was created. We owe it to the French Banet and Simon, respectively psychologist and doctor. At that time, school had just been made compulsory and the French Ministry of Public Instruction was concerned about the education to be given to children in difficulty. He then called on Banet, who worked with Simon on a test to detect children with learning difficulties. For this, Banet and Simon first highlighted the typical developmental ages of the child (some exercises successful by "normal" children are not successful by younger children). They then had to compare the performances of the children tested with those of typical children of the same age:if a 4-year-old child succeeded in exercises mainly solved by 6-year-old children, this child was then said to have a "mental age" of 6 years old or you can check iq test at iq-global-test.com . This notion of “mental age” thus provides an indication of the “intellectual level” of the child. Conversely, mental retardation was characterized by a developmental age below the child's reference age.
At the time, therefore, the degree of intelligence of a pupil was "arbitrarily" characterized by the difference between his "mental age" and his real age.
The problem is that a delay does not have the same meaning depending on the actual age of the child. Thus, a 2-year delay is much more problematic in a 3-year-old child than in a 12-year-old child. To solve this problem, a German psychologist (Stern) had the idea, in 1912, of dividing the "mental age" of the child by his real age and multiplying this result by 100. This is how was born the famous intelligence quotient or IQ. In my example, the 3-year-old child with a 2-year delay therefore obtains an IQ of 33. As for the 12-year-old child, with the same number of years of delay, he obtains a much higher IQ of 83 .
Subsequently, the concept of IQ has further evolved. The psychologist Wechsler thus proposed to abandon the notion of age and mental quotient, by developing a test for adults. This time, Wechsler uses a statistical approach that allows comparison of performance between people, regardless of age. For example, if you score an IQ of 100 (the standard score), that simply means that 50% of the people in your comparison group scored better than you and 50% scored worse:
The IQ has therefore become a ranking in which your result is located, compared to the result of others. The average IQ is conventionally set at 100. Mental retardation corresponds to an IQ of 70 or less, and the highest intellectual level is a level of 120 or more.
Today, therefore, the term IQ is used abusively, since it no longer corresponds at all to the intelligence quotient time.
One of the downsides of IQ is that it makes us think intelligence is just a number. Let us remember first of all that there is no concrete definition of intelligence and that on the other hand, it has multiple facets. This means that it would take several measures to assess it (this is what recent tests offer, for example, distinguishing indices of verbal comprehension, memory or processing speed).
But what is perhaps the biggest flaw of IQ is that it makes us believe that intelligence is a characteristic in itself of the person, while IQ also varies according to one's socio-economic background. . . For the most critical, the IQ would only be a means of legitimizing the perpetuation of social classes, of keeping everyone in their rank. More objectively, the researchers found that performance on intelligence tests was indeed influenced by social class (studies have shown differences of around fifteen points between the average IQ of children of agricultural workers and that of children of executives).
IQ would therefore reflect less intelligence than behaviors relating to a social class.
To conclude, here is the ironic definition of intelligence proposed by Banet, the inventor of the tests:“Intelligence is what my test measures! ". Something to think about.
