define intelligence essay

Psychology Discussion

Essay on intelligence: meaning, theories and distribution.

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Essay on Intelligence: Meaning, Theories and Distribution!

Essay on the Meaning of Intelligence:

Intelligence is understood as the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and give reason effectively and to deal adaptively with the environment. This mental capacity helps him in the task of theoretical as well as practical manipulation of things, objects or events present in his environment in order to adapt or face new challenges and problems in life as successfully as possible.

Intelligence derives from ability to learn and utilize what has been learned in adjusting to new situations and solving new problems. The concept of intelligence owes much to early studies of animal learning. About a century ago, following publications of Darwin’s “Origin of Species”, there was a flurry of interest in the evolution of intelligence and many tests ere devised to measure intelligence in animals ranging from ants to chimpanzees.

These were tests of learning ability. The general procedure was to block a customary access to food or to introduce a disturbing element from which escape was possible. Intelligence is the capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use resources effectively when faced with challenges.

Intelligence represents a focal point for psychologists, they intend to understand how people are able to adopt their behaviour to the environment in which they live. It also represents a key aspect of how individuals differ from one another in the way in which they learn about and understand the world. Psychological tests are used to measure individual differences that exist among people in abilities, aptitudes, interests and aspect of personality.

Essay on the Definition of Intelligence:

“An individual is intelligent in proportion as he is able to carry on abstract thinking”.

2. Thorndike:

Intelligence as “the power of good responses from the point of view of truth or fact”.

“Intelligence is the capacity to learn and adjust to relatively new and changing conditions”.

4. Wechster:

“Intelligence is the capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use resources effectively when faced with challenges”.

5. Woodworth and Marqis:

“Intelligence means intellect put to use. It is the use of intellectual abilities for handling a situation or accomplishing any task”.

Intelligence has three common aspects:

1. Practical problem:

Solving abilities such as reasoning logically, seeing all sides of a problem and open mindedness.

2. Verbal abilities:

Such as appropriate communication skills and well-practiced reading skills.

3. Social intelligence:

Such as sensitivity to social cues, interest in one’s surroun­dings, and a concern for important norms (Sternberg 1981).

Essay on the Theories of Intelligence :

1. Factor theory of intelligence

2. Cognitive models process-oriented theories.

1. Factor Theory :

1. Theorists who have studied the organization of mental ability.

2. Primary interest is in identifying the factor of factors which constitute intelligence.

3. Intelligence is a single characteristic, or it is a collection of specific distinguishable abilities.

4. A statistical technique known as factor analysis is used.

2. G-Factor Theory:

1. British psychologist Charles Spearman (1921) proposed that a broad general intelligence (G) factor lay beneath the surface.

2. Spearman noted that a number of different cognitive tasks and intellectual measures tend to be correlated with one another that is people who score high on one hand tend to score high on the others as well.

3. Using factor analysis, he found a single common factor G shared by various tests.

4. He said each individual’s intellectual task taps both general intelligence or some other abilities specific for the particular task.

For example, an arithmetic test might tap both G and A specific mathematical abilities.

5. Spearman’s views are called as factor theory—Intelligence tests that yield a single score such as an IQ.

Spearman’s two-factor theory :

This theory was advocated by Spearman. According to him every different intellectual activity involves a general factor ‘g’ which is shared with all intellectual activities and a specific factors which it shares with none.

In this way, he suggested that there is something which night be called general intelligence—a sort of general mental energy running through all different tasks but in addition to this general factor there are specific abilities which make an individual able to deal with particular kinds of problems.

For example, g + s/1 + s/2 + s/3 + s/4 + … = A

The factor g will enter in all specific activities. The total ability or intelligence of such an individual is symbolized as A.

It has been criticized on various grounds and the main reasons are:

1. According to this theory each job requires some specific abilities. This view was not proper as it implied that there was nothing common in the jobs except a general factor and professions such as those of nurses, compounders and doctors could not be put in a group.

2. Spearman said that there are only two factors expressing intelligence but as we have seen above there are not only two but also several factors.

Multifactor Theories :

1. In contrast to Spearman, several theories have concluded that intelligence has multiple components.

2. Most influential multifactor theories are of LL Thurstone and JP Guilford.

Thurstone’s Primary Mental Abilities :

Thurstone proposed that intelligence involves a number of distinct primary mental abilities. He believed that assessment of a person’s intelligence profile required measurement of all seven abilities.

