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Your textbook discusses the challenges of constructing intelligence tests that are culturally fair and not biased in favour of people from the dominant culture

Psychology

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Your textbook discusses the challenges of constructing intelligence tests that are culturally fair and not biased in favour of people from the dominant culture. This is very important, especially in multi-cultural societies like Canada. However, let’s step back from the issue of testing and examine the broader question about the universality of human intelligence. If intelligence, like other aspects of the human body, evolved throughout evolutionary history by natural selection, then we should expect that all humans possess the same design for intelligence. For example, we all learn to use language, to do basic arithmetic, to perform basic logical reasoning, etcetera. Clearly, there are individual differences in intellectual abilities in the same way that some people run faster, grow taller, or have different-coloured hair. But the basic intellectual capacities that humans possess have to work in an astoundingly diverse array of cultural and physical environments. What may be genius in one environment may not provide the same advantages in another. Instructions First, watch the video Battle of the Brains (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ocun2). It demonstrates different kinds of intelligence in a very entertaining manner. Note If you do not have access to the website, then instead of watching the video, please refer to the Hock (2013) reading “Just how are you intelligent?” You will use either Battle of the Brains or the Hock (2013) reading as the basis for comparing intelligence of different kinds in two different environments. Your task in this assignment is to compare and contrast the kinds of intelligence that are needed in two different environments. Environment A is one with which we are all familiar: any village, town, or city. Environment B is one with which you may not be familiar: the !Kung San people of the Kalahari desert. (The ! is pronounced as a tongue-click.) The !Kung San lifestyle changed very little over millennia until recent contact with the outside world. Traditionally they were hunter-gatherers who followed the food supply for much of the year. Without much interaction with other groups of people, they were dependent on themselves for survival, and therefore cooperation, interdependence, mutual trust and helpfulness have been vital to their existence. As nomads, they have had little need or opportunity to accumulate possessions. The main sources of food are animals which can be hunted or trapped, and whatever grows naturally; they traditionally have not practiced agriculture or animal husbandry. The group size traditionally was up to about fifty individuals. This way of life is disappearing as they come under increasing pressure from neighbours, the availability of technology, and so on. (If you are interested in optional further reading on the !Kung San, log into the TRU library and search for "The Bushmen of Southern Africa" by Ken Jordaan. This is a 1975 article that illustrates what anthropologists and others encountered when they met the !Kung. The article is available in full-text online - not all of it relevant but there are some interesting descriptions of !Kung life.) Using either Battle of the Brains or the Hock (2013) reading as the basis for understanding multiple types of intelligence, compare and contrast how each type of Gardner's multiple intelligences is important and why, as it applies to those living in these two different environments.