Intelligence Is An Important Factor

Wickelgren (1999) explains that nurture can effect a child’s intelligence for better or worse and the nature does not matter.(Pg1 ) Even though the child might have the possibilities to develop well in a particular area this could be altered by their environment and the opposite would occur, For instance a child whose parents or parent are a math teacher the child could perform poorly if the parents did not take the time to talk to him or even spend much time with the child. The child might do poorly in all the areas of academics because the parents slacked in talking and not giving the child enough of

What is intelligence exactly? Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills or “the ability to learn and understand things to

Gottfredson, (1997) stated that intelligence is ‘a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.

Intelligence by definition is “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills” (Oxford Dictionary, 2014). However, many psychologists argue that there is no standard definition of ‘intelligence’, and there have been many different theories over time as psychologists try to find better ways to define this concept (Boundless 2013). While some believe in a single, general intelligence, others believe that intelligence involves multiple abilities and skills. Another largely debated concept is whether intelligence is genetically determined and fixed, or whether is it open to change, through learning and environmental influence. This is commonly known as the nature vs. nurture debate.

One of the main purposes of the eugenics movement was to attempt to control the level of intelligence in the human race. This is not completely possible, however, as all genes are linked to other genes, and intelligence is affected by many more than just the one gene (Agar, 2006). In contrast to Galton’s theory, intelligence is not actually completely hereditary. Between 47 and 58% of intelligence lies in DNA, and the rest is based on environmental factors (Steen, 1996). Many types of intelligence tests have been created to measure the level of intelligence in humans. Defining intelligence in itself is a difficult task, as there are

The debate surrounding the heritability of intelligence is one that has been going on for centuries starting with Sir Francis Galton in 1869 and the publication of his book, Hereditary Genius. Galton was one of the first scientists to study individual differences in intelligence. In his book, he claimed that intelligence is inherited and that this is supported by the fact that eminence runs in families. He went further to say that selective breeding ought to be encouraged in order to improve society which sparked the on-going controversy surrounding

An overwhelming majority of people in the world believe that intelligence is fixed. They believe that from birth, those 46 chromosomes are the deciding factor between an educated businessman and an employee working on an assembly line. When deciding which topic, I was interested in discussing for my research paper, a memory from second grade popped into my mind. I remember that my classmates and I were in IDEAS class, and it was the first day where we would break up into reading groups. The blue group was the highest, with green as a close second, while yellow brought up the rear. I was placed in the blue group, while my friend Noah was placed in yellow. To make a long story short, two years passed by and Noah worked his way out of the yellow group, into the blue group. Fast forward eight years and there we are, sitting at graduation while Noah stands before us all, speaking to us as the Valedictorian of the Class of 2016. If this doesn’t support the idea that Intelligence isn’t fixed, I’m not sure what does. With that being said, as new research on this topic continues to be churned out, the statement that intelligence is inherited at birth continues to be proven wrong. Throughout this paper, I will do just that, by providing information to support my question, “Is Intelligence a Malleable Trait?”

Over time intelligence has been thought to have a major impact on many people’s success throughout their future. In order to accomplish many goals and tasks in life

Francis Galton, one of the most famous explorers of human intelligence, was the first to initiate the nature versus nurture debate. Both opinions of this controversy, namely ‘nurture’ camp and ‘nature’ camp, have found overwhelming evidence in their favors. Nature camp believes that a person’s environment plays little to no role in his, her, or their mental aptitude. While nurture camp reasonably argues that a person’s environment plays a large role in his, her, or their mental aptitude.

Once a person has an idea of what intelligence is and what it means, a final thought one might consider is what influences are responsible for the different types of intellect. Two possible influences are genetics and the environment in which one lives, with genetics being the strongest influence (Santrock, 2009, pg. 302). Most researchers agree that a person’s genetics and environment interact with one another to influence the outcome of that person’s intelligence (Santrock, 2009, pg. 302). Genetic influences should be pretty obvious, so there should be no need to explain it; a person’s environment on the other hand, can involve several factors. An environment can consist of elements such as a person’s school, home, friendships, family relationships, and workplaces. All of these components factor in to influence a person’s intelligence.

While this assumption is accepted by a majority of geneticists and behavioral scientists, there is great disagreement on the degree of influence each contributes. Arguments for environmental influences are compelling; at the same time there is growing evidence that genetic influence on intelligence is significant and substantial (Eyesenck, 1998; Mackintosh, 1998; Plomin, 1994; Steen, 1996). The purpose of this paper is to explore the question: "How is intelligence influenced by heredity and environment?"

Most people believe that Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests are a good way to measure intelligence. IQ tests are actually pretty bad at measuring intelligence (Rivas 1). Due to this, we wonder how intelligence can be measured and what affects it. How we understand things is a big part of humanity and many studies have been conducted to try to determine what affects intelligence. Researchers have come up with two words, nature and nurture, which are used to describe the factors that affect intelligence. Nature refers to the genetic sources that influence intelligence while nurture is the environmental sources that affect intelligence. Nature and nurture actually collaborate together to affect intelligence as a whole. How intelligence is influenced is a very important topic, because if we can pinpoint what causes one person to have more intelligence than another, we can develop programs and studies to allow the intelligence of the human race to prosper at a faster pace, making our society better as a whole. On the nature side of this argument, the authorI hasve discovered how gene sources influence our lives through relational processing and how children and their parents IQ scores correlate. On the nurture side of this argument, I have learned how prenatal and postnatal experiences have been found to affect intelligence and how an unstable environments can be detrimental to a

When a person utters the word “intelligence,” people tend to think of a genius like Albert Einstein developing some obscure equation that the great majority of the population will never understand. The problem with the definition of intelligence is that people relate intelligence to words like “genius” which require intelligence but do not have the same definition as intelligence. Often, people try to use related words to define intelligence, but these words are unable to define intelligence since many are only different levels of intelligence. While many definitions try to encompass the meaning of intelligence and various definitions describe a small part of intelligence, no definition completely explains intelligence, because

Intelligence is used by everyone to help them in everyday life. Where people get their intelligence, however, is debatable. A person is born with an amount of inherited intelligence; this intelligence is considered nature, genetic, or heredity. Then there is intelligence that comes from the ability to learn from experience; this intelligence is impacted by nurture or the environment. It is known that both genetic and environmental factors determine intelligence, but the subject is controversial among professionals. Does nature or nurture have a bigger impact on intelligence? Is it true that some people are born with high intelligence, but are limited by their environment? Given the proper tools, can a person increase their intelligence? How accurate are IQ tests?

Is the passing of traits to offspring (from its parent or ancestors)? This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve. The study of heredity in biology is called genetics, which includes the field of epigenetic.