Guilford’s Model of Intelligence:

According to Guilford’s model there are three distinct functions of intelligence; operations, content, and product. Each of these general functions can be further broken down to create a three dimensional model containing 150 different mental functions.

Each of these factors or functions is represented by a cell in the cube and in some combinations of these three dimensions:

(i) Five kinds of operations,

(ii) Six kinds of products and

(iii) Five kinds of contents.

i.e. 5 x 6 x 5 or 150 factors of intelligence are represented.

Each factor is represented by a cell in the cube and in some combination of these dimensions:

1. Five kinds of operation

2. Six kinds of products

3. Four kinds of contents (figural, symbolic, semantic and behavioural), i.e. 5 x 6 x 4 = 120 factors of intelligence are represented.

Hierarchical Theory (PE Vernon) :

There seems to be some truth in both G factor theory and those theories that propose multiple factors. We can identify some ability factors that are relatively independent of one another, but when we do usually find some significant relations among the factors indicating that they share some sort of general intelligence factors.

Consequently, some (for example, Vernon 1950) have proposed that elements of G factor theory and the multifactor theories be combined to form a hierarchical theory. In such a theory intelligence is pictured as a sort of pyramid. At the top of the pyramid in G general intelligence which shows up in virtually all kinds of intellectual activity underneath it are several moderately specific ability factors like Thurstone’s primary mental ability.

At the bottom of the pyramid there are a larger number of highly specific abilities, similar to Spearman’s factors abilities that may come into play on one particular task. This hierarchical theory borrows from several factor theories to form a multilayered view of intelligence.

Process-Oriented Theories of Intelligence :

The factor theories of intelligence attempt to find the component parts of intelligence and how these parts fit together. An alternative approach to understanding intelligence is to focus on intellectual like pattern of thinking the people use when they have reason and solve problems.

These theories speak of cognition and cognitive processes rather than intelligence, cognitive psychologists use an information processing approach. They do not focus on the structure of intelligence or its underlying content of dimensions. Instead, they examine the processes involved in producing intelligent behaviour.

They are interested in how people go about solving problems and figuring out answers than in how many right answers people get, finally the process-oriented theories intend to focus on the development of intellectual processes like how the process change as individual mature.

1. Piaget’s Theory :

Jean Piaget (1970) is a process theorist. He has given us the stage theory of cognitive development, the stages of cognitive growth according to Piaget are:

1. Sensorimotor stage (first 2 years)

2. Pre-operational stage (2 to 7 years)

3. Concrete operational stage (7 to 12 years)

4. Formal operational stage (12 years onwards).

a. Thinking abstractly.

b. Hypothetical thinking:

Thinking about how things might be, if certain changes took place.

c. Deduction and induction:

Hypothetical and abstract thinking make sophisticated deduction and induction possible.

Deduction is rather reasoning from abstract general principles to specific hypotheses that follow from the principles.

Inductive thinking is the process of observing a number of specific events or instances and inferring an abstract, general principle to explain those instances.

d. Inter-propositional logic:

Formal operations involve the ability to judge whether propositions are logically connected to one another.

e. Reflective thinking:

The process of evaluating or testing your own reasoning. In Piaget’s views, intelligence is an adoptive process that involves an interplay of biological interaction with the environment. He views intellectual development as an evolution of cognitive processes such as understanding the laws of nature, the principles of grammar and mathematical rules.

2. Bruner’s Theory :

Yeroms Bruner (1973) is a process theorist who sees intellectual developments as a growing reliance on internal representation, bodies according to Bruner have highly action-oriented form of intelligence they “know” an object only to the extent that they can act on it. Young children know things by perceiving them and are consequently strongly influenced by the vivid perceptual characteristics of objects and events.

Elder children and adolescents know things internally and symbolically, this means that they are able to devise internal symbols or representations of objects and actions and have these mental images in mind. Bruner is interested in how these growing abilities are influenced by the environment especially by the rewards and punishments people receive for using particular intellectual skills in particular ways.

3. Information-Processing Theories :

These theories break down intelligence into various basic skills that people employ to take information, process it, and then use it to reason and solve problems. By breaking tasks and problems into their component parts and identifying the nature and speed of problem-solving processes, researchers have found out differences between those who score lower. Take for example, a college students who is asked to solve the following analogy problem.

