Sternberg, R. J. (2003). A Broad View of
Intelligence: The Theory of Successful Intelligence. Consulting Psychology Journal:
Practice and Research, 55(3),
139.
Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence is a
fascinating theory that also makes a lot of sense. Its weakness, in my view, lies in its
(excessive?) complexity. I feel that
some of its concepts are not necessary and make it too cumbersome.
This is a very interesting paper by
Stenberg and one of his clearest (in my view).
In this post I'll summarize the main points of its first part:
Lay persons define intelligence more
broadly than psychologists. Lay people
see intelligence as consisting of a practical ability to solve problems, a
verbal ability and social abilities. It looks
like lay person's view of intelligence is much more related to success in the
real world than conventional views of intelligence. The successful intelligence concept tries to
regard intelligence in a similar way, a way that is related to all aspects of
life.
What
is successful intelligence?
1.
The use of a set of abilities
needed to succeed in life, in any way a person defines success, in his social
cultural context.
Usually success
is measured in terms of school grades or, with adults, in terms of income. But some children and teenagers focus on
activities like sports or music or being a youth movement activist, and
dedicate less attention to school grades. Some adults choose employment that is highly
significant for them, but that would never give them the income they could have
had in other kinds of employments that are less personally significant. The successful intelligence theory
conceptualizes intelligence using people's personal standards (the goals people
set for themselves and their ability to reach those goals) and the social cultural context. It's possible to develop successful intelligence.
2.
People have high
successful intelligence when they know their strengths and make the most of
them, and know their weaknesses and find ways to correct them or to compensate
for them.
3. People with high successful intelligence adapt, choose
and shape environments by balancing between the use they make of analytical, practical
and creative abilities. Intelligence is not only the ability to adapt
to the environment you are in, but also the ability to change and to shape the environment
to suit your abilities, and sometimes the ability to find or to choose a new
environment more suitable to your abilities, values or wishes.
A person
can succeed by balancing analytic, creative and practical abilities. Analytic abilities are the abilities that are
usually measured by traditional intelligence tests. Success in life requires more than analyzing one's
own and other's ideas, but creating ideas and convincing others of their
value. The extent to which a person
succeeds depends on his ability to use his analytic, creative and practical
abilities well, and to compensate for analytic, creative and practical weaknesses
he has. We use analytic thinking to deal
with new tasks or situations. Practical thinking
is the use of our experience to adapt, shape and choose environments.
Sternberg built
an intelligence battery that is based on his theory – STAT – Sternberg triarchic ability test.
The battery
consists of 12 tests. Four measure
analytical ability, four measure creative ability and four – practical ability.
Three of
each four test set are multiple choice tests and the forth is a writing
test. The multiple choice tests include
verbal, numerical and figurative content.
Here is a
table presenting the twelve tests. In the
right hand column I added my interpretation of what the test measures in CHC
terminology.
CHC interpretation
|
Creative
|
Practical
|
Analytic
|
|
Comprehension knowledge (in the aspects of grammar
and syntax)
|
The child reads a paragraph containing a nonword,
and deduces the nonword's meaning from the context.
|
Verbal
|
||
Fluid ability
|
Number series:
the child has to find the next number in a series.
|
Numerical
|
||
Fluid ability
|
Matrices
|
Figural
|
||
Comprehension knowledge
|
Everyday thinking:
the child chooses the possibility that best solves "an everyday
problem in a life of a child".
|
Verbal
|
||
Quantitative ability
|
Everyday mathematics: the child solves everyday problems
requiring the use of arithmetic (for
example, buying tickets for a ball game),
|
Numerical
|
||
Visual processing
|
Planning a route:
the child answers questions that require efficient navigation with a map.
|
Figural
|
||
Fluid ability
|
New analogies: the child solves verbal analogies
based on unreasonable premises (for example, "money falls off
trees") as if the premises are true.
|
Verbal
|
||
Fluid ability
|
New numerical operations: the child learns a rule
(for example, flix – the required arithmetic operation depends on the
relation between the first and second numbers (the operation is different if
the first is larger than, equal to or smaller than the second). The child uses flix to solve math problems).
|
Numerical
|
||
Fluid ability
|
The child deduces a rule according to which a series
of shapes is built and applies it to a new series of shapes.
|
Figural
|
||
Comprehension knowledge, reading and writing ability
and fluid ability.
|
The child
writes a description of his idea of the ideal school.
|
The child writes about three practical solutions to
a problem he currently has.
|
The child
writes an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of guards at school,
and adds his opinion
|
Essay
|
Of the tests described here, it seems
to me that the most interesting and original (not appearing in a similar form
in the Wechsler, Kaufman or Woodcock Johnson tests) are "everyday thinking"
and the essay tests. It's interesting
that the creative tests don't include a divergent production test (think of as
many uses of a specific object that you can).
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