{"id":2001,"date":"2026-09-15T09:16:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T09:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/?post_type=curriculum&p=2001"},"modified":"2026-09-15T09:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T09:17:16","slug":"spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities","status":"publish","type":"curriculum","link":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Spearman’s Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spearman’s Theory of Intelligence (Two-Factor Theory)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Charles Spearman’s (1904) theory of intelligence is known as the two-factor theory. Spearman noticed that children who perform well in one subject tend to have good marks in other subjects too \u2014 an observation that led him to propose a common factor affecting all of a person’s activities. Using a statistical method called factor analysis, he proposed that all cognitive or mental activity consists of two factors: a ‘general’ or ‘g’ factor, and a ‘specific’ or ‘s’ factor. Intelligence, in this view, is the sum of the g factor and the s factor. The g factor refers to the broad spectrum of mental faculties influencing performance across a wide variety of cognitive abilities; the s factor is the single or unique factor specific to one particular activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Factor<\/strong><\/td>\nCharacteristics<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
‘G’ Factor (General)<\/td>\nUniversal, inborn ability; general mental energy; constant; the amount differs between individuals; used in every activity of life; the greater the ‘g,’ the greater a person’s success in life.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
‘S’ Factor (Specific)<\/td>\nLearned and acquired in the environment; varies from activity to activity within the same individual; individuals differ in the amount of ‘s’ ability they have.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The ‘g’ factor represents native intelligence: when a person responds to any situation or performs an intellectual task, their general mental ability (g) is mainly responsible for it, while their specific ability in that particular task accounts for the rest. There are many specific abilities \u2014 drawing inferences, completing sentences, coding messages, and so on. Individuals differ in both their g and s factors: for example, performance in literature might be G+S1, in mathematics G+S2, in drawing G+S3, and in social sciences G+S4 \u2014 the ‘g’ factor is present across every specific activity.<\/p>\n

Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities (PMA)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

L.L. Thurstone (1938) took a very different approach from Spearman, emphasising that intelligence involves seven clusters of Primary Mental Abilities. He suggested that differences observed in performance on intellectual tasks could be attributed to different, independent abilities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ability<\/strong><\/td>\nWhat It Covers<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Word Fluency (W)<\/td>\nAbility to think of or use words rapidly, such as in solving anagrams.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Verbal Comprehension (V)<\/td>\nAbility to understand the meaning of words, concepts, or ideas correctly; assessed by vocabulary tests.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Spatial Visualization (S)<\/td>\nAbility to visually manipulate patterns and forms of objects in space.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Perceptual Speed (P)<\/td>\nTendency to perceive details quickly and accurately in any stimulus.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Numerical Facility (N)<\/td>\nAbility to solve numerical problems quickly and accurately.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reasoning (R)<\/td>\nAbility to observe facts and derive a general rule from them.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Associative Memory (M)<\/td>\nAbility to memorise and recall information quickly and accurately.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

These seven clusters were originally proposed as functionally independent of one another \u2014 but it was actually found that they were inter-correlated, which ended up supporting Spearman’s idea of a ‘g’ factor after all. In other words, Thurstone set out to challenge Spearman’s single-factor view, and the data ultimately pulled the two theories back toward each other.<\/p>\n

The Theory of Technological Intelligence<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Culture has a real influence on intelligence. Vygotsky emphasised the role of socio-cultural factors in helping people live, grow, and understand the world around them, forwarding the view that culture promotes intellectual development \u2014 higher-order mental functions are culturally determined. Technological intelligence is the type of intelligence found among people in advanced countries, reflecting skills like attention, observation, analysis, performance speed, and achievement orientation. This theory is a natural bridge from Spearman and Thurstone’s more purely psychometric approach toward the culturally-situated view of intelligence that later theories (starting with Gardner, in the next topic) build on more fully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spearman’s Theory of Intelligence (Two-Factor Theory) Charles Spearman’s (1904) theory of intelligence is known as the two-factor theory. Spearman noticed that children who perform well in one subject tend to have good marks in other subjects too \u2014 an observation that led him to propose a common factor affecting all of a person’s activities. Using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"curriculum-category":[113,114,130],"custom_linking_tags":[],"class_list":["post-2001","curriculum","type-curriculum","status-publish","hentry","curriculum-category-montessori","curriculum-category-montessori-tutorials","curriculum-category-intelligence"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSpearman's Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities - Entri Free Materials<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spearman's Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities - Entri Free Materials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Spearman’s Theory of Intelligence (Two-Factor Theory) Charles Spearman’s (1904) theory of intelligence is known as the two-factor theory. Spearman noticed that children who perform well in one subject tend to have good marks in other subjects too \u2014 an observation that led him to propose a common factor affecting all of a person’s activities. Using […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Entri Free Materials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-15T09:17:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/\",\"name\":\"Spearman's Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities - Entri Free Materials\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-15T09:16:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-15T09:17:16+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Spearman’s Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/\",\"name\":\"Entri Free Materials\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Entri Free Materials\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-cdn.entri.app\/explore\/2025\/03\/logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wp-cdn.entri.app\/explore\/2025\/03\/logo.svg\",\"caption\":\"Entri Free Materials\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Spearman's Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities - Entri Free Materials","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Spearman's Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities - Entri Free Materials","og_description":"Spearman’s Theory of Intelligence (Two-Factor Theory) Charles Spearman’s (1904) theory of intelligence is known as the two-factor theory. Spearman noticed that children who perform well in one subject tend to have good marks in other subjects too \u2014 an observation that led him to propose a common factor affecting all of a person’s activities. Using […]","og_url":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/","og_site_name":"Entri Free Materials","article_modified_time":"2026-09-15T09:17:16+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/","url":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/","name":"Spearman's Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities - Entri Free Materials","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-09-15T09:16:57+00:00","dateModified":"2026-09-15T09:17:16+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/montessori\/spearmans-two-factor-theory-and-thurstones-primary-mental-abilities\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Spearman’s Two-Factor Theory and Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#website","url":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/","name":"Entri Free Materials","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#organization","name":"Entri Free Materials","url":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/wp-cdn.entri.app\/explore\/2025\/03\/logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-cdn.entri.app\/explore\/2025\/03\/logo.svg","caption":"Entri Free Materials"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/curriculum\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/curriculum"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/curriculum"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"curriculum-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/curriculum-category?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"custom_linking_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entri.app\/explore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_linking_tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}