Lawyer is to client as doctor is to:

(a) Patient or

(b) Medicine.

According to Sternberg’s theory a student presented with this analogy tends to move through a series of stages in attempting to reach a solution.

First she will encode to initial information this means providing each item with identifying these cues. These cues help to retrieve relevant information from long- term memory. For example, she may think of lawyer in terms of law school, a court room.

Next she will infer any possible relationship that a client employs a lawyer or that a lawyer gives service to a client. Once she has inferred the relationship she must map the higher order relationship between the first half of the analogy and the second half, both deal with people who provide professional services for a fee.

The important stage which comes next is application. Here she comes out with answer by comparing the relationship she has inferred. She decides that a doctor provides professional services to a patient not to medicine. Finally, the last component of solving the problem is responding. Therefore, problem-solving involves the following stages: (i) Encounter problem, (ii) Information processing and (iii) Stages in solving analogies (Sternberg).

Essay on the Distribution of Intelligence :

The distribution of intelligence is not equal among all human beings, it varies as in terms of health, wealth, beauty and similar attributes. The distribution of intelligence can be studied in terms of individual differences, changes in age, sex and in terms of social or cultural differences.

Classification of IQ :

In accordance with the individual’s mental level as expressed in terms of IQ, attempts have been made by different investigations to classify them under different categories.

In the revised Stanford Edition of the Terman Merit Test this classification has been presented as follows:

The area under the curve between scores corresponds to the percentage in population between those scores. The scores on this IQ bell curve are colour-coded in ‘standard deviation units’. A standard deviation is a measure of the spread of the distribution. 15 points is one standard deviation for most IQ tests.

Nearly 70% of the population score between 85 and 115, i.e. plus and minus one standard deviation. Avery small percentage of the population (about 0.1% or 1 in 1000) have scores less than 55 or greater than 145, i.e. more than 3 standard deviations out.

A critical insight from research over the past decade is that IQ is not a fixed, genetically determined attribute. An individual’s score on the bell curve is not static. Over time—weeks, months or years—an IQ level can change substantially. Here is a general information on evidence-based methods for how to increase IQ for long-term.

Essay on Individual Differences in Intelligence:

The assessment of intelligence by various tests have given enough reason to believe that not only intelligence does vary from individual to individual but it also tends to vary in the same individual from age to age and situation to situation.

1. Intelligence and Changes in Age:

As the child grows in age, so also intelligence does as shown by intelligence tests. And also the age at which growth ceases, varies from individual to individual. It tends to stabilize after the age of 10 years and is totally stabilized during adolescence.

In majority of cases, the growth of a person’s intelligence reaches its maximum sometime between the age of 16 and 20 years after which the vertical growth of intelligence almost ceases. But the horizontal growth, i.e. with respect to achievement the realization of the intelligence in terms of accommodation of knowledge and acquisition of skills, etc. may continue throughout an individual’s life.

2. Intelligence and Gender Difference:

Many studies conducted to know whether men are more intelligent than women, showed no significant differences. It may be, therefore, stated that differences in sex do not contribute towards difference in intelligence.

3. Intelligence and Racial or Cultural Differences:

A research process was done by the research workers to check whether a particular race, caste or cultural group is superior to another in intelligence, and has been established that intelligence is not the birth right of a particular race or group.

The bright and dull can be found in any race, caste or cultural group and the differences which are found can be the result of environmental factors and influences.

Thus we can consider the intelligence is normally distributed in nature, i.e. a product of both heredity and environment, it grows with age and its vertical growth stops at 16 to 20 years of age, it shows a wide variety of individual difference but factors like sex, race, culture, caste and colour, etc. are not found to be influencing the degree of intelligence.

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9.1 Defining and Measuring Intelligence

Learning objectives.

• Define intelligence and list the different types of intelligences psychologists study.
• Summarize the characteristics of a scientifically valid intelligence test.
• Outline the biological and environmental determinants of intelligence.

Psychologists have long debated how to best conceptualize and measure intelligence (Sternberg, 2003). These questions include how many types of intelligence there are, the role of nature versus nurture in intelligence, how intelligence is represented in the brain, and the meaning of group differences in intelligence.

