Intelligence: what it is, types, classification and levels in human psychology

People often wonder what human intelligence is and how it relates to psychology. Therefore, in this article I will explain in detail what is meant by this term.

This is a complex of abilities to learn, understand, solve complex issues and find a way out of difficult situations, as well as the ability to think. Society greatly respects this quality and recognizes its value, but does not always characterize it correctly. For many, the traits of an intellectual are encyclopedic knowledge and excellent memory. In fact, they are associated with erudition.

Definition of Intelligence

It represents something of a taste for ideas. The chain is as follows: thinking processes the life experience we acquire and accumulates knowledge, with their help new ideas, discoveries, inventions, and innovations are born. This is a thought process that is impossible without abilities. Some are given more of them, some have less. This is human intelligence. If its level is low, there will be little benefit from knowledge. Readiness and awareness are just tools that help it manifest itself. Having a lot of knowledge without the ability to use it is the same as playing the violin without talent.

What characterize intellectual skills:

• Memory;
• skills of analysis, structuring information and forecasting;
• logic;
• attentiveness;
• zeal;
• reproduction;
• flexibility, depth, inquisitiveness of mind;
• curiosity.

Interesting

Mormon experience. The intellectual level of children from large families also greatly depends on the education and social status of their parents. In educated families where children are taught, the level of intelligence in the first four is no lower than that of their peers from single-child and small-child families. And only the fifth could be worse. Apparently, our parents no longer have enough strength for the fifth. In large families where the parents themselves do not shine with either intelligence or education, a decline in intelligence is already observed in the second child, not to mention all subsequent ones.

However, in large families of Mormons and Quakers, who traditionally are very involved with their children, the intelligence of their heirs does not decrease, regardless of what age they were born.

Types

Until now, there is no unified classification of intelligence. Only one scientist, Howard Gardner, put forward the theory of 8 varieties:

1. Spatial, most developed among drivers and designers. Characterizes the ability to navigate the terrain. If you are having difficulty building a route, this is what you need to develop. This can be done by solving problems with finding a way out, painting and sculpting, and tracking the movement of objects.
2. Kinesthetic, responsible for the ability to use one’s own body, dexterity, and coordination. Those who have it developed dance and work well. Sports, yoga, and physical activity will help in its development.
3. Musical, gives its owners a sense of rhythm, hearing and understanding. The more a person immerses himself in music, dancing, listening, singing, the more he will improve this type of intelligence.
4. Linguistic, responsible for written and oral speech, develops when studying foreign languages, reading, communicating with people.
5. Logical, allows you to feel like a fish in water among symbols, signs and diagrams. Will be an excellent companion for a scientist and inventor. To improve logic, you need to solve problems, puzzles and puzzles, and build chains.
6. Interpersonal, also known as social, is close to empathy. This is the ability to feel and understand people, ease in building relationships, sociability and communication. It is important for creating a family and forming friendships. He is trained at seminars, trainings, and group games.
7. Emotional is needed to understand yourself, to live in harmony with your inner world. It is especially difficult to develop, therefore it requires the use of spiritual practices: meditation, purification, reflection.
8. Naturalistic is associated with worldview, natural phenomena, and physical laws.

Any type of intelligence in psychology is based on the development of personality traits and determines its individuality.

History of the study

The study of human intelligence dates back to the late 1800s, when Sir Francis Galton (Charles Darwin's cousin) became one of the first people to study intelligence.

The study of intelligence in the 19th century was dominated by craniometry (phrenology), a science that sought to relate the psychological characteristics of people to various dimensions of their brain. Among the studies they conducted, they found, for example, that the brains of Germans were larger than the brains of the French, that the brains of criminals were larger, etc.

Similar results led to this branch being no longer used.

Fortunately, comprehensive measures of intelligence came to Alfred Binet in 1905, when the French government asked him to develop a test that could detect those children who could not follow the normal rhythm of school. This is where the famous Binet-Simon scale , which is a questionnaire consisting of various questions related to reasoning and problem solving.

American psychologist Howard Gardner founded the idea that there are many forms of intelligence and in 1983-1987 initially proposed seven multiple intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal, and since then he has added naturalistic intelligence.

Today, intelligence is usually understood as the ability to understand the environment and adapt to it using inherited abilities and acquired knowledge.

Structure

The processes in our head are so complex and diverse that they are not subject to structuring according to several criteria. Comparing a talented mathematician with a brilliant composer is difficult and unproductive.

Psychologist Daria Milai

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J.P. Guilford presented a three-dimensional cubic model in which he identified 120 mental abilities (memory, analysis, assessment, expression of thoughts, etc.) and structured them into three components:

1. Content (what we think about).
2. Operation (as we think).
3. Result (what the process leads to).

Some people are able to quickly draw conclusions and make decisions, others are close to flashes of insight with an instant understanding of the essence (remember Archimedes with his “eureka”), others are fixated on the assumption that came first. An intellectually developed person can live happily all his life, while thinking haphazardly and impulsively, without going beyond standards and stereotypes.

