Intellectual and psychosocial functioning develop along complex learning pathways. Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich measured these two classes of abilities with narrow, biased assessments that captured only a segment of each pathway and created misleading age patterns based on ceiling and floor effects. It is a simple matter to…

Argues that despite aberrations, false starts, misapplications, and unfortunate crystallizations of methods and interpretations, the differential psychology of cognitive abilities is an important part of psychological knowledge about human beings. (Author/GC)

Major reasons for the continuing divergency of opinion as regards the nature and meaning of intelligence are examined. An appraisal of intelligence as a relative concept is proposed which advocates the necessity of specifying the reference systems to which a statement about intelligence refers. (EH)