IQ report EMSA - Grade: 2:1 PDF

Title IQ report EMSA - Grade: 2:1
Course Social Psychology
Institution Bournemouth University
Pages 7
File Size 160.8 KB
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Summary

psychology report on IQ. ...


Description

Abstract This study was a replication of Furnham's study (Furnham, 2000), examining self-estimates of intelligence between genders, and their estimations of their parents. Furnham's findings show that male participants tend to self-estimate IQ higher in comparison to female participants, a trend that keeps reoccurring in several past papers. Another finding in his study was that all individuals estimate their father's IQ to be higher in comparison to their mothers. Participants were gathered from Bournemouth University. They then took part by answering questions in which they had to estimate their own IQ, including their mother's and father's IQ. The current study findings do show slight differences between gender self-estimates, along with estimates of IQ for their parents, how ever statistics imply that gender differences in self-estimates do not exist. And so the results of the current study does not align with past research papers, including Furnham's findings. The current study findings suggest that intelligence can be interpreted differently, and categorizing an individual into groups (stereotyping) can alter the way one thinks and views one's self.

Introduction Francis Galton was said to be the father of Intelligence, as he gave life to the term intelligence quotient (IQ) in the 19th century (IQ Test Center, 2004). Since then several theories have been made in the hopes of explaining what intelligence really is (Goodey, 2011). One of these theories was made by Howard Gardner. He explained intelligence to be not only constructed on cognitive abilities alone, but abilities that were valued in ones culture such as musical ability and bodily ability. This theory was known as the "multiple intelligence theory" (Gardner, 1987). Not only were there theories about intelligence, but different tests were made to measure it, Alfred Binet in 1904 was the first to create one, a test to measure intelligence (Cianciolo & Sternberg, 2004).

Sex differences has been an interest of subject for a while along with cultural differences when discussing different factors in intelligence (Furnham, 2000), (Halpern, 2012). As we look into sex differences, past studies suggest that they do exist, a study used an echo-planar functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor the brain while participants performed language tasks, and found different cognitive processing in male and females (Shaywitz, Shaywltz, Pugh, Constable, Skudlarski, Fulbright, Bronen, Fletcher, Shankweiler, Katz, Gore, 1995). A few studies do support that general knowledge between sexes are equal, but they also suggest that some cognitive abilities are found to differ between females and males (Halpern & LaMay, 2000), (Halpern, 1997). Knowledge should not be focused on gender alone (Rammstedt & Rammsayer, 2002), as a recent study suggested that personality and motivation play important roles in school attainment too (Steinmayr & Spinath, 2008). Another study suggests differently to past research papers, as it does not support the idea of character traits differing by gender (Nauert, 2013). In Furnham's study male participants estimated their IQ to be higher in comparison to female participants, and all individuals estimated their fathers IQ to be higher in comparison to their mothers IQ. A similar study to Furnham, conducted by Hogan (Hogan, 1978); showing females estimating lower IQ scores for themselves and their mother's, and higher scores for their fathers, while males estimated their IQ to be higher along with their fathers, and gave lower estimates for their mothers. Hogan stated that it was important to know why a person would think they were less or more intelligent than they really were, as much as it was important to know this person's estimation for their own IQ. (Hogan, 1978). A replication of Hogan's study was made by Bennett, who also examined interpersonal intelligence. He hypothesized that participants would score high points for their mothers in relation to interpersonal intelligence, as mothers are seen to be caring and empathetic (Bennett, 1996). Another study on self-estimates of intelligence between sexes stated, that factors other than gender such as the level of education had an affect when estimation were given (Rammstedt & Rammsayer, 2002) . This present study is a replication of Furnham's study (Furnham, 2000), in which (female and male) participants will be asked to estimate their own IQ along with their parents IQ. The purpose of this study is to examine whether findings will correspond to previous findings.

Method Participants 40 participants were recruited from Bournemouth University, by using opportunity sampling. Participants consisted of 20 females with an average age of 22 and 20 males with an average age of 23. Participant group was quite diverse in relation to cultural background. Design

The study is a between-participants design, with two level independent variable; (female & male) which are the sex of the participants, and the participant's estimated IQ score being the dependent variable.

Procedure Participants were recruited by two researchers. It was explained to participants that the study they were about to take part in was regarding IQ. They were then given a sheet of paper with the following questions; 1. By comparison with the national average IQ score of 100, what do you estimate your IQ would be if you were to undertake one of the standard objective tests? 2. By comparison with the national average IQ score of 100, what do you estimate your mother’s IQ would be if she were to undertake one of the standard objective tests? 3. By comparison with the national average IQ score of 100, what do you estimate your father’s IQ would be if he were to undertake one of the standard objective tests?

