Human intelligence:
/_ttjihbp56s-It is the ability to learn from experience, adapt to new conditions, grasp and utilize abstract concepts, and manipulate one’s environment.
Cognitive-contextual theories
Cognitive-contextual theories examine cognitive processes in different contexts. Sternberg’s and Gardner’s theories are two significant examples.
Gardner proposed a notion of “multiple intelligenhces” in 1983 to dispute the idea of a single intelligence. Gardner further suggested that intelligence comprises linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal./_ttjihbp56s.
Gardner’s bits of intelligence approximated psychometric theorists’, but not all. Musical and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, including athletes and dancers, were novel concepts.
Gardner’s bits of intelligence came from cognitive processes, brain injury, extraordinary people, and cross-cultural cognition. He also considered existential intelligence (a concern with “ultimate” matters like the meaning of life), but he couldn’t find a brain region dedicated to such questions.
Gardner’s research on multiple intelligences led him to claim that most intelligence concepts had been ethnocentric and culturally biased. Still, his was universal because it was based on many people’s biological, cross-cultural, and cognitive performance data.
In Beyond I.Q.: A Triarchic Hypothesis of Human Intelligence (1985), Sternberg developed a “triarchic” hypothesis that considers cognitive and cultural background. Gardner and Sternberg agreed that conventional definitions of intelligence were too narrow.
Still, Sternberg questioned how far psychologists should go, suggesting that musical and bodily-kinesthetic abilities are talents rather than bits of intelligence because they are relatively specific and not necessary for adaptation in most cultures./_ttjihbp56s.
Sternberg proposed three (“triarchic”):
Sternberg proposed three (“triarchic”) interconnected and interdependent dimensions of intelligence: internal, external, and experience. All thought begins with cognitive processes and representations. They were second, applying these processes and models to the outside world.
According to the triarchic theory, more thoughtful people know their strengths and weaknesses and use their strengths to compensate for their shortcomings. Thus, more intelligent people find their best fit. Experience integrates internal and exterior worlds, the third part of intelligence. /_ttjihbp56s.
This includes applying knowledge to new or unrelated contexts.
- inherited reflex
- More Britannica
- Intelligence’s makeup
- Some psychologists think intelligence is the ability to handle new conditions. Thus, experience is crucial. Putting people in a new culture and testing their adaptability could measure intellect. When a novel task becomes familiar, cognitive processing automates, which Sternberg says is another factor in assessing intelligence. Automating daily duties frees up mental resources for dealing with novelty.
Late-20th-century ideas included other intelligences. John Mayer and Peter Salovey characterized emotional intelligence in 1990 as /_ttjihbp56s
The ability to sense, access, and generate emotions to aid thought, understand feelings and emotional knowledge and reflectively control emotions to facilitate emotional and intellectual progress.
Mayer and Salovey’s four aspects:/_ttjihbp56s.
Mayer and Salovey’s four aspects are (a) recognizing one’s own and others’ emotions, (b) applying emotion appropriately to facilitate reasoning, (c) understanding complex emotions and their impact on subsequent emotional states, and (d) managing one’s own and others’ emotions. /_ttjihbp56s
Daniel Goleman’s 1990s publications popularised emotional intelligence. Several emotional intelligence tests have shown minor relationships with conventional intelligence.
Intelligence researchers
Intelligence researchers are excited to define intelligence. Researchers have defined intelligence differently. In a 1921 symposium, American psychologists Lewis Terman and Edward L. Thorndike disagreed on the notion of intelligence, with Terman emphasizing abstract thinking and Thorndike learning and question-answering. /_ttjihbp56s
However, psychologists now believe that environmental adaptation is the key to understanding intelligence and its functions. A student learns the material to pass a course, a doctor treats a patient with unfamiliar symptoms, and an artist reworks a painting to make it more coherent.
Adapting to the environment usually means altering oneself, but it can also mean changing the environment or finding a new one.
Adaptation requires sensing
Adaptation requires sensing, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem-solving. Thus, intelligence is a selected mix of cognitive and mental processes purposefully directed toward optimal transformation./_ttjihbp56s.