General (g) Versus Specific (s) Intelligences

In the early 1900s, the French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–1914) and his colleague Henri Simon (1872–1961) began working in Paris to develop a measure that would differentiate students who were expected to be better learners from students who were expected to be slower learners. The goal was to help teachers better educate these two groups of students. Binet and Simon developed what most psychologists today regard as the first intelligence test, which consisted of a wide variety of questions that included the ability to name objects, define words, draw pictures, complete sentences, compare items, and construct sentences.

Binet and Simon (Binet, Simon, & Town, 1915; Siegler, 1992) believed that the questions they asked their students, even though they were on the surface dissimilar, all assessed the basic abilities to understand, reason, and make judgments. And it turned out that the correlations among these different types of measures were in fact all positive; students who got one item correct were more likely to also get other items correct, even though the questions themselves were very different.

On the basis of these results, the psychologist Charles Spearman (1863–1945) hypothesized that there must be a single underlying construct that all of these items measure. He called the construct that the different abilities and skills measured on intelligence tests have in common the general intelligence factor (g) . Virtually all psychologists now believe that there is a generalized intelligence factor, g, that relates to abstract thinking and that includes the abilities to acquire knowledge, to reason abstractly, to adapt to novel situations, and to benefit from instruction and experience (Gottfredson, 1997; Sternberg, 2003). People with higher general intelligence learn faster.

Soon after Binet and Simon introduced their test, the American psychologist Lewis Terman (1877–1956) developed an American version of Binet’s test that became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test . The Stanford-Binet is a measure of general intelligence made up of a wide variety of tasks including vocabulary, memory for pictures, naming of familiar objects, repeating sentences, and following commands.

Although there is general agreement among psychologists that g exists, there is also evidence for specific intelligence (s) , a measure of specific skills in narrow domains . One empirical result in support of the idea of s comes from intelligence tests themselves. Although the different types of questions do correlate with each other, some items correlate more highly with each other than do other items; they form clusters or clumps of intelligences.

One distinction is between fluid intelligence , which refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems and performing activities, and crystallized intelligence , which refers to the accumulated knowledge of the world we have acquired throughout our lives (Salthouse, 2004). These intelligences must be different because crystallized intelligence increases with age—older adults are as good as or better than young people in solving crossword puzzles—whereas fluid intelligence tends to decrease with age (Horn, Donaldson, & Engstrom, 1981; Salthouse, 2004).

Other researchers have proposed even more types of intelligences. L. L. Thurstone (1938) proposed that there were seven clusters of primary mental abilities , made up of word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory. But even these dimensions tend to be at least somewhat correlated, showing again the importance of g.

One advocate of the idea of multiple intelligences is the psychologist Robert Sternberg. Sternberg has proposed a triarchic (three-part) theory of intelligence that proposes that people may display more or less analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence . Sternberg (1985, 2003) argued that traditional intelligence tests assess analytical intelligence, the ability to answer problems with a single right answer, but that they do not well assess creativity (the ability to adapt to new situations and create new ideas) or practicality (e.g., the ability to write good memos or to effectively delegate responsibility).

As Sternberg proposed, research has found that creativity is not highly correlated with analytical intelligence (Furnham & Bachtiar, 2008), and exceptionally creative scientists, artists, mathematicians, and engineers do not score higher on intelligence than do their less creative peers (Simonton, 2000). Furthermore, the brain areas that are associated with convergent thinking , thinking that is directed toward finding the correct answer to a given problem, are different from those associated with divergent thinking , the ability to generate many different ideas for or solutions to a single problem (Tarasova, Volf, & Razoumnikova, 2010). On the other hand, being creative often takes some of the basic abilities measured by g, including the abilities to learn from experience, to remember information, and to think abstractly (Bink & Marsh, 2000).

Test your divergent thinking. How many uses for a paper clip can you think of?

Dead Hochman – paper clips – CC BY 2.0.

Studies of creative people suggest at least five components that are likely to be important for creativity:

• Expertise . Creative people have carefully studied and know a lot about the topic that they are working in. Creativity comes with a lot of hard work (Ericsson, 1998; Weisberg, 2006).
• Imaginative thinking . Creative people often view a problem in a visual way, allowing them to see it from a new and different point of view.
• Risk taking . Creative people are willing to take on new but potentially risky approaches.
• Intrinsic interest . Creative people tend to work on projects because they love doing them, not because they are paid for them. In fact, research has found that people who are paid to be creative are often less creative than those who are not (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010).
• Working in a creative environment . Creativity is in part a social phenomenon. Simonton (1992) found that the most creative people were supported, aided, and challenged by other people working on similar projects.