Materials

Participants were given a sheet of paper that briefly stated the average IQ score of people, following three questions that they then had to write down on a separate answer sheet. Question one asked to estimate participant's own IQ, question two asked to estimate their mother's IQ, and lastly question three asked to estimate their father's IQ.

Discussion Though slight differences were found, the current study still did not support Furnham's (2000) findings, as statistically the results showed no significant differences between gender self-estimates.The finding suggest that females and males are not different. An explanation as to why the results of the current study differed from the original study, could be due to the fact that participants might have a different perspective as to what intelligence means to them, seeing as the sampling group was composed of a very diverse cultural background (Gardner, 1987), (Furnham, 2000). It is said that females and males are equally intelligent (Halpern & LaMay, 2000), yet previous research papers suggest the tendency of females to self-estimate IQ to be lower, while males self-estimate IQ's to be higher. This could be a problem caused by stereotyping, e.g. Women are empathetic and men are good in mathematical tasks, initiating that males would generally score higher on an IQ test in comparison to females (American Psychological Association, 2006).Gender stereotyping can affect the way one views their selfs, which can alter how one self-estimates themselves in relation to intelligence (Nauert, 2013). As mentioned earlier participants were composed of a very diverse background, as it is positive to have a rich sample group, it is relatively difficult to distinguish what participants interpreted intelligence to be. This issue can be seeing as some participants estimated really low scores, such as 55 for their selfs. Classifying an individual into a category because they are a female or male can be a harmful thing to do as not only does it take away from one seeing themselves as an individual, but it can also generate bias opinions, which can be experienced in work environments or educational settings, resulting in underachieving (Nauert, 2013), (American Psychological Association, 2006).

In future studies in relation to sex differences and intelligence, other aspects of an individual should be taken into consideration like ethnicity, level of education (Rammstedt & Rammsayer, 2002) and personality type (Steinmayr & Spinath, 2008) as all these factors can alter the score of self-estimates in intelligence, and not just gender. Future studies should also consider altering views, so instead of examining participants in relation to intelligence as a group (e.g. Female or male) participants should be treated as an individual. And in order to get a deeper knowledge individuals should be questioned as to why they think they are more or less "intelligent".

Results

Self Mother's IQ Father's IQ

Female 94.45 88.75 92.25

Male 99.50 94.80 99.90

Difference -5.05 -6.05 -7.65

Reference Section

American Psychological Association. (2006). Retrieved March 12, 2014, 2014, from http://www.apa.org/research/action/stereotype.aspx Bennett, M. (1996). Men's and Women's Self-Estimates of Intelligence. The Journal of Social Psychology, 136 (3), 411-412.

Cianciolo, A.T., Sternberg, R.J. (2004). Intelligence: A Brief History. USA: Blackwell Publishing. Furnham, A. (2000). Thinking about Intelligence. The psychologist, 13(10), 510-514. Gardner, H. (1987). The theory of multiple intelligences. Annals of Dyslexia, 37(1), 19-35. Goodey, C.F. (2011). A History of Intelligence and ‘Intellectual Disability’: The Shaping of Psychology in Early Modern Europe. UK: Ashgate Publishing. Halpern, D.F., LaMay, M.L. (2000). The Smarter Sex: A Critical Review of Sex Differences in Intelligence. Educational Psychology Review, 12(2), 229-246. Halpern, D.F. (2012). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities: 4th Edition. New York: Psychology Press. Halpern, D.F. (1997). Sex differences in intelligence: Implications for education. American Psychologist, 52(10), 1091-1102 Hogan, W.H. (1978). IQ Self-Estimates of Males and Females. The Journal of Social Psychology, 106 (1), 137-138. DOI: 10.1080/00224545.1978.9924160 IQ Test Center. (2004). Retrieved March 12, 2014, from http://www.iqtest-center.com/history.php Nauert, R. (2013). Men and Women May Not Be So Different After All. Psych Central. Retrieved on March 16, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/02/05/men-and-women-may-not-be-so-differentafter-all/51222.html

Shaywitz, B.A., Shaywltz, S.E., Pugh, K.R., Constable, R.T., Skudlarski, P., Fulbright, R.K., Bronen, R.A., Fletcher, J.M., Shankweiler, D.P., Katz, L., Gore, J.C. (1995). Sex differences in the functional organization of the brain for language. Nature, 373, 607-609. DOI:10.1038/373607a0 Steinmayr, R., Spinath, B. (2008).Sex differences in school achievement: what are the roles of personality and achievement motivation?. European Journal of Personality, 22(3), 185-209. DOI: 10.1002/per.676 Rammstedt, B., Rammsayer, T.H. (2002). Gender Differences, Relationship to Psychometric Intelligence and Moderating Effects of Level of Education. European Psychologist, 7(4), 275-284....


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