Primary mental abilities

These abilities constitute the fundamental elements of intelligence and all human activity. The number of such primary mental abilities is quite large. For example, the famous intelligence researcher J. Guilford discovered 120 such elementary factors, thanks to the development of which the quality of mental activity of any individual increases.

Some primary mental abilities can be divided into a number of categories, listed below.

1. Ability to perform mental operations. Includes analysis, synthesis and comparison of objects and phenomena. This also includes the creation of complex mental structures and the ability to draw competent conclusions.
2. Verbal abilities. They determine the possibilities of understanding speech and using speech units both in the course of their own inventions and reasoning, and for communication with other people.
3. Memory. It implies the maximum volumes of stored information, the speed of assimilation and long-term memorization, as well as the duration of its availability for use at any time.
4. Ability to perform basic arithmetic operations, oral and written calculations in an acceptable time frame.
5. The ability to navigate in space, as well as visually determine the sizes, volumes and shapes of various objects.

The combination of these abilities implies the presence of a certain intellectual level of development of the individual. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that all of the above primary characteristics are rarely developed to an equally high degree, which is undoubtedly influenced to a certain extent by the hereditary factor.

Main function

The value of mental abilities is that they help you think productively. Thanks to them people:

• self-realization and self-affirmation;
• achieve success and demonstrate talent;
• master new skills and gain knowledge;
• occupy a position in society.

The list can be continued by the fact that intelligence and insight from ancient times to the present day help to survive, get settled, start a family and raise children. Therefore, the main thing for which they are responsible is the ability to integrate into society, adapt and find their place, and to do this profitably and quickly. The mind protects us from dangers. Levels of intelligence in psychology are divided into:

• Short. People in this category are weak and dependent, passive and submissive. They definitely need care and support, the world around them seems complex and aggressive, and the manifestation of initiative and their own talents is meaningless and time-consuming.
• Average. Characteristic of those who have good mental abilities, independence and activity. They easily adapt to society, are not afraid of everyday problems, apply their knowledge and skills, find a social circle and the opportunity to express themselves.
• High. A special caste of “revolutionaries and wizards”, which is above adapting to the world. It is easier and clearer for them to change their environment to suit themselves than to change their own values. Of course, they are a minority.

Myth three

Only communication with adults develops a child. This statement is true for babies. Yes, a child learns to speak and think by communicating with adults. His parents explain to him the meaning of new words, teach him new expressions, and correct him when he pronounces something incorrectly. And babies, left to their own devices, twins, the same age, whom their parents leave for a long time in each other’s company, begin to lag behind their peers in mental development. But later, during school years, communication with peers is just as necessary as communication with adults. During the presidency of John Kennedy in the United States, a situation arose that scientists did not fail to take advantage of. Kennedy decided to merge schools for black and white children. Before this, the children of white and black Americans studied separately. The white parents of the state of Georgia - descendants of South American planters - were categorically against such an innovation. They stopped sending their children to school, and the schools closed for two years. The children, and they were mostly from quite prosperous, wealthy families, studied with hired teachers at home. When the conflict was settled two years later and the children returned to school, it turned out that their IQ (in the USA the level of intelligence of schoolchildren is constantly measured) was significantly lower than the IQ of children from other states who did not interrupt their studies at school and continued to communicate with their peers. And this backlog was eliminated only after 4 years.

Individual characteristics

The traditional concept in psychology distinguishes the classification into three types of intelligence:

1. Innate, which cannot be learned and instilled.
2. Social-behavioral, which can be traced in actions and statements
3. Assessable, it is measurable through psychological tests.

People differ not only in the presence of abilities, but also in their qualitative characteristics, a set that is characteristic of the individual. It is impossible to say unequivocally that a talented artist will be the same in dancing. But the fact that differences in the level of mental activity are noticeable almost from birth is possible.

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If a child shows curiosity about the world around him, causes a lot of trouble by unwinding toilet paper, knocking over food, or dragging a domestic cat by the tail - rest assured, this is a sign of high intelligence. But the quiet one, with whom, according to the parents, they were lucky, is unlikely to stand out with a high level of IQ. To evaluate it correctly, assessment techniques are used in the form of tests with different tasks for different age categories.

What does intellectual level depend on?

We receive a certain set of qualities from birth, by inheritance. It is impossible to influence them. But we are talking about only half of the skills. The other is acquired during growing up and depends not only on natural data: the mobility of neurons, reaction speed, the nature of the nervous system, but also on the social environment in which the personality develops.