The last aspect of the triarchic model, practical intelligence, refers primarily to intelligence that cannot be gained from books or formal learning. Practical intelligence represents a type of “street smarts” or “common sense” that is learned from life experiences. Although a number of tests have been devised to measure practical intelligence (Sternberg, Wagner, & Okagaki, 1993; Wagner & Sternberg, 1985), research has not found much evidence that practical intelligence is distinct from g or that it is predictive of success at any particular tasks (Gottfredson, 2003). Practical intelligence may include, at least in part, certain abilities that help people perform well at specific jobs, and these abilities may not always be highly correlated with general intelligence (Sternberg, Wagner, & Okagaki, 1993). On the other hand, these abilities or skills are very specific to particular occupations and thus do not seem to represent the broader idea of intelligence.

Another champion of the idea of multiple intelligences is the psychologist Howard Gardner (1983, 1999). Gardner argued that it would be evolutionarily functional for different people to have different talents and skills, and proposed that there are eight intelligences that can be differentiated from each other ( Table 9.1 “Howard Gardner’s Eight Specific Intelligences” ). Gardner noted that some evidence for multiple intelligences comes from the abilities of autistic savants , people who score low on intelligence tests overall but who nevertheless may have exceptional skills in a given domain, such as math, music, art, or in being able to recite statistics in a given sport (Treffert & Wallace, 2004).

Table 9.1 Howard Gardner’s Eight Specific Intelligences

Source: Adapted from Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Although intelligence is often conceptualized in a general way (as the g factor), there is a variety of specific skills that can be useful for particular tasks.

Nayu Kim – Playing piano – CC BY 2.0; Helgi Halldórsson – Run faster, Jump higher – CC BY-SA 2.0; Thomas Hawk – Bahamian Clown – CC BY-NC 2.0; Sudipta Mallick – painter – CC BY 2.0; Blondinrikard Fröberg – Torsten, math teacher – CC BY 2.0.

The idea of multiple intelligences has been influential in the field of education, and teachers have used these ideas to try to teach differently to different students. For instance, to teach math problems to students who have particularly good kinesthetic intelligence, a teacher might encourage the students to move their bodies or hands according to the numbers. On the other hand, some have argued that these “intelligences” sometimes seem more like “abilities” or “talents” rather than real intelligence. And there is no clear conclusion about how many intelligences there are. Are sense of humor, artistic skills, dramatic skills, and so forth also separate intelligences? Furthermore, and again demonstrating the underlying power of a single intelligence, the many different intelligences are in fact correlated and thus represent, in part, g (Brody, 2003).

Measuring Intelligence: Standardization and the Intelligence Quotient

The goal of most intelligence tests is to measure g, the general intelligence factor. Good intelligence tests are reliable , meaning that they are consistent over time, and also demonstrate construct validity , meaning that they actually measure intelligence rather than something else. Because intelligence is such an important individual difference dimension, psychologists have invested substantial effort in creating and improving measures of intelligence, and these tests are now the most accurate of all psychological tests. In fact, the ability to accurately assess intelligence is one of the most important contributions of psychology to everyday public life.

Intelligence changes with age. A 3-year-old who could accurately multiply 183 by 39 would certainly be intelligent, but a 25-year-old who could not do so would be seen as unintelligent. Thus understanding intelligence requires that we know the norms or standards in a given population of people at a given age. The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of people at different ages and computing the average score on the test at each age level .

It is important that intelligence tests be standardized on a regular basis, because the overall level of intelligence in a population may change over time. The Flynn effect refers to the observation that scores on intelligence tests worldwide have increased substantially over the past decades (Flynn, 1999). Although the increase varies somewhat from country to country, the average increase is about 3 IQ points every 10 years. There are many explanations for the Flynn effect, including better nutrition, increased access to information, and more familiarity with multiple-choice tests (Neisser, 1998). But whether people are actually getting smarter is debatable (Neisser, 1997).

Once the standardization has been accomplished, we have a picture of the average abilities of people at different ages and can calculate a person’s mental age , which is the age at which a person is performing intellectually . If we compare the mental age of a person to the person’s chronological age, the result is the intelligence quotient (IQ) , a measure of intelligence that is adjusted for age . A simple way to calculate IQ is by using the following formula:

IQ = mental age ÷ chronological age × 100.

