Culture and Cognition Dr.K. A. Korb University Of Jos 22 May 2009.

Culture and Cognition

Dr.K. A. Korb University Of Jos

22 May 2009

Outline

• General Intelligence• Implicit Theories of Intelligence• Information Processing

Dr. K. A. KorbUniversity of Jos

General Intelligence

• Intelligence: The capacity to understand the world, think with rationality, and to use resources effectively when faced with challenges (Wechsler)

• General Intelligence (g):Based on findings that different cognitive abilities tend to have strong, positive correlations



• Racial differences in intelligence– The closer a test is to g, the larger the racial differences

between Black and White Americans– When re-analyzing the data, socioeconomic (SES) factor

accounted for the greater differences in intelligence then race (Humphreys,1985)

• The difference in intelligence between low and middle SES students was greater than the difference between Blacks and Whites



• National differences in intelligence– Positive correlation between a country’s Gross

National products (GNP) and intelligence– Two explanations:

• More affluent societies spend more money on education, raising the level of intelligence

• The test content may be more familiar to students in more affluent societies, biasing the results


Testing Procedures• Administered Intelligence tests to 358 young

Tanzanian school children (Sternberg et al., 2002)1. Pre-Test: Traditional testing procedure2. Intervention: Feedback given during five minute training on

the intelligence test tasks (Dynamic Testing)• Attempt to test the zone of proximal development

3. Post-Test• Children perform significantly better on the post-test• Post-test scores were weakly correlated with pre-test

scores• Conclusion: Unfamiliarity with the testing procedures

hindered test performance


General Intelligence• To interpret cultural differences in intelligence test

scores, consider the following distinctions:– Intelligence A: Genetic contribution to intelligence– Intelligence B: Intelligence developed within the cultural

context– Intelligence C: Performance on the intelligence test

• Intelligence C may not accurately measure intelligence B– Due to: Test language, item content, test-taking

motivation, speededness of the test• Conclusions from Intelligence C provide very little

information about intelligence A.



• Performance on measures of cognitive abilities (intelligence tests) does not always reflect performance in real-life cognitive tasks– Brazilian street children– US house wives comparison shopping in the

market


Test 2• Fluid Intelligence: Reason abstractly on novel

problems– What comes next in these series?

5 10 15 20 25 30A. B. C.

• Crystallized Intelligence: Accumulation of knowledge and skill in familiar domains– What is Piaget’s second stage of development?– What is the main ingredient in pap?


Intelligence

• In villages, practical, indigenous knowledge:– Is not correlated to fluid intelligence– Is negatively correlated to formal Western crystallized

intelligence• Learning in formal Western education appears to

conflict with learning indigenous societal and occupational practices

• General intelligence may be more related to abilities learned in Western schooling than representative of universal human abilities


Education and Intelligence

• Western Schooling:Study many skills in a variety of domains with little direct teacher interaction

• Traditional Schooling:Learn few skills through apprenticeships– Less likely to observe a general factor of intelligence with

traditional schooling because students are only exposed to practices within their specific area of training


Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence (Sternberg, 2002)

• Intelligence:The ability to achieve success at personal standards within one’s socio-cultural context.

• Success is attained through a balance of the following abilities:– Analytic: How information is processed– Creative: Ability to handle new situations– Practical: Use environment advantageously


Implicit Theories of Intelligence

• Implicit theories of intelligence:Individual belief of intelligence used as the basis for making judgments about intelligence behavior– Necessary for understanding an individual’s behavior and

value system– Necessary for determining a formal theory of intelligence

relevant to a community



• Taiwan: Problem solving, social competence, emotional competence, intellectual assertion, intellectual self-effacement

• Kenya:– Rieko: Knowledge and skills– Luoro: Respect and care for others– Winjo: Wisdom in real-life problems– Para: Creativity– Only reiko is correlated with school achievement

• Uganda and Zimbabwe: Social behavior that benefits the group



• Village adults were asked to nominate children who were superior at typical village tasks and asked reasons why (Serpell,1991)– Nzelu: Wisdom– Chenjela: Aptitude – Tumilika: Responsibility– Khulupilika: Trustworthy