The emotional connection between the child and mother is of particular importance for the development of mental abilities. Children who are surrounded by love, affection and care show better results on intelligence assessment tests.

Age differences

Measuring intelligence in the same person at different ages will give interrelated results. That is, if a child at 5 years old was distinguished by intelligence and intelligence, indicators of brain activity. most likely to remain high at 20 and 40 years of age. However, a 100% guarantee cannot be given.

For example, Pascal, being 13 years old, participated in meetings of the academic council on mathematics, and Einstein at the age of 15 was expelled from school for poor performance.

Comparing the indicators of different age groups, we will see certain patterns:

• the coefficient increases until the age of 17-18, slowing down during transition periods when the brain is “busy” solving other issues;
• after 20 years, development slows down significantly;
• logical, analytical and arithmetic potential is revealed by the age of 30;
• medicine is easier at the age of 40-45, psychology after 50;
• All years are submissive to art; researchers have not established restrictions.

An interesting fact is that there is no obligatory regression of intellectual activity. Of course, in older people, physiological processes affecting the cerebral cortex are disrupted, but a person gains important life experience that helps him apply the knowledge that he has accumulated.

Gender differences

Although the stereotype about the huge difference in mental abilities of the stronger and weaker sex is constantly discussed in society, no one has yet been able to scientifically substantiate the existence of an “intellectual gap.” Indeed, the average level of intelligence is approximately the same for men and women. The difference is observed in the following aspects:

• girls under 15 develop much faster than boys;
• Males are better able to shine with mathematical talents, while women are distinguished by the development of speech, emotional activity and creative skills;
• The priority of the fair half is non-standard thinking.

Racial differences in intellectual potential

The theory about the superiority of certain races, and perhaps the influence of cultural traditions, relative to other nationalities, has never given rest to humanity. It was decided to test this experimentally by dividing the subjects into ethnic groups.

Baseline rates between ethnic groups

For the purity of the experiment, observations were made on people living in similar social conditions in the United States. At the same time, for comparison, average indicators were taken both by origin and by age of the participants. The results showed some dependence on ethnicity and the average result did differ. The minimum scores were among representatives of the African-American group, where the average score was 85, which among the European population would be considered a low level of intellectual development. The highest scores were in Jewish communities, where the average score was 113, which is considered above average.

At the same time, observations of the academic performance of immigrants proves that the level of intelligence development depends more on the individual’s aspirations than on his origin, since over the course of a year they easily compare their IQ scores with students of local educational institutions.

Living conditions in the country

Another hypothesis that was confirmed by independent research was the living conditions in a particular country. Thus, various factors, such as economic well-being (measured in terms of GDP), the structure of government, dominant views in the state apparatus, atheism and others, had a direct impact on the intellectual potential of the average citizen of this country. Moreover, his immigration to completely different conditions had a significant impact on further changes in IQ. This fact can be both proof that the environment has a significant contribution to the mental formation of an individual, and indicate a person’s personal interest in development (since the very fact of immigration indicates a person’s readiness to take drastic actions in order to achieve their goals)

Diagnostics

Intelligence studies are carried out on the basis of various methods and techniques. All of them are based on two principles: testing and experimentation. For example, logical thinking and pattern identification skills are revealed using Raven's progressive matrices. Amthauer tests specialize in orientation in professional activities. Both the first and second technologies are developed for people of different ages. To evaluate a child, the Goodenough-Harris method is suitable, which gives an assessment based on a child’s drawing. All these developments are decades old, they are unified and give average readings.

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Myth four

To get a smart child, you need to develop his logical thinking. Employees of the Department of Psychogenetics, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University, conducted long-term observation of the development of intelligence of a group of people from 6 years of age to 24 years. And we saw that the level of logical thinking was higher among those teenagers and young people who, at the age of 6, were distinguished by rich visual and figurative thinking.

So don’t rush to solve logic problems with preschoolers. Children need to develop fantasy, imagination, imaginative thinking, write more, draw, and play with them. Play is a very important stage in a child’s development. Our famous psychologist, researcher of the world of childhood D. B. Elkonin said: if a child does not play enough in preschool age, this will affect his further development.

Recommendations for increasing the coefficient

5 practical tips for training your brain activity and increasing your IQ that you can use every day:

1. Challenge your brain, solve math problems, learn foreign languages, learn to play a musical instrument.
2. Talk to educated people. By having a conversation and understanding the way smart people think, you will benefit for yourself.
3. Play computer games that require strategy development and train your reactions.
4. Read books, it develops vocabulary and erudition.
5. Play sports, lead a healthy lifestyle.

How to increase IQ?