Thus a 10-year-old child who does as well as the average 10-year-old child has an IQ of 100 (10 ÷ 10 × 100), whereas an 8-year-old child who does as well as the average 10-year-old child would have an IQ of 125 (10 ÷ 8 × 100). Most modern intelligence tests are based the relative position of a person’s score among people of the same age, rather than on the basis of this formula, but the idea of an intelligence “ratio” or “quotient” provides a good description of the score’s meaning.

A number of scales are based on the IQ. The Wechsler Adult lntelligence Scale (WAIS) is the most widely used intelligence test for adults (Watkins, Campbell, Nieberding, & Hallmark, 1995). The current version of the WAIS, the WAIS-IV, was standardized on 2,200 people ranging from 16 to 90 years of age. It consists of 15 different tasks, each designed to assess intelligence, including working memory, arithmetic ability, spatial ability, and general knowledge about the world (see Figure 9.4 “Sample Items From the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)” ). The WAIS-IV yields scores on four domains: verbal, perceptual, working memory, and processing speed. The reliability of the test is high (more than 0.95), and it shows substantial construct validity. The WAIS-IV is correlated highly with other IQ tests such as the Stanford-Binet, as well as with criteria of academic and life success, including college grades, measures of work performance, and occupational level. It also shows significant correlations with measures of everyday functioning among the mentally retarded.

The Wechsler scale has also been adapted for preschool children in the form of the Wechsler Primary and Preschool Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-III) and for older children and adolescents in the form of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) .

Figure 9.4 Sample Items From the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

Source: Adapted from Thorndike, R. L., & Hagen, E. P. (1997). Cognitive Abilities Test (Form 5): Research handbook . Chicago, IL: Riverside Publishing.

The intelligence tests that you may be most familiar with are aptitude tests , which are designed to measure one’s ability to perform a given task, for instance, to do well in college or in postgraduate training. Most U.S. colleges and universities require students to take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT), and postgraduate schools require the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), or the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). These tests are useful for selecting students because they predict success in the programs that they are designed for, particularly in the first year of the program (Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones, 2010). These aptitude tests also measure, in part, intelligence. Frey and Detterman (2004) found that the SAT correlated highly (between about r = .7 and r = .8) with standard measures of intelligence.

Intelligence tests are also used by industrial and organizational psychologists in the process of personnel selection . Personnel selection is the use of structured tests to select people who are likely to perform well at given jobs (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). The psychologists begin by conducting a job analysis in which they determine what knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics ( KSAPs ) are required for a given job. This is normally accomplished by surveying and/or interviewing current workers and their supervisors. Based on the results of the job analysis, the psychologists choose selection methods that are most likely to be predictive of job performance. Measures include tests of cognitive and physical ability and job knowledge tests, as well as measures of IQ and personality.

The Biology of Intelligence

The brain processes underlying intelligence are not completely understood, but current research has focused on four potential factors: brain size, sensory ability, speed and efficience of neural transmission, and working memory capacity.

There is at least some truth to the idea that smarter people have bigger brains. Studies that have measured brain volume using neuroimaging techniques find that larger brain size is correlated with intelligence (McDaniel, 2005), and intelligence has also been found to be correlated with the number of neurons in the brain and with the thickness of the cortex (Haier, 2004; Shaw et al., 2006). It is important to remember that these correlational findings do not mean that having more brain volume causes higher intelligence. It is possible that growing up in a stimulating environment that rewards thinking and learning may lead to greater brain growth (Garlick, 2003), and it is also possible that a third variable, such as better nutrition, causes both brain volume and intelligence.

Another possibility is that the brains of more intelligent people operate faster or more efficiently than the brains of the less intelligent. Some evidence supporting this idea comes from data showing that people who are more intelligent frequently show less brain activity (suggesting that they need to use less capacity) than those with lower intelligence when they work on a task (Haier, Siegel, Tang, & Abel, 1992). And the brains of more intelligent people also seem to run faster than the brains of the less intelligent. Research has found that the speed with which people can perform simple tasks—such as determining which of two lines is longer or pressing, as quickly as possible, one of eight buttons that is lighted—is predictive of intelligence (Deary, Der, & Ford, 2001). Intelligence scores also correlate at about r = .5 with measures of working memory (Ackerman, Beier, & Boyle, 2005), and working memory is now used as a measure of intelligence on many tests.

