Evening star. [volume], December 09, 1951, Page 14, Image 169

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
MODERN LIVING
Zoti,
EVERY DAY the hard-working psychologists are coming op with something new about
When it comes to getting ahead in the
world, a man’s brains are still his best
asset — if he knows how to use them. Scien
tists in leading universities and research
foundations have conducted exhaustive sur
veys to find out as much about human in
telligence as possible. Some of their most
recent findings give answers to questions
you’ve always asked ^yourself — and some
you’ve never dreamed of.
Furthermore, if your own brains aren’t
functioning at maximum efficiency, they can
tell you what to do about that, too. Let’s
take a look at their findings.
Q: What is intelligence?
A: Basically, as one leading psychiatrist
points out, intelligence is the ability to use
one’s past experiences effectively for the solv
ing of present problems, and the anticipation
of new-ones. There is a vast difference be
tween knowledge and intelligence. Knowl
edge is the possession of the facts about some
thing. But intelligence is the ability to use
that knowledge, the ability to evaluate and
judge.
Q: Is a good memory an index to your
intelligence?
A: No. You can have a wonderful memory
and be stupid, or a poor memory and be highly
intelligent. Scientific investigations have
shown a person’s recall ability has little bear
ing on how smart he is. As a matter of fact,
people of low intelligence frequently have
better memories than those in the high I.Q.
brackets. When hundreds of children were
given memory tests in New York City schools,
it was found that the mentally retarded chil
dren made appreciably higher scores than those
of average or above average intelligence.
Among the possible explanations offered by
You don’t have to be smart to lead
a long, successful life, but it helps.
Here are the latest facts science
has discovered about your brains
by John E. Gibson
the investigators: persons of lesser intelligence
learn by repetition and rote, rather than by
reasoning. And this serves to develop their
memory processes. While bright children,
as a rule, tend to find tasks of rote memory
irksome. (Spiellmg, for example, is frequently
their weakest subject.)
Psychologists at the Catholic University
of America also conducted study on hundreds
of subjects in which memory capacity was
compared with intelligence. They found that
how smart a man is has little if anything to
do with how well he can remember; and that
"memory and intelligence are two distinct
functions, which manifest independent vari
ability.”
Q: Are the majority of the nation’s most
intelligent men college graduates?
A: Definitely not. During the last war, over
10,000.000 men were given intelligence tests
by the Army. Dr. Walter V. Bingham,
top Army psychologist and author of "Apti
tudes and Aptitude Testing,” reports that of
the men who scored in Grade I, the over
whelming majority (75 pier cent) were not
college graduates. And 5,000 who achieved
the highest grade piossible in the Army in
telligence test had never even finished gram
mar school. And among those whose gray
matter earned them a Grade II score — the
second-highest intelligence rating were
858,000 who had not gone further than the
eighth grade in school. Findings showed that
the higher a soldier’s educational level, the
greater his likelihood of scoring in a higher
intelligence bracket. But, as Psychologist
Bingham points out, over 2,000,000 men in
these top zones of intelligence had never gone
further than high school.
Q: Do beauty anti brains tend to #o hantl
in hand?
A: According to popular impression, girls
who are highly intellectual seldom turn out
to be the kind men are tempted to whistle at.
Nor does the male who is top-heavy with
brains come off much better. Public fancy
tends to typify him as a high-domed, pallid
creature, whose physiognomy could scarcely
be expected to make feminine hearts flutter.
Scientific studies suggest, however, that
this is a gross libel. At Columbia University,
investigators selected a group of the most
highly intelligent students to be found any
where in the land. The I.Q.’s of these brainy
boys and girls ranged from 135 upward (on
the standard Stanford-Binet intelligence
scale). Then they selected another group
consisting of students of average intelligence
(I.Q. range 90 to 110). Both groups wer
representative of their respective intellec
tual classifications.
A panel of judges was selected, consisting
of university graduates and their wives. They
were instructed to judge both groups of stu
dents o* the basis of “beauty.” "good looks”
and 'physical attractiveness.” Findings of
the judges: the students in the highly intelli
gent group were consistently better looking
than those in the average group.
Temple University psychologists conducted
a similar investigation, where undergraduates
were studied and their attractiveness related
to their intelligence. Their findings likewise
showed the boys with the most brains were the
best looking, and the high I.Q. girls the most
beautiful.
Q: I to large or small families have the
smartest rhihlren?
A: Surveys show that there is a marked tend
ency for children of smaller families to have
the most intelligence. A study of over 70,000
children — one of the largest ever under
taken — was recently completed in the
British Isles. It was found that, on the
average, the larger the family the lower the
I.Q. score of the offspring. A survey of 3,400
children at Bath, England, showed that the
dullest children come from families two and
a half times as large as those of the brightest
children.
In seeking explanations for this fact, some
authorities have pointed out that children of
larger families are more apt to be handicapped
by an unfavorable early environment, over
crowding and poverty. But studies made of
upper-class groups, where children enjoyed
every social and educational advantage
have shown the same tendency. Children
of smaller families consistently lead the field