Fluid Intelligence And Crystallized Intelligence: What Are They?
According to the dictionary of the Real academy of the Spanish language“intelligence ” comes from the Latin term intelligentia. Some of the meanings that we are interested in rescuing are the following:
Each of these meanings refers to a differentiated area in which, routinely, intelligence plays a fundamental role. From a rational perspective, the Understanding and understanding are essential factors for problem solving The way in which human beings analyze the options we have to find the best procedure towards a result that we do not know requires a high level of cognitive development. Skill and dexterity are also a product of each person’s intelligence.
The experience Finally, it has a bidirectional relationship with intelligence: they develop in parallel, and feed each other. However, the truth is that there must be a categorization that better understands the different types of intelligence that exist, in order to better understand the concept and the way in which it helps us solve tasks of such a disparate nature.
Intelligence-related capabilities
Traditionally, Intelligence has been closely linked to these capabilities:
Primary abilities of intelligence according to Thurstone
During the second third of the 20th century, the University of Chicago psychologist Louis Leon Thurstone (1887 – 1955) developed his studies on the primary intelligence skills which resulted in the following:
More than three decades later, the British psychologist Raymond Cattell (1905 – 1998) established a novel distinction between two types of intelligence: fluid and crystallized intelligence
fluid intelligence according to Cattell, refers to a inherited ability to think and reason abstractly while the crystallized intelligence born from the experience and embodies the level of acculturation, education and learning.
Intelligence abilities according to Robert Sternberg
It was not until 1985 that the Yale University psychologist Robert J. Sternberg (born 1949) categorized the different abilities that emanate from intelligence into three groups:
Fluid Intelligence and Crystallized Intelligence
The difference between these two types of intelligence is usually linked to the variable age. However, it is more precise to conceive the difference between fluid and crystallized intelligence based on the influence of heredity and/or environment.
→ Fluid Intelligence
The Fluid intelligence refers to the person’s ability to adapt and face new situations in an agile way without prior learning, experience or acquired knowledge being a decisive help for its manifestation.
Fluid intelligence is closely linked to variables neurophysiological (for example, with the development of neuronal connections), and its influence is more pronounced since its development depends largely on the genetic basis. The same is not true of crystallized intelligence.
In this same sense, we can establish a link between the potential development of fluid intelligence and the child’s growth in an enriching environment. Live in a positive and nurturing environment correlates with the development of neuronal connections in brain regions associated with memory, learning and orientation in space.
fluid intelligence reaches its peak of development early, around adolescence This is a big difference from the peak of crystallized intelligence. Thus, during adult life, this capacity is usually progressively reduced as the body ages, as well as neuronal structures deteriorate.
The decline in fluid intelligence can be due to several factors: normative aging, accidents, pathologies, drug use, etc. These last three factors can cause injuries or alterations in the different structures of the brain and the central nervous system.
→ Crystallized Intelligence
Crystallized Intelligence is the set of capabilities, strategies and knowledge that constitute the degree of cognitive development achieved through a person’s learning history
Components of crystallized intelligence
Crystallized intelligence encompasses the skills linked to:
Understanding language
The degree of understanding and use of semantic relations
The evaluation of the experience
The ability to establish judgments and conclusions
Mechanical knowledge
Orientation in space
Crystallized intelligence depends to a high degree on the learning obtained from the person’s experience in the cultural context in which he lives and relates. The development of each person’s crystallized intelligence depends largely on making a good investment of their historical fluid intelligence in habits that allow them to learn new things. In other words, the intellectual development potential with which we are born (also called historical fluid intelligence) will achieve a higher or lower level depending on the educational experiences that occur during life.
In fact, the development of intellectual abilities can progress throughout life to the extent that the experiential context and the person’s motivation to continue learning allow it.
The way in which life experience intervenes in a person’s intelligence can be known through the observation of the effects of stress on the ddeterioration of brain structures According to a recent study from the University of Toronto, the hormones that the human body secretes when we are worried or nervous directly affect a brain area linked to cognitive functions, such as memory or orientation in space.
Thus, as we pointed out in the article “5 tricks to increase your intelligence”, both the constant search for new knowledge and leading a balanced life are essential if we have the goal of maintaining our cognitive abilities in their best version.
Rice, Philips F. et al. (1997). “Human development”. Pearson.
Shaffer, D. (2005). “Developmental psychology: childhood and adolescence.” Edition, 5th ed. Publication, Mexico, DF
Triglia, Adrián; Regader, Bertrand; and García-Allen, Jonathan (2018). “What is intelligence?” EMSE Publishing.
