Table Of ContentINTELLIGENCE :
ITS STRUCTURE, GROWTH
AND ACTION
Raymond B. CATTELL
Cattell Institute, Hawaii
1987
NORTH-HOLLAND
AMSTERDAM . NEW YORK OXFORD . TOKYO
'
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cattell, Raymond B. (Raymond Bernard), 1905-
Intelligence: its structure, growth, and action.
(Advances in psychology ; 35)
Rev. ed. of: Abilities: their structure, growth,
and action. 1971.
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
1. Intellect. 2. Ability. I. Cattell, Raymond B.
(Raymond Bernard), 1905- . Abilities: .their struc-
ture, growth, and action. 11. Title. 111. Series:
Advances in psychology (Amsterdam, Netherlands) ; 35.
BF431.C345 1986 153.9 86-16606
ISBN 0-444-87922-6 (U.S.)
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
FOREWORD
The nature and measurement of man’s abilities as a central pre-
occupation of psychology had its day in the closing years of the last
century and in the early decades of the present one. Unfortunately, the
enterprise faltered, and interest declined as other aspects of psychology
became more fashionable. Perhaps it is not entirely fair to say that
interest in abilities went out of style but rather that the field stagnated,
suffering from a paucity of new ideas and characterized by the persis-
tence of out-moded concepts. Such a state feeds upon itself, for able
psychologists are attracted elsewhere, leaving the arena to those willing
to accept and live within parameters set by the past.
However, times as well as fashions change. The events of the 1960s
have radically modified the nature and direction of society, and with
these changes have come corresponding alterations in the interests of
behavioral scientists. One such change has been a recognition that a
civilization has a duty to consider its human resources and to make the
most of them, not only for the sake of the civilization itself but also for
the benefit of the individuals and groups that comprise it. Modern
society, taking its text from the Bible, is becoming increasingly “mindful
of man” and looking for answers helpful in implementing its new
programs. One resulting interest is in human abilities, as the reactions
catalyzed by Arthur Jensen’s article in the Harvard Educational Review
attest. The 1969 meeting at the University of Illinois considering the
revision of contemporary intelligence concepts is reminiscent of a similar
meeting held nearly fifty years earlier at Indiana University. The circle
appears to be closing. The last quarter of the twentieth century may well
see the study of human abilities regain both the prominence and the
quality that characterized it in the first quarter of the century. And
Raymond Cattell’s present volume is a giant step in that direction.
A new book by Professor Cattell is a major publishing event because
his works are invariably stimulating, unorthodox, and controversial ;
one always senses a thrust into the future. Intelligence: Its Structure,
Growth and Action is no exception. Cattell brings impeccable credentials
of training, experience, and personal research to the task of writing a
v
vi Foreword
definitive book on human abilities. Actually the volume deals almost
entirely with intelligence, allotting relatively little space to motor and
perceptual abilities or to occupational ability patterns. Professor Cattell
ignores side issues that would distract the reader from a plan to give
coherence and unity to the overall field of abilities.
Many readers who know the Cattell of recent years as a psychologist
concerned primarily with personality and motivation may wonder why
he has selected the present topic. Yet Cattell’s pioneering work was in
the field of intelligence, and it was he who developed and introduced
culture-fair intelligence tests. Numerous research articles on intelligence
and related topics, various intelligence scales, and such provocative
concepts as fluid and crystallized intelligence attest to his eminent quali-
fications and interest in the field.
As a behavioral scientist Cattell contends that an understanding of
the structure of intelligence must come mainly through the study and
analysis of behavior, accomplished with cross reference to evidence
from other cognate disciplines bearing upon the nature of man and his
activities. His approach is holistic in that he demands the destruction of
the artificial barriers erected by such restrictive categorizations as motiva-
tion, personality, and intelligence. The fourteen chapters of the book
take the reader from psychometric beginnings through discussion on
the nature of abilities and their exemplifications. Chapters dealing with
heredity and environment and with intelligence and society speak
directly to those concerned with the worlds of today and tomorrow.
