Definition
Definitions of intelligence in the scientific literature center around the idea that that intelligence refers to cognitive processes that allow humans and other animals to solve novel problems in their environments. Thus, Jerison (1973, pp. 16–17) notes that “Although experts differ with regard to the nature of human intelligence, a more or less common ground is that it is a dimension of cognitive behavior – the way one knows the world and the way one uses that knowledge when adapting to changing conditions.”
Introduction
However, intelligence is not the only set of mechanisms designed to enable organisms to cope with environmental novelty. Intelligence is usually distinguished from learning which subsumes a variety of mechanisms that allow the organism to take advantage of temporary regularities in its environment – paradigmatically classical and operant conditioning (MacDonald 2013). Social learning is also usually distinguished from intelligence. Unlike classical and...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Alexander, R. D. (1989). Evolution of the human psyche. In P. Mellars & C. Stringer (Eds.), The human revolution: Behavioural and biological perspectives on the origins of modern humans (pp. 455–513). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Baddeley, A. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417–423.
Barrett, H. C., & Kurzban, R. (2006). Modularity in cognition: Framing the debate. Psychological Review, 113, 628–647.
Carew, T. J., Walters, E. T., & Kandel, E. R. (1981). Classical conditioning in a simple withdrawal reflex in Aplysia californica. The Journal of Neuroscience, 1, 1426–1437.
Carpenter, P., Just, M., & Shell, P. (1990). What one intelligence test measures: A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Psychological Review, 97, 404–431.
Case, R., Demetriou, A., Platsidou, M., & Kazi, S. (2001). Integrating concepts and tests of intelligence from the differential and developmental traditions. Intelligence, 29, 307–336.
Chiappe, D., & MacDonald, K. B. (2005). The evolution of domain-general mechanisms in intelligence and learning. Journal of General Psychology, 132, 5–40.
Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2002). Unraveling the enigma of human intelligence: Evolutionary psychology and the multimodular mind. In R. J. Sternberg & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), The evolution of intelligence (pp. 145–198). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Crinella, F. M., & Yu, J. (1995). Brain mechanisms in problem solving and intelligence: A replication and extension. Intelligence, 21, 225–246.
Ellis, B. J., Figueredo, A. J., Brumbach, B. H., & Schlomer, G. L. (2009). Fundamental dimensions of environmental risk: The impact of harsh versus unpredictable environments on the evolution and development of life history strategies. Human Nature, 20, 204–298.
Fernandes, H. B. F., Woodley, M. A., & te Nijenhuis, J. (2014). Differences in cognitive abilities among primates are concentrated on G: Phenotypic and phylogenetic comparisons with two meta-analytical databases. Intelligence, 46, 311–322.
Galsworthy, M. J., Arden, R., & Chabris, C. F. (2014). Animal models of general cognitive ability for genetic research into cognitive functioning. In D. Finkel & C. A. Reynolds (Eds.), Behavior genetics of cognition across the lifespan (pp. 257–278). New York: Springer.
Geary, D. C. (2005). The origin of mind: Evolution of brain, cognition, and general intelligence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Geary, D. C. (2015). Social competition and the evolution of fluid intelligence. In S. Goldstein, D. Princiotta, & J. A. Naglieri (Eds.), Handbook of intelligence: Evolutionary theory, historical perspective, and current concepts (pp. 105–119). New York: Springer.
Heinrich, B. (2000). Testing insight in ravens. In C. Heyes & L. Huber (Eds.), The evolution of cognition (pp. 289–305). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jensen, A. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport: Praeger.
Jerison, H. J. (1973). The evolution of the brain and intelligence. New York: Academic.
Kane, M. J., Bleckley, M. K., Conway, A. R., & Engle, R. (2001). A controlled-attention view of working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 169–183.
Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Lancaster, J., & Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution: Diet, intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9, 156–185.
Kyllonen, P. C., & Christal, R. E. (1990). Reasoning ability is (little more than) working memory capacity?! Intelligence, 14, 389–433.
Larson, G., & Saccuzzo, D. (1989). Cognitive correlates of general intelligence: Toward a process theory of g. Intelligence, 13, 5–31.
Lefebvre, L., Whittle, P., Lascaris, E., & Finkelstein, A. (1997). Feeding innovations and forebrain size in birds. Animal Behaviour, 53, 549–560.
Lynn, R. (2006). Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis. Augusta: Washington Summit Press.
MacDonald, K. B. (2008). Effortful control, explicit processing and the regulation of human evolved predispositions. Psychological Review, 115, 1012–1031.
MacDonald, K. B. (2013). Human general intelligence as a domain general psychological adaptation. In J. Kush (Ed.), Intelligence quotient: Testing, role of genetics and the environment and social outcomes (pp. 35–54). Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers.
Potts, R. (1998). Variability selection in hominid evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology, 7, 81–96.
Reader, S. M., & Laland, K. N. (2002). Social intelligence, innovation, and enhanced brain size in primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 99, 4436–4441.
Reader, S. M., Hager, Y., & Laland, K. N. (2011). The evolution of primate general and cultural intelligence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B: Biological Sciences, 366, 1017–1027.
Rushton, J. P. (2004). Placing intelligence into an evolutionary framework, or how g fits into the r-K matrix of life history traits including longevity. Intelligence, 32, 321–328.
Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2010). The rise and fall of the Flynn effect as a reason to expect the narrowing of the Black–White gap. Intelligence, 38, 213–219.
Stanovich, K. E. (2004). The robot’s rebellion: Finding meaning in the age of Darwin. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Stevenson, H., Parker, T., Wilkinson, A., Hegion, A., & Fish, E. (1976). Longitudinal study of individual differences in cognitive development and scholastic achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 377–400.
Taylor, A. H., Elliffe, D. M., Hunt, G. R., Emery, N. J., Clayton, N. S., & Gray, R. D. (2011). New caledonian crows learn the functional properties of novel tool types. PLoS ONE, 6(12), e26887.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19–136). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vrba, E. S. (1995). The fossil record of African antelopes (Mammalia, Bovidae) in relation to human evolution and paleoclimate. In E. S. Vrba, G. H. Denton, T. C. Partridge, & L. H. Burckle (Eds.), Paleoclimate and evolution, with emphasis on human origins (pp. 385–424). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Woodley of Menie, M. A., Fernandes, H. B. F., & Hopkins, W. D. (2015). The more g-loaded, the more heritable, evolvable, and phenotypically variable: Homology with humans in chimpanzee cognitive abilities. Intelligence, 50, 159–163.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
MacDonald, K., Woodley of Menie, M.A. (2021). Evolution of Intelligence, The. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_3093
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_3093
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19649-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19650-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences