Question

1) Explain the difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence. Please provide three personal examples to show your understanding of the concepts.

Answer 1

The basic difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence is that crystallized intelligence refers to knowledge and skills that an individual has acquired, whereas fluid intelligence broadly refers to the ability to think quickly and to come up with solutions to problems and novel ideas. In other words, crystallized intelligence is all about how much an individual knows, rather than their ability to use that information, which is a characteristic of fluid intelligence.

Examples of crystallized intelligence:

• Knowing the capitals of all the countries in the world
• Narrating the most significant events in Amercian history
• Possessing a large vocabulary

Examples of fluid intelligence:

• Solving a difficult puzzle quickly
• Answering a mathematical problem
• Perceiving relationships between two apparently unrelated objects