The Relation between Beliefs and Fluid Intelligence.

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to find out possible reasons behind the traditional assumption that intellectual functioning of individuals decline after they enter the age range of middle adulthood. For the current research, based on the Theory of Intelligence (Cattell & Horn, 1967) and Self theories (Dweck, 2000), it was postulated that one’s belief about their own intelligence; entity belief or incremental belief, has an association with their performance on tasks requiring fluid intelligence. In order to explore this relationship, beliefs of 30 middle adults and 30 young adults was assessed through Implicit Theory Intelligence Scale (Castella & Byrne, 2015) and fluid intelligence was measured by Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices. The findings showed a low correlation of beliefs (both; entity and incremental beliefs) with fluid intelligence in both age groups. However, strong negative correlation was found between incremental belief and total SPM time taken by young adults. Furthermore, the comparison between middle adults and young adults scores of SPM did not show significant difference which was expected in case of decline in fluid intelligence {p = .191). Though, they did exhibit significant difference in the time taken to complete the SPM {p = .002), with middle adults taking noticeably more response time. These findings will be beneficial in understanding how one’s own belief systems relate to intelligence, which would then facilitate in the development of techniques needed for dependability issues arising from beliefs about one’s intelligence