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Thinking and Intelligence
Piaget’s Theory
 Intelligence is a basic life function that helps the
organism adapt to its environment.
 Intelligence is “a form of equilibrium toward
which all cognitive structures tend” (1950 pg 6)
 All intellectual activity is undertaken with one
goal in mind: to produce a balanced, or
harmonious, relationship between one’s thought
process and the environment – cognitive
equilibrium
 Interactionist or Constructivist model (we are not
passive participants rather we act on novel
objects and events to gain understanding)
Piaget: Structure of Intelligence
 Schemes- models, or mental structures, that we create
to represent, organize, and interpret our experiences

Similar to the layperson strategy or concept
 Three Types of Schemes
 Behavioral- organized pattern of behavior that are used to
represent and respond to objects and experiences (ball is
an object that bounces and can be bounced and rolled
 Symbolic- internal mental symbols that one uses to
represent aspects of experience
 Operational (cognitive operation)- an internal activity that a
person performs to reach a logical conclusion (example in
mathmatical symbols)
Piaget’s Theory:
Cognitive Development:
 Cognitive development consists of mental
adaptations to new observations and
experiences
 Adaptation- the process of adjusting to the
demands of the environment
 Adaptation takes two forms:


Assimilation: Absorbing new information into
existing cognitive structures.
Accommodation: Modifying existing cognitive
structures in response to experience and new
information.
Piaget: Four Stages of Development
 Sensorimotor (birth to 2)
 Infants coordinate their sensory inputs and motor
capabilities, forming behavioral schemes that permit them to
act on and get to know their environment.
 Object Permanence
 Preoperational (ages 2-7)
 (Pre) operational
 Egocentrism
 Conservation (recognition that the properties of an object
do not change when its appearance is altered in some
superficial way
 Increase their use of mental symbols(symbolic/ pretend play
“Conservation of Liquid” Task
Conservation of Substance and Number
 Conservation of Substance



Two identical balls of
clay
One is deformed
“Do the two pieces have
the same amount of
clay?”
 Conservation of Number



Two identical rows of
blocks
One row is rearranged
“Do the two rows have
the same number of
blocks?
Piaget: Four Stages of Development
 Concrete Operational
 Acquisition of cognitive operations and thinking more
logically about real objects and experiences
 Conservation (reversibility; clay)
 Awareness of divergent perspectives
 Formal Operational
 Acquisition of more thinking more rationally and
systematically about abstract concepts and hypothetical
events
 2X + 5 = 15 (Hypothetical problem which can only be
answered by abstract reasoning using a symbol system.
 Thinking Like a Scientist
Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
 Stage changes are neither as clear-cut nor as
sweeping as Piaget believed.
 Children sometimes understand more than
Piaget believed.
 Preschoolers are not as egocentric as Piaget
thought.
 Cognitive development depends on the child’s
education and culture
 Piaget overestimated the cognitive skills of many
adults.
The Elements of Cognition
 Concept: Mental category that
groups objects, relations,
activities, abstractions, or
qualities having common
properties.
 Proposition: A unit of meaning
that is made up of concepts
and expresses a single idea.
 Mental Image: Representation
that mirrors or resembles the
thing it represents.
 Cognitive Schema: An
integrated mental network of
knowledge, beliefs, and
expectations concerning a
particular topic or aspect of the
world.
How Conscious is Thought?
 Subconscious Processes: Mental processes occurring
outside of conscious awareness but accessible to
consciousness when necessary.

Automaticity- automatic routines performed without thinking
 Helpful and Harmful
 Nonconscious Processes: Mental processes occurring
outside of and not available to conscious awareness.


“Aha!”
Implicit Learning- learning without an awareness of how you
did so and without being able to state exactly what it is you
have learned
 Mindlessness- obliviousness to the present context
Reasoning Rationally
Reasoning Rationally:
Formal Reasoning
 Reasoning- purposeful mental activity that involves
operating on information to draw conclusions or
inferences from observations, facts, or assumptions
 Formal Reasoning:


Algorithms
Logic
 Deductive- A tool of formal logic in which a conclusion
necessarily follows from a set of observations or
propositions (premises).

