Intelligence and IQ

1. Intelligence and IQ

2. Current Controversy - Delinquency, Race, IQ • What does IQ really measure? • Innate factors? • Learned factors? • Academic achievement, reading ability, test-wiseness? • Culturally biased? • If there are innate differences, are they caused by genetic or environmental factors?

3. IQ and Crime • Must measure mental ability to assess effect on crime • IQ expresses numerical differences in “mental abilities” • Early 1900’s, Simon and Binet, France • Large number of everyday tasks, by difficulty • Age levels assigned to tasks • “Mental age” based on tasks that test-takers can complete • IQ = Mental age/chronological age X 100 • For example: Test taker is 9-years old, can complete tasks for a 9-year old, IQ=100 • Smarter 9-year olds, higher IQ; duller, lower IQ • Binet felt that persons could raise their IQ through training

4. IQ Testing in America • Unlike Binet, Americans felt that IQ was fixed (inborn) • Early purpose to sort people into appropriate roles • IQ’s above 115 appropriate for the professions • Identify the subnormal - to institutionalize them and prevent their reproduction • Goddard - mental age 13 is lower limit of normalcy, mental age 12 is “feeble-minded” • In one study 70 percent of incarcerated inmates were found to be feeble-minded • Goddard - feeble-minded persons are potential criminals, should be institutionalized & not reproduce

5. Studies in America • WWI, military used age 12 & below as disqualifying for service • 37% of whites and 89% of blacks were disqualified • Nearly half the population was “feeble-minded” • Goddard’s reaction – he changed his mind • Cannot equate IQ tests with native abilities • Feeble-mindedness can be remedied by education • Later studies • No difference in IQ scores for prisoners & draftees • Cannot conclude that most criminals are feeble-minded

6. 1967 - William Shockley • IQ measures a “fundamental social capacity” • Differences between Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans due to genetic differences • Differences in IQ explain differences in poverty and in crime rates

7. After Shockley • 1969 article by Arthur Jensen • IQ measures a factor important in Western industrialized societies • 80 percent of differences due to genetics, rather than the environment • 1976, 1987 articles by Robert Gordon • Variations in delinquency rates best explained by IQ • Social class does not explain away the relationship (IQ a better predictor of delinquency than social class) • 1977 article by Hirschi and Hindelang • IQ as important as social class and race in predicting delinquency • IQ ignored because of strong bias against its exploration

8. “Verbal” -v- “Performance” IQ • For most, the scores are similar • Delinquents have large gaps, with poor verbal but “basically” normal performance IQ’s • Conflicting hypotheses: • Poor verbal ability  Delinquency • Intervening variable between poor verbal ability & delinquency • Poor verbal ability  school problems  delinquency • Poor verbal ability  poor problem-solving abilities  delinquency • Spurious relationship between poor verbal ability & delinquency • Scholastic underachievement  delinquency • Social conditions  delinquency

9. So - what does IQ really measure? • Cultural bias: Qualities related to the dominant culture • Inherited (nature): Poor abstract reasoning/problem-solving ability • Environmental (nurture)” General abilities, largely determined by a person’s environment • Performance handicaps in low-income areas: • Ineffective child-rearing • Poor schooling • Weak family supports

10. Personality

11. Personality – What is it? • Emotional and behavioral attributes that remain relatively constant • Individual qualities other than intellectual ability, for example: • Aggressivity, impulsivity, introvert/extrovert, friendly/hostile, cooperative/uncooperative, etc.

