According to Charles Spearman, intelligence comprises which two components?

According to Charles Spearman, intelligence comprises which two components?

• A. General intelligence (g) and specific abilities (s).
• B. Fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.
• C. Emotional intelligence and practical intelligence.
• D. Analytical ability and creative ability.

Answer: (A)

Spearman’s view of intelligence centers on two factors: a general intelligence factor, g, that influences performance on virtually all cognitive tasks, and specific abilities, s, that affect performance on particular tasks. The idea of g explains why test scores tend to correlate across different kinds of problems—the more efficient someone is overall, the better they tend to perform across the board. The s component accounts for why someone might excel in one area (like math) but not another (like verbal tasks), because it reflects skills unique to that task. Spearman used factor analysis to show that a substantial portion of the variance in many tests loads onto a single general factor, with additional task-specific variance explained by s. Other options describe different theories not attributed to Spearman: fluid and crystallized intelligence come from Cattell, while emotional/practical or analytical/creative intelligences refer to other frameworks.

Spearman’s view of intelligence centers on two factors: a general intelligence factor, g, that influences performance on virtually all cognitive tasks, and specific abilities, s, that affect performance on particular tasks. The idea of g explains why test scores tend to correlate across different kinds of problems—the more efficient someone is overall, the better they tend to perform across the board. The s component accounts for why someone might excel in one area (like math) but not another (like verbal tasks), because it reflects skills unique to that task. Spearman used factor analysis to show that a substantial portion of the variance in many tests loads onto a single general factor, with additional task-specific variance explained by s. Other options describe different theories not attributed to Spearman: fluid and crystallized intelligence come from Cattell, while emotional/practical or analytical/creative intelligences refer to other frameworks.