Intelligence is something that everyone thinks they can recognize but is famously hard to measure and even harder to define. In the late nineteenth century, several psychologists tried to find an objective measure to compare intelligence between people, leading to...
Psychology
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General vs. specific intelligence
Intelligence tests typically include an array of different types of mental tasks, testing various aspects of verbal, numerical, and spatial ability, involving multiple different cognitive processes, including short-term memory, knowledge, perception, and reasoning....
Is there more than one kind of intelligence?
Spearman’s 'general intelligence factor (g) influenced a particular British view of intelligence as one measurable, fixed quantity that is innate and can be seen in the ability to perform a variety of cognitive tasks. This idea has been expanded upon by Cyril Burt and...
Reinforcing cultural and racial prejudices
Research into intelligence, possibly more than any other area of psychology, has attracted criticism for being biased towards certain races, ethnicities, genders, and classes. The idea that intelligence is innate and genetic has fueled eugenics movements in past...
Fluid or crystallized?
A British-born psychology professor, Raymond Cattell, claimed that there are broadly two kinds of cognitive abilities - one that can be learned, known as crystallized intelligence, and another that cannot be taught, known as fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence,...
Multiple intelligences
J.P. Guilford’s suspicion of general intelligence resurfaced in the 1980s with Howard Gardner”s theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner says that we have various ways to tackle cognitive tasks, but ability within one is not related to any other. Each of us has an...
Is intelligence fixed, or can it be altered?
Theories of generalized intelligence often assume that intelligence can be measured by testing and that it is a fixed trait. However, just as the concept of general intelligence itself was debated, so also was the emphasis placed upon its genetic basis. Studies showed...
Personality
Personality, perhaps more so than IQ, is what makes us unique; however, it is just as hard to pin down and define scientifically. Plato believed that personalities could be categorized into four temperaments, a concept that has some similarities to the modern view of...
Traits
The groundbreaking work of writers Gordon and Floyd Allport (the brothers) in the 1960s opened the field of research into personality psychology. Their pioneering work was based on the notion that we know what constitutes a person’s personality; we just have...
Extraversion and neuroticism
In contrast to Allport's trait theory, Hans Eysenck argued that there are just 2 factors that define personality type; extroversion (E) and Neuroticism (N). These are largely genetically determined and fixed characteristics. Extroverts are sociable, lighthearted, and...
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Drives
A prevalent 19th-century belief was the notion of "psychic energy" (also known as "subliminal self"), which lay behind our motivation to behave a certain way. Freud believed not only in the existence of this psychic power but also that it continued to exert a strong...
Psychosexual stages of development
A significant part of the positive psychic energy of the Id is the libidinous drive or desire for sexual pleasure. Freud thought this was an innate drive, affecting people differently at different stages of development. He thought the libidinous impulse centered on a...
Repression
Freud argued that frustrations of the libido can cause anxiety that remains throughout one’s lifetime. He believed that the roots of these frustrations were often due to the conflict between the pleasure drive and societal norms. These conflicts often lead to feelings...
Analysis (Psychoanalysis)
To treat the psychological disorders caused due to conflict between the unconscious and the conscious mind, Freud developed methods to access the repressed thought, memories, and feelings in one's unconscious and subject them to a series of analytical sessions. The...
Free association
Talking cures were pioneered by Austrian psychoanalyst Josef Breuer and his patient Anna O, who coined what we now call the talking cure. They discovered that allowing patients to speak freely about their problems relieved their symptoms. This was later developed into...
Free Course in Semiology
A completely and truly free course on Semiology (Semiotics). Learn about the meaning of signs, how and why did the field emerged. What is the relationship between the street signs and the signs that we use every day - words.
