The Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence – Robert Sternberg

Sternberg, R. J. (2003). A Broad View of Intelligence: The Theory of Successful Intelligence. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 55(3), 139.‏

http://michaeledwardkutch.com/uploads/3/3/1/6/3316493/sternberg-2003.pdf

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).