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General Intelligence

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If we see a person who is able to process tasks that are involving the use of the brain, then we tend to consider that person intelligent.

However if asked many people can not define “intelligence”. Sternberg and Detterman in 1986 asked a large number of theorists what intelligence means. They were not able to find two persons to give them the same definition, though all the theorists asked stated that intelligence is the ability of an individual to learn and remember things. Therefore the individual will also will be able to use his knowledge and even put them into practice to solve certain tasks.(Martin et. al. 2010).

The modern ideas of intelligence have been formed just before the end of the nineteenth century. This was possible due to work of to important people in psychology; the French Alfred Binet and the English Francis Galton.

Alfred Binet was instructed by the French Ministry of Public Instruction to create and develop an intelligence test to check the level of intelligence of children found in the schools. The purpose of this test was to find if the children will perform the intelligence tests designed for their age and if they are up to the level of intelligence they should be at their age. Another important matter of this tests was to find that if there are any children that did not reach the level of intelligence they should have and if those need special education. Therefore in 1905 Binet and Theodore Simon created the Binet-Simon scale, which was the first intelligence test, actually was the base on the development pyramid of intelligence tests.(Maltby et. al. 2010).

Charles Spearman (1940, 1927) introduced one of the most important ideas in psychology, and probably his most important contribution to psychology, the general intelligence or the “g” factor.(Maltby et. al. 2010).

Spearman stated that if a person is doing well on one

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