The Appraisal of Style. As we have noted, what
is important is not only whether the client succeeds
or fails on particular test items but also how that
success or failure occurs. One of the major values
of individual intelligence tests is that they permit us
to observe the client or patient at work. Such
observations can help us greatly in interpreting an
IQ. For example, did this child do as well as possi-
ble? Was there failure avoidance? Did the child
struggle with most items, or was there easy success?
Was the child unmotivated, and could this have
detracted from the child’s performance? Such ques-
tions and the ensuing interpretations breathe life
into an otherwise inert IQ score.
The following simulated questions from the
WAIS-IV and a hypothetical patient’s responses to
them are examples of the data that can be obtained
beyond the sheer correctness or incorrectness of a
response.
QUERY: Who wroteParadise Lost? (Information
subtest)ANSWER: Probably a Catholic. But since the Pope
began changing things around, they
retitled it.
QUERY: What is the advantage of keeping money
in a bank? (Comprehension subtest)
ANSWER: There isn’t. There’s so damn many
crooks. But they’ll get theirs someday.
QUERY: In what ways are a lion and a tiger alike?
(Similarities subtest)
ANSWER: Well, now, that’s a long story. Do they
look alike? They really can’t breed
together, you know.^1
Some clinicians have ventured considerably
beyond making a few limited personality inferences
that would inject some added meaning into IQs and
have based mental disorder diagnoses on the
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales. They believed
that by examining patterns of scores (known as
intertest scatter), they could apply diagnostic labels
to patients (e.g., schizophrenia or depression). Over
the years, however, studies purporting to show the
validity of these interpretations of intertest scatter
could rarely be replicated. Thus, diagnoses cannot
be reliably inferred from patterns of test performance
(Kamphaus, Winsor, Rowe, & Kim, 2005).Some Final Observations and Conclusions
In the preceding pages, we have discussed defini-
tions and theories of intelligence, descriptions
of intelligence tests, and the uses of intelligence
tests. We can now make some general concluding
statements.IQ Is an Abstraction. Because the IQ does not
signify that a person will perform in all situations at a
constant level, we talk about“present functioning”
rather than innate potential. Many would argue that
intelligence, like an attitude, is not a thing. Rather, it
is an abstraction that may enable clinicians to accurately
predict certain behaviors. A clinician who observes that
Molly gets A’s in class, is highly regarded by her instruc-
tors, and solves problems faster than her peers will prob-
ably conclude that Molly is intelligent. To reach that
conclusion, the clinician will have abstracted a common
element of Molly’s behavior in several situations. The
clinician can now use that abstraction to predict that
Molly will again be successful in related future situa-
tions. Despite the notion that intelligence is an abstrac-
tion rather than an entity located in a specific region of
the brain, and despite the difficulties in distinguishing
between what people cannot do and what they choose
not to do, most people tend to believe that a“true”IQ
exists and that intelligence tests are the best way to assess
it. However, it is good to be reminded that“...we have
nothing even vaguely close to a‘tape measure’of
intelligence.”(Sternberg et al., 2005, p. 47).Generality Versus Specificity of Measurement.
Given all the caveats, qualifications, and disclaimers,
the reader may wonder why clinical psychologists- These simulated items were provided courtesy of The Psychological Corporation. The answers are based on responses to actual items.
214 CHAPTER 7