Of special theoretical interest is the discussion of the triadic theory of
abilities, particularly in terms of developmental relationships. Through-
out the book, his references to his own work, stretching over forty
highly productive years, illuminate the points he makes from direct
personal experience. Few scholars can draw upon such a prodigious
personal backdrop of research and writing - a backdrop consisting
of some thirty books and over three hundred articles.
Intelligence is a book to be read with profit by the untrained psycho-
logist as well as by specialists in other fields relating to the nature of
man and to programs designed to further his welfare. Research workers
interested in intelligence and its social implications will find it of
particular interest. This volume will not answer all possible questions
about human abilities and their potential role in social planning. Not
everyone will agree with the author’s formulations and conclusions. Yet
Intelligence is unmistakably a milestone in a chaotic field, and, despite
the highly technical nature of much of the subject matter, an imaginative
Foreword vii
contribution which will stimulate both antagonist and supporter to
pursue the crucial task at hand.
John E. Horrocks
PREFACE
This revised version of my work on Abilities, Their Structure, Growth
and Action written in 1971 will be found to have essentially the same
basis, but brought up to date by the events of recent years. In this work
I have been aided by discussions with Dr. Arthur McKenna, whose
practical experience in the field of physiology and anatomy of abilities
brings a new emphasis to the present book. The main happenings in
those years have been the extension of ability study to more qualitative
observations, as in those by the followers of Piaget, and a consolidation
of the findings about the distinction of fluid and crystallized intelligence,
a good deal through the work of Vaughn, Horn and McArdle. In
addition especially through the work of Nesselroade, Horn, Baltes and
others at the Max Planck Institute we have attained a much more
precise knowledge about the life curves of intelligence and their causes.
In recent years my book on the inheritance of personality and ability
appeared, which has added appreciably to our understanding of ability
genetics. All in all, therefore, we feel that this book appears at a timely
moment for the use of graduate students in particular, but of students
and practitioners of all kinds.
ix
TABLES AND FIGURES
Chapter One
None
Chapter Two
Table 2.1. The recognition of unitary surface traits by a correla-
tion matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Table 2.2. Factor structure derived from experimentally given
correlations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Fig. 2.1. Plots showing how the variance on variables can be
assigned a factor composition, by source trait
coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table 2.3. Correlations among diverse abilities arranged in a
hierarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter Three
Table 3.1. A tentative list of empirically based primary ability
concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Fig. 3.1. Operations in spatial and visualization abilities. . . . 40
Fig. 3.2. Operations for inductive reasoning and word fluency
primaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Fig. 3.3. Tests used as markers for perceptual ability and
personality factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Fig. 3.4. Possible systematic causes of recording primaries where
they do not exist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapte Four
Fig. 4. . Guilford's three-dimensional box for an a priori classi-
fication of abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
xvii
xviii Tables and 4gures
Fig. 4.2. Some ability combinations represented in three-dimen-
sional subspaces from the ADAC. . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 4.1. The ability dimension analysis chart (ADAC): a
theoretical schema. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Fig. 4.3. Obliteration of natural correlation in an analysis of
variance experimental design. . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter Five
Fig. 5.1. Early development of perceptual tests . . . . . . . . . 88
Fig. 5.2. Examples of five culture-fair, perceptual, relation-
eduction subtests of proven validity for fluid intel-
ligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Table 5.1. Two researches sampling the school age range showing
the distinction of fluid and crystallized general
intelligences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Fig. 5.3. Diagrammatic representation of factor influences in
successive strata, from a concrete prescribed exam-
ple: a plasmode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Fig. 5.4. Simple structure illustrated abstractly and by sub-
stantive instance of anxiety and intelligence . . . . 104
Fig. 5.5. Dependence of definition of intelligence (in Burt-
Vernon sense) on choice of variables . . . . . . . . 106
Fig. 5.6. Resolution of indeterminacy of intelligence, by new
context to fig. 5.5 in form of hyperplane variables 107
Fig. 5.7. Plots of two age levels showing the hyperplanes
determining distinct fluid and crystallized intelli-
gence factors and their salient expressions . . . . . 112
Fig. 5.8. The “genalogical” pattern (Tree of Porphyry) of
loadings required by the original hierarchical theory
of abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Chapter Six
Fig. 6.1. The relativity of hierarchies to the base of chosen
variables : pyramids versus strata . . . . . . . . 123
Table 6.1. The broad second-stratum (“capacity”) factors in the
.....................