Development methods are simple and obvious. Here are 9 recommendations:

1. Train your brain and memory. Good examples: solving math problems, memorizing phone numbers of friends and dialing them without consulting the phone book.
2. Watch your diet. With food, necessary substances enter our body. The functioning of the brain depends on some. If the diet is of poor quality, the likelihood of problems with mental activity will be high.
3. Don't overexert yourself. Your waking and sleeping patterns should be balanced and suit you.
4. Read books. There is no need to talk about the usefulness of reading.
5. Find an intellectual hobby or passion. Plus - the opportunity to do interesting things for yourself and “pump up” your IQ.
6. Learn new things. An example is learning a “cute” foreign language.
7. Watch educational films. Comedies and action films, thrillers are all great, but your weekly “bill” should always include some kind of film made by, for example, National Geographic.
8. Try to start studying what you have long wanted. Maybe as a child you liked topics related to space? Then forward to the “stars”.
9. Don't let routine “devour” you. Change your habits, rearrange your home, take different routes to work.

How to increase a child's intellectual abilities?

Here are recommendations to help children develop:

• teach them to eat properly and exercise regularly;
• Make sure that your study, activity and rest schedule is balanced. Mental and physical fatigue negatively affects the development of a fragile organism;
• teach children to read. It is not at all necessary that they are only interested in books from the school curriculum;
• Offer intellectual games such as Monopoly and chess during joint leisure;
• enroll your child in a foreign language course;
• Offer joint solutions to various intellectual problems and passing IQ tests.

If all the advice presented during practical implementation is combined with love and care for the child, he will become very smart. And over time, everything that you taught your child will become part of his habits.

How to increase intelligence in an adult?

Read the section “How to increase your IQ.” There are some good recommendations there. You can improve your score if you strive to follow them.

Emotional intellect

The concept of IQ includes the ability to distinguish between emotions, understand what motivates other people, what they want, what they strive for and what they achieve. It is he who helps manage his own and other people’s feelings to achieve goals.

Our mind can be roughly divided into two halves: rational, which is responsible for cognition, thoughts, conclusions, and impulsive, devoid of logic, but no less influential. Ideally, we should balance and make friends between these parts.

The IQ component is character. Emotional appearance includes skills:

• believe in yourself;
• sympathize;
• control emotions;
• be able to distract yourself from unpleasant experiences;
• strive for a goal;
• find motivation.

Social intelligence

It helps to correctly interpret the behavior of others and build relationships between people. The better it is developed, the more adapted you are to life in society. If this part of mental activity is highly developed, it will not be difficult for you to predict the reaction of your interlocutor or immediately make a judgment about someone without thinking for a minute. It is more a gift of accommodation than of deep and thoughtful understanding.

Tips for developing mental abilities

Psychologists highlight a whole list of practical activities that help, to one degree or another, to reveal the opportunities that are given to an individual at birth.

1. Be interested in everything new. As mentioned above, active interaction with the outside world allows you to constantly process information, thereby conducting a kind of training for the brain in the same way as athletes do for their muscles in the gym.
2. Expand your range of interests. It qualitatively increases the level of thinking, because it forces you to solve many different non-trivial problems and constantly learn something new. For intelligence in the life of a person who is constantly looking for ways of self-realization, sooner or later there will be some worthy use.
3. Get involved in something, have a hobby. Even if it’s embroidering tapestries or collecting postage stamps. A hobby does not necessarily have to bring benefit or benefit to both the person himself and society. On the other hand, devoting some time to such an activity, communicating with like-minded people, studying the history of the issue and delving into details will undoubtedly bring not only pleasure, but also increase the intellectual level.
4. Create. Creativity itself is considered the highest form of cognitive processes, and this, in turn, means that the mental bar will definitely rise if sufficient time is allocated to this area. In addition to a new special perception of the picture of the world, such activities will help to qualitatively develop a person’s intelligence and abilities.
5. Write texts. It has long been known that written speech helps to organize thinking, and literary creativity allows us to increase the level of its brightness, liveliness and imagery. You don't have to write a fantasy story or write a new War and Peace. Even simply keeping a diary and recording your own thoughts will bring clear benefits.
6. To draw the pictures. Such an activity increases the imaginativeness of thinking and makes it more interesting when interpreting the surrounding or internal world. Everyone is able to choose a certain compositional genre that would suit them. The development of drawing skills will undoubtedly have a qualitative impact on the development of a person’s intelligence and personality.
7. To compose music. Without this phenomenon, this world would be completely different. It is not for nothing that many composers began to see things in a completely different light over time. At the same time, the genius of the works of Mozart or Beethoven is placed on the same level as the greatest mathematical discoveries. The huge variety of available musical instruments allows absolutely anyone to find something of their own.
8. Be versatile. You should not ignore any particular area of ​​life. Human intelligence and behavior are always interconnected. You can achieve maximum impact if you try to do as much as possible: chat with friends, play sports, play with children, take a walk in nature or decorate your apartment.