Intelligence

=Intelligence in General=

A very basic introduction to the topic of intelligence and the current state of the art can be found in the summary of the chapter on Intelligence in the book  Introduction to Psychology - A Gateway to Mind and Behavior.

Intelligence is measured by different types of tests all with a slightly different focus. There are, as Robert Sternberg points out essentially two extremes in the testing of IQ.

The G-Factor
The g-factor accounts for a range of mental abilities measured with any of the classical IQ Tests. Among these, the most commonly used today are the Stanford-Binet intelligence test and the Wechsler intelligence test, which was originally only designed for adults but has now been adapted for children in a separate scale as well. Both of these and similar tests, test a wide range of abilities including fluid reasoning, knowledge, quanitative reasoning working memory, visual-spatial processing.

These tests have frequently been criticized both, for focusing on a too narrow spectre of what they consider intelligence and by framing the test in a way which is biased towards a certain culture and difficult to answer for people from other cultures. To address these doubts other tests have been developed.

Multiple intelligences and culture-free tests
Some researchers, as Howard Gardner even go as far as to suggest that there is a number of up to 8 different forms of intelligences.

Culture-free intelligence tests include for example Raven's progressive matrices, a nonverbal test aiming to measure fluid intelligence.

=Robert Sternberg - Successful Intelligence=

Sternberg takes the position that intelligence tests tend to hint to the existence of the g-factor whenever they are narrowly designed, a broader view of intelligence is found when the tests themselves conceive it move broadly. So he says the existence of a g-factor that is found across so many studies might actually be just a confirmation bias by the way in which these studies are designed.

Sternberg then also positions himself on the contrasting view of multiple intelligences. He also warns of a bias in this theory, especially in Gardner's advocacy of multiple intelligences in that the literature review on which his theory is based was very selectively chosen, possible with the purpose of confirming his theory of multiple intelligences. He goes on to point out that there has been no study yet which supported or even tested the validity of the theory.

He then turns to the theory of emotional intelligence first proposed by Peter Saveloy and John Mayer. Emotional intelligence is a broad concept related to being able to express emotions but also interpret emotions of others as well as to regulate emotions to enable emotional and intellectual growth. There have been studies aimed at proving the existence of emotional intelligence, however, results are mixed with some showing a statistically significant effect and others leading to even doubt that there could be such a type of intelligence.

Sternberg then advocates his own consolidating theory, the middle ground between the above: the triarchic theory, of successful intelligence. He defines successful intelligence as the ability to balance the needs to adapt to, shape and select environments in order to attain success whatever it may mean in a respective culture. There are three aspects involved in this theory of intelligence. Analytical abilities (analyzing, evaluating, critiquing, and comparing and contrasting things), creative abilities ( creating, exploring, discovering, inventing, imagining and supposing) and practical abilities ( applying, using, implementing and putting into practice)

Creative ability has been tested in a range of differently designed tests which are evaluated for their novelty, quality and task-appropriateness, they have been shown to hardly correlate with analytical abilities. Practical abilities have also been found either not to correlate or even to negatively correlate with analytical abilities. He then refers to three validation studies of the theory as a whole and several studies testing minor predictions of the study. In one of the studies participants were assigned into classes according to their triarchic abilities and then taught the same course with a focus fit for their respective abilities. Those students that were taught according to their triarchic ability outperformed students that had been mismatched.

Sternberg then introduces implicit theories of intelligence as another possible measure of intelligence. He says that this implicit theories, conceptions that people generally tend to have of intelligence are also much better represented by theories of diverse or multiple intelligence than the old-fashioned g-factor model. Comparative studies have shown that conceptions of intelligence vary across cultures.