ability realm. 125
Tables and figures xix
Table 6.2. A more extensive research view of loading patterns of
fluid and crystallized intelligence . . . . . . . . . . 130
Table 6.3. Typical correlations found among broad ability
secondaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Table 6.4. Exploring ability structure at the third stratum. . . . 136
Fig. 6.2. The interaction of fluid ability, time, curriculum
pressure, and rote learning ability . . . . . . . . . . 145
Fig. 6.3. Hypothesized causal action in the investment theory 146
Chapter Seven
Table 7.1. Age trends and sex differences on primary mental
abilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Fig. 7.1. Normal distribution of intelligence for crystallized and
fluid intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Fig. 7.2. Some actual population distributions deviating from
the normal model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Fig. 7.3. Growth curves and plateau onset in fluid and crystal-
lized general intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Fig. 7.4. Primary abilities age changes over the school period 171
Table 7.2. Pre-school intelligence structure: Second-stratum fac-
tors among primary abilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Fig. 7.5. Life range curves on traditionaf and culture-fair in-
telligence tests (various mixtures of g, and gf) . . 186
Table 7.3. Data matrices for separating endogenous, ecogenic,
and epogenic components of the life span curve. . 190
Fig. 7.6. Primary ability age changes in the middle life (con-
trasting MLC [maintained. life course] measurement
results with CAS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Fig. 7.7. Age changes in a provincial “power,” or ‘p: visualiza-
tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Fig. 7.8. Age changes in fluid and crystallized general abilities
and a composite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Fig. 7.9. Age changes in the speed and fluency-retrieval general
capacities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Fig. 7.10. Parallelism of age change curves in fluid intelligence
and kenera1 biological efficiency (Cattell and Horn,
1966b; Robinson, 1938; Miles, 1942; and Burle
et al., 1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
xx Tables and figures
Fig. 7.1 1. Derivation of phenotypic from genotypic maturational
process illustrated by investment theory of fluid into
crystallized intelligence. Age: 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55,
65, 75; gf values: 9, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9; g,
values: 6, 7, 13.0, 16.2, 17.9, 18.8, 19.3, 19.5, 19.6;
g,, tradition intelligence test curve follows general
argument of Baltes and Schaie (1974). . . . . . . . 206
Chapter Eight
Table 8.1. Weight of certain normal human brains in grams . . 214
Fig. 8.1. Some principal localizations of cognitive functions in
the brain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Fig. 8.2. Wave forms visible in an electroencephalogram . . . 227
Fig. 8.3. Evoked potentials as a measure of intelligence . . . . 229
Chapter Nine
Fig. 9.1. Learning curves with and without insight. . . . . . . 263
Fig. 9.2. Stages of evolution of the brain . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Table 9. . Brain weights of twelve species or genuses of mammals
(adult) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Fig. 9.3. The main paths of brain development in the verte-
brate phylum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Table 9.2. A classification of test performance parameters . . . 289
Fig. 9.4. Pattern discrimination beginning to be possible by the
computer. ........................ 29 1
Chapter Ten
Table 10.1, Nature and nurture variances, ratios, and correlations
for intelligence (fluid and crystallized) by first
MAVA experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Table 10.2. 323
Fig. 10.1. Compositie result of many studies on resemblance
Fig. 10.1 Compositie result of many studies on resemblance
consanguinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Table 10.3. A refined assessment of nature and nurture variance
contributions to intelligence .............. 334