Although intelligence is not located in a specific part of the brain, it is more prevalent in some brain areas than others. Duncan et al. (2000) administered a variety of intelligence tasks and observed the places in the cortex that were most active. Although different tests created different patterns of activation, as you can see in Figure 9.5 “Where Is Intelligence?” , these activated areas were primarily in the outer parts of the cortex, the area of the brain most involved in planning, executive control, and short-term memory.

Figure 9.5 Where Is Intelligence?

fMRI studies have found that the areas of the brain most related to intelligence are in the outer parts of the cortex.

Source: Adapted from Duncan, J., Seitz, R. J., Kolodny, J., Bor, D., Herzog, H., Ahmed, A.,…Emslie, H. (2000). A neural basis for general intelligence. Science, 289 (5478), 457–460.

Is Intelligence Nature or Nurture?

Intelligence has both genetic and environmental causes, and these have been systematically studied through a large number of twin and adoption studies (Neisser et al., 1996; Plomin, DeFries, Craig, & McGuffin, 2003). These studies have found that between 40% and 80% of the variability in IQ is due to genetics, meaning that overall genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals (Plomin & Spinath, 2004). The IQs of identical twins correlate very highly ( r = .86), much higher than do the scores of fraternal twins who are less genetically similar ( r = .60). And the correlations between the IQs of parents and their biological children ( r = .42) is significantly greater than the correlation between parents and adopted children ( r = .19). The role of genetics gets stronger as children get older. The intelligence of very young children (less than 3 years old) does not predict adult intelligence, but by age 7 it does, and IQ scores remain very stable in adulthood (Deary, Whiteman, Starr, Whalley, & Fox, 2004).

But there is also evidence for the role of nurture, indicating that individuals are not born with fixed, unchangeable levels of intelligence. Twins raised together in the same home have more similar IQs than do twins who are raised in different homes, and fraternal twins have more similar IQs than do nontwin siblings, which is likely due to the fact that they are treated more similarly than are siblings.

The fact that intelligence becomes more stable as we get older provides evidence that early environmental experiences matter more than later ones. Environmental factors also explain a greater proportion of the variance in intelligence for children from lower-class households than they do for children from upper-class households (Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron, D’Onofrio, & Gottesman, 2003). This is because most upper-class households tend to provide a safe, nutritious, and supporting environment for children, whereas these factors are more variable in lower-class households.

Social and economic deprivation can adversely affect IQ. Children from households in poverty have lower IQs than do children from households with more resources even when other factors such as education, race, and parenting are controlled (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997). Poverty may lead to diets that are undernourishing or lacking in appropriate vitamins, and poor children may also be more likely to be exposed to toxins such as lead in drinking water, dust, or paint chips (Bellinger & Needleman, 2003). Both of these factors can slow brain development and reduce intelligence.

If impoverished environments can harm intelligence, we might wonder whether enriched environments can improve it. Government-funded after-school programs such as Head Start are designed to help children learn. Research has found that attending such programs may increase intelligence for a short time, but these increases rarely last after the programs end (McLoyd, 1998; Perkins & Grotzer, 1997). But other studies suggest that Head Start and similar programs may improve emotional intelligence and reduce the likelihood that children will drop out of school or be held back a grade (Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann 2001).

Intelligence is improved by education; the number of years a person has spent in school correlates at about r = .6 with IQ (Ceci, 1991). In part this correlation may be due to the fact that people with higher IQ scores enjoy taking classes more than people with low IQ scores, and they thus are more likely to stay in school. But education also has a causal effect on IQ. Comparisons between children who are almost exactly the same age but who just do or just do not make a deadline for entering school in a given school year show that those who enter school a year earlier have higher IQ than those who have to wait until the next year to begin school (Baltes & Reinert, 1969; Ceci & Williams, 1997). Children’s IQs tend to drop significantly during summer vacations (Huttenlocher, Levine, & Vevea, 1998), a finding that suggests that a longer school year, as is used in Europe and East Asia, is beneficial.

It is important to remember that the relative roles of nature and nurture can never be completely separated. A child who has higher than average intelligence will be treated differently than a child who has lower than average intelligence, and these differences in behaviors will likely amplify initial differences. This means that modest genetic differences can be multiplied into big differences over time.

