Chapter 5 : CULTURE AND

INTELLIGENCE
BY: MISS SAULIHA WASAY
 Defining Intelligence
• Browsing through several introductory psychology textbooks published in the 2000s
reveals intelligence is defined in myriad ways, such as a set of mental abilities, the
capacity to acquire and use knowledge, problem-solving skills and knowledge about
the world, the ability to excel at a variety of tasks, or as a skill that allows us to
understand, adapt, learn, reason, and overcome obstacles. Which meaning should we
adopt?
• In making this determination, we need to consider where the different definitions
converge. Most of the definitions include the word “knowledge.” Intelligence is
knowing and understanding reality.
• Then the definitions draw attention to problem solving, which leads to an assumption
that intelligence is a set of mental skills that helps individuals reach their goals.
Intelligence is also an ability to use knowledge and skills in order to overcome
obstacles. And finally, intelligence helps in the adaptation to changing conditions.
• Such a comprehensive understanding of intelligence assists cross cultural psychologists
incorporate the cultural factor into the discussion of intelligence (Trimble, 2006).
• Intelligence helps people acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue goals and
adapt to particular environments and cultural settings.
• Intelligence is also inseparable from cognition, a diversified process by which the individual
acquires and applies knowledge. It usually includes processes such as recognition,
categorization, thinking, and memory.
• Some researchers, especially during the earlier stages of intelligence testing at the beginning
of the twentieth century, suggested the existence of a general factor or central cognitive
function that determines a certain level of performance on a variety of cognitive tasks
(Spearman, 1927).
• The existence of this central cognitive function was evidenced by a set of positive
correlations among performances on verbal, spatial, numerical, and other assessment
problems. People with high academic ranking tended to score well on measures such as
general knowledge, arithmetic ability, and vocabulary.
• On the contrary, people with low scores on verbal tasks were likely to have low scores on
other tests. This approach fed assumptions with regard to differences among ethnic and racial
groups’ intellectual abilities predicated on their fundamental psychological characteristics.
• Over the years, the idea of “one factor” that determines intellectual functioning has been
frequently challenged. One such critic, Thurstone (1938), proposed the existence of not only one
but rather three intellectual skills: verbal, mathematical, and spatial.
• Sternberg (1985, 1997) also supported a hypothesis pertaining to a multidimensional structure of
intelligence, suggesting the existence of three fundamental aspects of intelligence: analytic,
creative, and practical. According to his arguments, most intelligence tests measured only
analytic skills.
• Analytic problems in tests are usually clearly defined, have a single correct answer, and come
with all the information needed for a solution. In contrast, practical problems are not necessarily
clearly defined, often requiring the individual to seek additional information and assess the
context of the issues under consideration. To solve these problems successfully, the person
needs to have accumulated everyday experiences and be motivated enough to find the solution.
• Studying the diversity of human behavior and achievement, Gardner (2007) argued that along
with logical, linguistic, or spatial intelligence measured by psychometric tests, there are other
special kinds of musical, bodily kinesthetic, and personal intelligence (a person’s ability to
understand him-/herself or other people).
• However, as you may see, the ability to plan, evaluate a particular situation, and make useful
decisions about the situation is essential for human survival and well-being, while skills such as
musical and body kinesthetic in most cases are not.
• From the beginning of the empirical studies of intelligence, culture was claimed to be its important
“contributor.” For example, Piaget (1972), one of the most recognizable researchers of human
cognition, argued that intelligence should have similar cross cultural developmental mechanisms.
On one hand, children in all countries assimilate new information into existing cognitive
structures.

• On the other hand, these cognitive structures accommodate themselves to the changing
environment. Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist (1932/1978), whose views have also gained
recognition, believed that intelligence could not be understood without taking into consideration
the cultural environment in which the person lives.

• In psychology, most attention has been given to the so-called psychometric approach to
intelligence. This view is based on an assumption that our intelligence can “receive” a numerical
value (Wechsler, 1958). While intriguing, this approach is also one of the most controversial ones
because of an ongoing debate about how accurately these values can be measured, assigned, and
interpreted.
• You probably remember from your introductory psychology class that intelligence tests typically contain a series of tasks
and each test contains several subtests that measure various cognitive skills. When you take the test, you are asked to
solve verbal and nonverbal problems, make perceptual judgments, solve puzzles, find word associations, explain pictures
in your own words, memorize sequences of words or numbers, and so on.