Accordingly, a physician who learns about a new disease adapts by perceiving medical literature on the condition, learning what it contains, remembering the crucial aspects needed to treat the patient, and then using reason to apply the information to the patient’s needs.
Overall, intelligence is now seen as a combination of several skills. However, much of the field’s history has been spent debating intelligence’s nature and powers.
Intelligence theories
Like most scientific theories, intelligence theories have evolved through models. Psychometrics, cognitive psychology, cognitivism and contextualism, and biological science have been the most influential paradigms. Developments in these four categories follow.
Psychometric theories
Psychometric theories have endeavored to understand intelligence’s form and parts. Analogies, classifications, and series completions (e.g., Which word does not belong with the others? Robin, sparrow, chicken, blue jay) have been used to support such theories.
Psychometric theories view I.Q:
Psychometric theories view I.Q. as a combination of mental exams. Quantify this model. A number-series test may reflect number, reasoning, and memory ability for a complex series. Mathematical models can offset test performance weaknesses with strengths. Thus, logic can compensate for number ability.
1904 British psychologist Charles E. Spearman (1863–1945) wrote his first significant study on intelligence, introducing psychometric theory.
He found what may seem obvious now—that people who did well on one mental ability test tended to do well on others, while those who did poorly on one tended to do poorly. Spearman invented factor analysis to find the causes of these performance discrepancies.
He found that two factors explain all test score discrepancies. The “general factor” (g) affects all intelligence-related tasks. Thus, any job requiring intellect requires g. The second element is test-specific.
For example, arithmetic reasoning tests require a general factor (g) and a specific factor related to the mental operations needed for mathematical reasoning. What’s g? After all, naming something does not mean knowing it. In 1927, Spearman hypothesized that the general factor was “mental energy.”/_ttjihbp56s.
American psychologist L.L. Thurstone disagreed with Spearman’s theory and proposed seven “primary mental abilities”:
Verbal comprehension (as involved in vocabulary and reading), verbal fluency (as applied in writing and producing words), number (as interested in solving relatively simple numerical computation and arithmetical reasoning problems), spatial visualization (as involved in the drawing),
And Other psychologists, such as Canadian Philip E. Vernon and American Raymond B. Cattell, have suggested that Spearman and Thurstone were right. Vernon and Cattell ranked intellectual capacities, with general ability at the top.
Below g, powers narrow until Spearman’s abilities. In Abilities: Their Structure, Growth, and Action (1971), Cattell proposed that general knowledge can be further divided into “fluid” and “crystallized” abilities. Analogies, classifications, and series completions measure fluid skills, which are reasoning and problem-solving abilities.
Vocabulary, general knowledge, and field-specific knowledge are considered crystallized talents. According to American psychologist John L. Horn, fluid talents increase early in life and decline later, while crystallized abilities increase throughout life./_ttjihbp56s.
Spearman’s ability subdivision
Most psychologists thought Spearman’s ability subdivision was too limited but not hierarchical. Joy Paul Guilford’s structure-of-intellect hypothesis initially specified 120 talents. Guilford proposed five types of operation, four types of content, and six types of products like Human Intelligence (1967).
These facets can comprise 120 abilities. In the analogy problem above, the lawyer is to a client as the doctor is to __, which requires cognition (operation) of semantic (content) relations (product). Guilford’s idea later included 150 talents./_ttjihbp56s.
Psychometric theory’s basic approach eventually revealed significant flaws.
Psychometric theory’s basic approach eventually revealed significant flaws. A movement that began by postulating one critical ability is now recognized 150. Psychometricians (factor analysis practitioners) cannot resolve their disagreements scientifically.
Any method that supported so many theories sounded dubious. Most importantly, psychometric theories failed to explain intelligence processes. It’s one thing to talk about “general ability” or “fluid ability,” but another to describe what’s going on in people’s minds when they use it./_ttjihbp56s.
Cognitive psychologists suggested studying intelligence’s mental processes and possibly relating them to psychometricians’ intelligence components to solve these issues.
