Previous Studies of Intelligence


A review of the studies of intelligence does not result in anything very intelligent, it seems to me.
  • L.L. Thurstone identified several basic factors in intelligence: spatial, perceptual, numerical, verbal relations, memory, vocabulary, induction, reasoning, and deduction.

  • J.P. Guilford identified different kinds of abilities among people of high intelligence: thinking up new ideas; putting other people’s ideas into new relationships; and organizing information. Guilford thought that there were more than 30 kinds of high intelligence.

  • One of the few theorists who has anything to offer our current efforts was Edward L. Thorndike who maintained that there are three intelligences: abstract, mechanical, and social. In a Harper’s Magazine article in the 1930s, he defined social intelligence as the ability to understand others and “act wisely in human relations.” He maintained that social intelligence is different from academic ability and a key element in what makes people succeed in life. But beyond those general characterizations of social intelligence, Thorndike didn’t have much to say.

  • R.J. Herrnstein, a Harvard psychologist, pointed up the very distinct danger of the use of IQ testing resulting in social rigidity, with certain families perpetually at the top of the heap. [1] He points up this danger through this syllogism:
    1. If differences in mental abilities are inherited, and
    2. If success requires those abilities, and
    3. If earnings and prestige depend on success,
    4. Then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based to some extent on inherited differences among people
    IQ testing, in other words, is one of many technologies the American plutocracy uses to retain its political and economic power.

  • In his book entitled, The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Human Intelligence, Robert J. Sternberg views intelligence from three perspectives:
    1. "What is the relationship to the internal world of the individual? In other words, what goes on inside a person's head when that person thinks intelligently? What kinds of mental processes and strategies result in more, or less, intelligent thinking?
    2. "What is the relationship of intelligence to the external world of the individual? How does the environment in which we live affect our intelligence, and even our conception of what intelligence is? Moreover, how does our intelligence affect the kinds of environments that are available to us and that we create for ourselves?
    3. "What is the relationship of intelligence to experience? In other words, how do the experiences we have from the time we are born help shape our intelligence, and how does experience mediate between the internal and the external world of the individual?"

[1] R. J. Herrnstein. (1973). I.Q. in the Meritocracy, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press


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