• After your answers are checked, your score is converted into a special score. Then your score is compared with the
average score of your peers, presumably, and in most cases, including people of the same nationality and age group as you
are. In fact, the comparison will yield your actual intelligence quotient, or for short, IQ.

• Approximately 95 percent of the population have scores on IQ tests within two standard deviations of 15. That means IQs
of most people—95 out of 100—will be somewhere between 70 and 130.

• There has long been intense controversy about the validity of measures and interpretation of intelligence test scores, and at
least two major points with respect to intelligence testing are debated:

• 1. What do intelligence tests actually measure?

• 2. How can it be proven that the test score was not influenced by factors such as

• the attitudes, motivation, or emotional states of the test takers?

• Critically important for those who attempt to interpret cultural differences on intelligence scores
are (1) the distinction between cognitive potential, (2) cognitive skills developed through
interaction with cultural environment, and (3) scores on a particular test.

• The problem is that the standard tests may not provide for the direct assessment of cognitive skills
shaped by a particular cultural environment. Unless intelligence tests accommodate the activities
that people perform in their day-to-day lives, the tests created in one culture will continue to be
biased against other cultural groups.

• This means that the test performance may not represent the individual’s cognitive potential
(Vernon, 1969). Moreover, factors such as language, test content, and motivation reportedly
contribute to an individual’s performance on tests (Sternberg, 2007).

• For example, there are many aspects of human intelligence, such as wisdom and creativity, that
many tests are simply not designed to measure.
• Interpretation of the numerical value of intelligence is yet another major point of contention
among psychologists. More than one hundred years ago in France, Alfred Binet and
Theodore Simon proposed a method of measuring intelligence, based on recording and
evaluating specially designed questions directed at schoolchildren and the children’s
performance of specified tasks.

• Binet and Simon assumed children develop specific knowledge and can fulfill certain tasks,
such as comparing shapes or doing multiplication problems, only at a certain age. Hence, it
is wrong to expect a 4-year-old girl to execute a task easily performed by an 11-year-old. A
child that is able to answer questions and perform tasks at the level of his peers of the same
age was concluded to have “average” mental skills.
• If the child had the capacity to answer questions designed for older children, this child
would have “higher” mental skills than his or her peers. Moreover, if the child persistently
scored below the standard level, the child required placement in a special education group.

• Simon and Binet developed their test to determine which children were in need of special
education, considering they were not prepared for a “mainstream” one. The most heated
debates arose when intelligence value was assigned to large social groups, including ethnic
or national groups. Even differences among people in body size, shape, and skin color do
not evoke such debate. When it comes to the topic of intelligence scores, People’s emotions
often overshadow a fair discussion of group differences.
 Ethnic Differences in IQ Scores
• Most of the questions that cross-cultural psychology attempts to address are concerned
with a set of measurable similarities and differences among different cultural, ethnic, and
national groups.

• Are ethnic groups characterized by a particular pattern of intellectual ability? For

example, can one prove that Italians, in general, are more creative than Germans but that
the German mode of thinking is more “precise” than the Brazilian mode?

• Do some cultural groups have a “better” memory than others? Is intelligence inherited
and to what degree? Do poverty and other devastating social problems influence
intelligence? Is systematic formal schooling the key to human intellectual equality? Is
such equality achievable in principle?
• In the United States, early attempts to measure IQs began more than 100 years ago.

• These studies examined schoolchildren, army recruits, and immigrants arriving in this country. For
example, in 1921, the National Academy of Sciences published the results of one of the first
massive national studies on intelligence.

• The results allowed the organizers of this study to rank newly arrived immigrants according to
their IQ scores.

• This is how the “intellectual” order of the immigrants looked: England, Holland, Denmark,
Scotland, Germany, Canada, Belgium, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Turkey, Greece, Russia, Italy, and
Poland. In addition, the data showed the first evidence that blacks generally scored lower than
whites on those tests.

• It was also reported that the Polish in this study did not score significantly higher than the blacks
did (Kamin, 1976).
• For example, in the United States, Asian Americans (of East Asian origins) score
the highest, followed by European Americans, Hispanics, and lastly African
Americans.

• Thus, on the average, African American schoolchildren score 10–15 percent lower
on a standardized intelligence test than white schoolchildren do. Similar results
were reported for adults (Rushton & Jensen, 2005; Suzuki & Valencia, 1997).

• For better comprehension of the differences among some of the groups, just
imagine that the average white person tests higher than about 80 percent of the
population of blacks and an average black person tests higher than about 20
percent of the population of whites.
• According to studies, some racial group differences in IQ appear in early childhood. For example,
on the Differential Aptitude Battery, by age 6, the average IQ of East Asian children was 107,
compared with 103 for white children and 89 for black children (Lynn, 1996).