• Performance in these domains were uncorrelated with school performance



• Examined parent theories of intelligence among different ethnic groups in the US (Okagaki & Stenberg, 1993)– Closer the parent’s conceptions of intelligence

were to the teachers’ conceptions of intelligence, the better their children performance in school



• Cognitive value among traditional societies are different from that of formal education– Western education may be incompatible with

activities valued by traditional societies• Intelligence is related to schooling in highly

literate societies– Greater exposure to formal education likely shifts

cognitive value toward the activities of schooling


Flynn Effect:Average IQ over time in US

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

105

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Year

IQ o

n the

1995

Sca

le

.


Information Processing

• Cognitive tasks can be separated into single elementary-processing components– Response Time– Memory– Metacognition


Reaction Time• Simple reaction times with a single stimulus have similar

response time between schooled and unschooled cultures– Similar basic cognitive processing for simple tasks

• Complex reaction times show cross-cultural differences– As the reaction time tasks increase in complexity,

differences between schooled unschooled population increase

• Potential Confound: Familiarity with tasks– Timed children when sorting models and photographs of

cars and animals– Zambian children were slower at sorting photographs but

not models– Difficult to make cross-cultural comparisons by score levels

because of familiarity with the stimuliDr. K. A. KorbUniversity of Jos

Memory• Working memory capacity is not affected by culture• Working memory control processing are affected by

culture– Primary Effect: Items presented early in a list are

remembered better– Unschooled Liberians do not demonstrate the primary

effect or cluster like-objects (Cole et al., 1971)• The primary effect did not occur until children had been in

school for many years– Differences between memory controls processes memory

may be limited stimuli• Unschooled Guatemalan children did not lower performance

on a memory task that was embedded into their cultural context


Metacognition

• Very little research has examined differences in metacognitive processes between cultures

• Research has found socioeconomic and ethnic differences in metacognitive knowledge of school tasks– Linked to the frequency of reading at home

• Australian Aborigines demonstrate metacognitive knowledge of storytelling, but metacognitive knowledge rarely transfers to school tasks (Davidson & Freebody, 1988)


Contextualized Cognition• Contextualized Cognition: Focus on specific cognitive performances

as related to particular features of the cultural context– People are good at doing things that are important to them and that

they do often– Cultural differences in cognition are due to the fact that cultures differ

in the situations in which particular cognitive processes are applied• As opposed to the presence of one process in one cultural group and absence

in another• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Development is a theory of

contextualized cognition– Examines cognitive development within the domains of a cultural

activity– Proposed that increasing cognitive competence is the result of

interactions between people within a society


Cotextualized Cognition

• Conclusion of Cole and colleagues based on data collected with the Kpelle of Liberia (1971)– Much cognitive behavior is context-bound– It is not possible to generalize cognitive

performances from one context to a different context


Literacy and Intelligence• Original hypothesis: Literacy enables an individual to

perform abstract cognitive operations– Compared individuals in Liberia: Illiterates, Read local Via

language, or Read English on performance on general cognitive tasks (Scribner & Cole, 1981)

– Results: Individuals who could read local Via performed similarly to illiterates. Those who could read English performed significantly better

– Not many people use the Vai script; it is only used for familiar topics

– Conclusion: Literacy leads to abstract cognition only when a person is able to learn about topics outside of one’s direct experiences


Conclusion

• Universalist Perspective: Basic cognitive processes are shared across all cultures. However, culture influences the development, content, and use of cognitive processes

• Cognition is adapted to the environment in which a person is situated.


Revision

• What groups differ in performance on general intelligence tests? What are some possible explanations that have been proposed that might cause the differences in performance?

• Describe various cultures’ implicit thories of intelligence.

• What cultural similarities and differences have been found on information processing tasks?

• Describe the relationship between western formal education and traditional village life.


Culture and Cognition Dr.K. A. Korb University Of Jos 22 May 2009.

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