Psychology

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Chapter9 Thinking and Intelligence

Learning Objectives

  1. LO 9.1.A Distinguish between the various elements of cognition, such as concepts, prototypes, propositions, schemas, and mental images.

  2. LO 9.1.B Distinguish between the varieties of conscious thought, such as subconscious thinking, nonconscious thinking, and implicit learning.

  3. LO 9.1.C Contrast algorithms and heuristics as problem-solving strategies, and give an example of each.

  4. LO 9.1.D Discuss the various types of reasoning, such as formal reasoning, informal reasoning, dialectical reasoning, and stages of reflective judgment, and note the defining characteristics of each.

  5. LO 9.2.A Describe how the affect heuristic and the availability heuristic both illustrate the tendency to exaggerate the improbable.

  6. LO 9.2.B Explain how the framing effect leads people to avoid loss in probabilistic judgments.

  7. LO 9.2.C Summarize the mechanisms driving the fairness bias, hindsight bias, confirmation bias, and mental sets, and give an example of each.

  8. LO 9.2.D Explain the process of cognitive dissonance, and describe three conditions under which feelings of cognitive dissonance are likely to occur.

  9. LO 9.2.E Discuss the conditions under which cognitive biases can be detrimental to reasoning, and when they might be beneficial.

  10. LO 9.3.A Outline the basic logic underlying factor analysis, and describe its use in measuring intelligence.

  11. LO 9.3.B Summarize the original notion of IQ and some problems associated with it, and discuss how intelligence tests evolved during the early 1900s.

  12. LO 9.4.A Describe how metacognition, the triarchic theory of intelligence, the theory of multiple intelligences, and emotional intelligence shed light on the diversity of what “intelligence” means.

  13. LO 9.4.B Outline how longitudinal studies and cross-cultural studies shed light on the interplay of motivation, hard work, and intellectual achievement.

  14. LO 9.5.A Summarize the evidence both supporting and refuting the concept of animal intelligence.

  15. LO 9.5.B Summarize the evidence both supporting and refuting the concept of animal language use.

  16. LO 9.5.C Explain why both anthropomorphism and anthropodenial are unwise approaches to understanding animal cognition.

Ask questions . . . be willing to wonder

  • Is all of our thinking conscious?

  • Why is it often so hard for people to reason rationally?

  • Does a high IQ guarantee success in school and in life?

  • Can animals think—and if so, what do they think about?

Each day, in the course of ordinary living, we all make decisions, draw up plans, draw inferences, construct explanations, and organize and reorganize the contents of our mental world. Descartes' famous declaration “I think, therefore I am” could just as well have been reversed: “I am, therefore I think.” Our powers of thought and intelligence have inspired humans to immodestly call ourselves Homo sapiens, Latin for wise or rational man.

But just how “sapiens” are we, really? In Australia, a 23-year-old man put fireworks between his buttocks and set them off. This party trick backfired—literally. He was taken to the hospital with severe, painful burns on his backside and genitals. In Nottingham, England, the mayor decided to distribute flyers to visitors telling them that Robin Hood and his pals never actually lived in nearby Sherwood Forest, inasmuch as they were not real people; tourism plummeted. In Colorado, after daylight savings time began, a woman complained to a local newspaper that the “extra hour of sunlight” was burning up her front lawn.

We could go on.

Of course, our cognitive abilities are also pretty impressive. Think for a moment about what thinking does for you. It frees you from the confines of the immediate present: You can think about a trip taken 3 years ago, a party next Saturday, or the War of 1812. It carries you beyond the boundaries of reality: You can imagine unicorns and utopias, Martians and magic. You can make plans far into the future and judge the probability of events, both good and bad. Because you think, you do not need to grope your way blindly through your problems but can apply knowledge and reasoning to solve them intelligently and creatively.

Yes, the human mind—which has managed to come up with poetry, penicillin, and PCs—is a miraculous thing. But the human mind has also managed to come up with traffic jams, spam, and war. To better understand why the same species that figured out how to get to the moon is also capable of breathtaking bumbling here on Earth, we will examine in this chapter how people reason, solve problems, and grow in intelligence, as well as some sources of their mental shortcomings. These topics are the focus of cognitive psychology, the study of cognition (mental processes).