Inductive- A tool of formal logic in which a conclusion
probably follows from a set of observations or propositions
or premises, but could be false.
Reasoning Rationally:
Informal Reasoning
 Heuristic:

A rule of thumb that suggests a course of action or guides
problem solving but does not guarantee an optimal
solution.
 Dialectical Reasoning:


A process in which opposing facts or ideas are weighed
and compared, with a view to determining the best solution
or resolving differences.
Pro vs Con
Reflective Judement
 Synonymous with Critical Thinking
 Three Stages



Pre-reflective Judgment
Quasi-reflective Judgment
Reflective Judgment
Barriers to Reasoning
Rationally
Barriers to Reasoning Rationally
 Exaggerating the Improbable
 Avoiding Loss
 The Confirmation Bias
 Biases Due to Mental Sets
 The Hindsight Bias
 The Need for Cognitive Consistency
 Overcoming Our Cognitive Biases
Exaggerating the Improbable
 Availability Heuristic:
 The tendency to judge the probability of an event by
how easy it is to think of examples or instances.
 For example, most people overestimate the odds of
dying in a plane crash.
 Dying in an automobile accident is far more likely.
Avoiding Loss
 People try to minimize risks
and losses when making
decisions.
 Responses to the same
choice will differ based on
whether outcome is framed
as gain or loss.
 In the example, outcomes
are the same in Problems
1 and 2.
The Confirmation Bias
 Confirmation Bias: The tendency to look for or
pay attention only to information that confirms
one’s own beliefs.
E
J
6
7
Test this rule: If a card has a
vowel on one side, it has an
even number on the other
side.
Which 2 cards to turn over?
Biases Due to Mental Sets
 Mental Set: A tendency to solve problems using
procedures that worked before on similar
problems.


Mental sets help us solve most problems
efficiently.
Not helpful when a problem calls for fresh insights
or a new approach.
The Nine-Dot Problem
 Connect all 9 dots
 Use only 4 lines
 Do not lift your pencil
from the page after you
begin drawing
The Hindsight Bias
 Hindsight Bias: The tendency to overestimate one’s
ability to have predicted an event once the outcome is
known.
 Also known as the “I knew it all along” phenomenon.

“The older they get the better they were when they were
younger.” (Jim Bouton, professional baseball player)
Need for Cognitive Consistency
 Cognitive Dissonance:
 A state of tension that
occurs when a person
simultaneously holds two
cognitions that are
psychologically
inconsistent, or when a
person’s belief is
inconsistent with his or her
behavior.
 Likely to Reduce When:
 Choice Made Freely
 Justify Behavior that
Conflicts with Views of Self
 Justification of Effort
Intelligence
Intelligence
 Intelligence: An inferred characteristic of an
individual, usually defined as the ability to profit
from experience, acquire knowledge, think
abstractly, act purposefully, or adapt to changes
in the environment.
 g factor: A general intellectual ability assumed by
many theorists to underlie specific mental
abilities and talents.
The Psychometric Approach
 IQ scores are distributed “normally”

Bell-shaped curve
 Very high and low scores are rare


68% of people
between
99.7% between
have IQ
85-115
55-145
The Cognitive Approach
 Metacognition: The knowledge or awareness of
one’s own cognitive processes.
 Tacit Knowledge: Strategies for success that are
not explicitly taught but that instead must be
inferred.
Sternberg's Triarchic Theory
 Components - a.k.a. “Analytic”


Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating.
This type of processes correlates best with IQ.
 Experiential - a.k.a. “Creative”


Inventing or designing solutions to new problems.
Transfer skills to new situations.
 Contextual - a.k.a. “Practical”

Using (i.e., applying) the things you know in everyday contexts.
The Origins of
Intelligence
The Origins of Intelligence
 Genes and Intelligence
 The Environment and Intelligence
 Attitudes, Motivation, and Intellectual Success
Correlations in Siblings’ IQ Scores
 IQ scores of siblings were
highly correlated, even
when they were reared
apart.
 Identical twins have
higher correlations than
fraternal twins.

Suggests a genetic link
Explaining Group Differences
 Within a group with all
treated exactly the same,
differences may reflect
genetics.
 When one group differs
from another, the
differences may reflect
environmental
differences.
Environment and Intelligence
 Factors associated with reduced IQ:




Poor prenatal care
Malnutrition
Exposure to toxins
Stressful family circumstances
 Healthy and stimulating environments can raise
IQ, sometimes dramatically.