• The size of the average black white difference does not change significantly over the
developmental period from three years of age and beyond.

• The mean intelligence test scores for Latino groups are usually between those of blacks and
whites. If we divide U.S. citizens along their religions, we will find that Jews, specifically Jews of
European origin, test higher than any other religious group in the US.

• Studies of Korean and Vietnamese children adopted into white homes in the United States show
that they tend to grow to have IQs 10 or more points higher than their adoptive national norms.

• Even though it is established that Americans of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean ancestry have
higher scores than American whites, there is no consistency in research findings.
• The average difference between black and white IQ scores is established at every level of the socioeconomic
ladder. In other words, upper-class blacks tend to have, on average, lower test scores than upper-class whites,
and lower-class whites tend to have higher test scores than lower-class blacks.

• Here it is important to underscore that racial groups studied in the United States are not necessarily
representative samples for populations in other continents and countries.

• Group differences in cognitive performance are found not only between different cultural groups within the
United States but also between different cultural groups (social, racial, and ethnic) around the world.

• In India, members of the higher castes obtain higher mean scores and examination marks than do those of the
lower castes. In Malaysia, members of the Chinese and East Indian minority communities have higher mean
scores than those of the majority Malay population.

• In South Africa, members of the white, East Indian, and colored population groups obtain higher mean scores
than members of the indigenous black African majority.
• Some groups are found to have higher scores on certain scales and lower scores
on others. For instance, the verbal intelligence scores of Native Americans were
found to be lower than these same scores were for other ethnic groups.

• However, some studies showed the existence of high visual–spatial skills in

Native American groups (McShane & Berry, 1988). East Asians score slightly
higher than whites on nonverbal intelligence and equal or slightly lower on
verbal intelligence.

• Moreover, studies suggest that the visual and spatial abilities of East Asians are
superior to their verbal abilities, despite substantial political and socioeconomic
differences among East Asian countries.
 Gender Differences in IQ Scores
• Since intelligence testing started more than a century ago, women as a group
have been usually five points behind men. These data were obtained in a range of
countries.
• But that gap has been narrowing in recent years and the tendency appears global.
True, the scores of the men have been rising consistently since the beginning of
measurements.
• Women’s scores moved up faster (Flynn, 2012). Research data from countries in
Western Europe and from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina,
and Estonia show that the gap in scores between men and women has become
minimal. Moreover, in Argentina and Estonia, women’s scores are higher.
 • Reason for changes in IQ Scores
• At least two views exist.

1. The first one is that women have been genetically predisposed to have
more advanced intellectual skills, compared to men. Yet, due to various
social and cultural factors, they haven’t been able to demonstrate their
advantage during test procedures.

2. The other hypothesis is that women actually increase their IQ scores by

engaging in greater “multitasking” compared to men: Unlike most men,
women are engaged in activities at work, at school, and in the family
simultaneously.
 Incompatibility of Tests: Cultural Biases
• Most intelligence tests benefit specific ethnic groups because of the test vocabulary the words and
items used in the test questions. For instance, tests may contain internal bias because they use words
that are familiar to only some groups. As a result, members of these groups receive higher scores
than those who do not belong to these groups. For example, try to solve the following problem.

• Find the “odd man out”: rose, tulip, forget-me-not basil

• The correct answer is “basil” because all the other words stand for flowers, and basil is not a flower.
The critics of this type of question argue that unless the subject knows something about different
flowers and plants, it will be very difficult for him or her to find the right answer. Those of us having
access to flowers will benefit in this situation.

• Moreover, one may assume more girls are familiar with the names of flowers than boys and that
hence girls will give more correct answers than boys.
• Cultural experience may affect test scores, and some test designs demonstrate this.
For example, in one study, British children were found to solve test problems more
creatively than Asian students from Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
• One explanation for this finding is that the subjects were required to give numeric
verbal responses to the test items, something that is not a typical problem-solving task
for Asian cultures (Wright et al., 1978). Another example illustrates how a test can
benefit members of a particular group. A culturally oriented vocabulary test unique to
the African American community was given to kids of different ethnic groups.
• Black kids scored around a mean of 87 out of a possible 100; however, white
children’s mean score was only 51 (Williams & Mitchell, 1991). In general, black
youths perform better than white young people on free-word recall tasks when the
categories (words) are related to African American daily experience (Hayles, 1991).