12. Personality studies • 1950 – Gluecks • Compared 500 delinquent and 500 non-d boys • Mix of characteristics was different • Delinquents more extroverted, impulsive, hostile • Delinquents less fearful of failure, less deferential to authority • Predictors of delinquency • Social background factors • Character traits (Roscharch test) • Personality traits (psychiatric interview) • MMPI had similar results • List of 550 statements used in psychiatric diagnosis, discriminates between delinquents and non-d’s, especially Scale 4 • Does it prove that psychopathy causes delinquency? • Tautology: Some items are delinquency (“when I was young I stole things”) • Environmental factors: Other items (“I like school”)

13. Antisocial Personality Disorder (psychopath) • APA DSM defines (doesn’t explain) criminal and delinq. behavior • APA DSM-4 - Antisocial personality disorder (APD): “pervasive pattern of disregard and violation of the rights of others that begins in childhood and continues to adulthood”. • At least 3 characteristics: repeated lawbreaking, repeated lying and deceit, impulsivity, repeated physical fights, repeated failure to work, lack of remorse • Characteristics must be: inflexible, maladaptive, persistent, cause significant functional impairment or personal distress • Adult antisocial behavior (criminal behavior in absence of APD) • Some gang researchers see “core” members as sociopaths who use the mob to act out their own aggression • Mc Cord - recidivism rates of delinquents diagnosed as psychopathic only slightly worse than for others

14. Psychiatric prediction of future dangerousness • 10-year study by Kozol, Boucher and Garofalo - group of high-risk offenders being released from prison • Extensive psychiatric and casework services • Failed to predict 2/3 of subsequent violent crime • 2/3 of those predicted to become violent did not • Monahan – clinical prediction difficult • Requires that individual’s general situation not change • Compare context of past offending with new circumstances • Recency, severity and frequency of past violence • Statistical probability to commit ciolence for persons of like demographic characteristics • Prediction of behavior separate from diagnosis of mental disease

15. Predicting crime and delinquency • Best predictors of future delinquency • Early childhood behavior – disruptive classroom behavior, aggressiveness, lying, dishonesty (tautology problem) • May flow from personality characteristics not reflected in personality tests • Other predictors of future delinquency • Poor parental supervision • Separation from parents • Offending by parents and siblings • Low intelligence and educational attainment • Optimism about the possibility of intervention

16. Impulsivity and crime • Definition • High level of activity, impatience for rewards, seek immediate gratification, easily distracted • Wilson & Herrnstein : Impulsivity  Conscience  Crime • Crime is naturally rewarding • We must be restrained by internal inhibitions (conscience), developed in early childhood through family rearing • Key factor: considering long-term rather than just the short-term consequences of one’s actions • Contributing factors • Poor child-rearing produces weak inhibitions • Membership in deviant subcultures • Mass media (modeling), learning one is a “victim” • Economic system/legitimate opportunities to gain rewards • Schools

17. Impulsivity and crime – cont’d • Walters – “lifestyle criminals” • Irresponsibility, self-indulgence, chronic violation of social rules • Feelings of entitlement, being a “victim” • Power orientation – “dog-eat-dog world” • Superoptimism – feeling of invulnerability • Cognitive indolence – not paying attention to life details • Discontinuity – failing to set goals, carry out commitments • Moffitt – “life-course persistent offenders” - engaging in anti-social behavior at every stage of life • Early neurophysiological problems: nutrition, mother’s drug use, birth complications, • Home situation: child abuse, lack of affection & supervision • Result: impulsive personality • Disrupt schooling, have less ability for legitimate rewards • Caspi, Moffitt et al study of crime-proneness • Children who experience excess negative emotional experiences - anger, anxiety, irritability – are “quicker on the draw” (more impulsive)

18. Policy implications • Impulsivity seems to be best psychological candidate as a cause of crime and delinquency (author’s favorite) • Some theories (e.g., Moffitt) specify causes of behavior (e.g., early psych. Problems, poor parenting), suggesting intervention techniques • Clinical • Parenting classes • Special education • Author downplays value of psychological causes • IQ differences & school achievement can supposedly be explained by environment alone • Methodological problems – attaching personality labels simply because of differences in rates of offending • “Crime” is a societal definition, while “behavior” is the end result of a complex individual process • Difficulty in using personality to explain crime in general