Psychology in Everyday Life: Emotional Intelligence

Although most psychologists have considered intelligence a cognitive ability, people also use their emotions to help them solve problems and relate effectively to others. Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to accurately identify, assess, and understand emotions, as well as to effectively control one’s own emotions (Feldman-Barrett & Salovey, 2002; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000).

The idea of emotional intelligence is seen in Howard Gardner’s interpersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand the emotions, intentions, motivations, and desires of other people) and intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand oneself, including one’s emotions). Public interest in, and research on, emotional intellgence became widely prevalent following the publication of Daniel Goleman’s best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (Goleman, 1998).

There are a variety of measures of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008; Petrides & Furnham, 2000). One popular measure, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test ( http://www.emotionaliq.org ), includes items about the ability to understand, experience, and manage emotions, such as these:

• What mood(s) might be helpful to feel when meeting in-laws for the very first time?
• Tom felt anxious and became a bit stressed when he thought about all the work he needed to do. When his supervisor brought him an additional project, he felt ____ (fill in the blank).

Contempt most closely combines which two emotions?

• anger and fear
• fear and surprise
• disgust and anger
• surprise and disgust

Debbie just came back from vacation. She was feeling peaceful and content. How well would each of the following actions help her preserve her good mood?

• Action 1: She started to make a list of things at home that she needed to do.
• Action 2: She began thinking about where and when she would go on her next vacation.
• Action 3: She decided it was best to ignore the feeling since it wouldn’t last anyway.

One problem with emotional intelligence tests is that they often do not show a great deal of reliability or construct validity (Føllesdal & Hagtvet, 2009).Although it has been found that people with higher emotional intelligence are also healthier (Martins, Ramalho, & Morin, 2010), findings are mixed about whether emotional intelligence predicts life success—for instance, job performance (Harms & Credé, 2010). Furthermore, other researchers have questioned the construct validity of the measures, arguing that emotional intelligence really measures knowledge about what emotions are, but not necessarily how to use those emotions (Brody, 2004), and that emotional intelligence is actually a personality trait, a part of g, or a skill that can be applied in some specific work situations—for instance, academic and work situations (Landy, 2005).

Although measures of the ability to understand, experience, and manage emotions may not predict effective behaviors, another important aspect of emotional intelligence— emotion regulation —does. Emotion regulation refers to the ability to control and productively use one’s emotions. Research has found that people who are better able to override their impulses to seek immediate gratification and who are less impulsive also have higher cognitive and social intelligence. They have better SAT scores, are rated by their friends as more socially adept, and cope with frustration and stress better than those with less skill at emotion regulation (Ayduk et al., 2000; Eigsti et al., 2006; Mischel & Ayduk, 2004).

Because emotional intelligence seems so important, many school systems have designed programs to teach it to their students. However, the effectiveness of these programs has not been rigorously tested, and we do not yet know whether emotional intelligence can be taught, or if learning it would improve the quality of people’s lives (Mayer & Cobb, 2000).

Key Takeaways

• Intelligence is the ability to think, to learn from experience, to solve problems, and to adapt to new situations. Intelligence is important because it has an impact on many human behaviors.
• Psychologists believe that there is a construct that accounts for the overall differences in intelligence among people, known as general intelligence (g).
• There is also evidence for specific intelligences (s), measures of specific skills in narrow domains, including creativity and practical intelligence.
• The intelligence quotient (IQ) is a measure of intelligence that is adjusted for age. The Wechsler Adult lntelligence Scale (WAIS) is the most widely used IQ test for adults.
• Brain volume, speed of neural transmission, and working memory capacity are related to IQ.
• Between 40% and 80% of the variability in IQ is due to genetics, meaning that overall genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals.
• Intelligence is improved by education and may be hindered by environmental factors such as poverty.
• Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify, assess, manage, and control one’s emotions. People who are better able to regulate their behaviors and emotions are also more successful in their personal and social encounters.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

• Consider your own IQ. Are you smarter than the average person? What specific intelligences do you think you excel in?
• Did your parents try to improve your intelligence? Do you think their efforts were successful?
• Consider the meaning of the Flynn effect. Do you think people are really getting smarter?
• Give some examples of how emotional intelligence (or the lack of it) influences your everyday life and the lives of other people you know.

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8.1: Defining and Measuring Intelligence

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Learning Objectives

• Define intelligence and list the different types of intelligences psychologists study.
• Summarize the characteristics of a scientifically valid intelligence test.
• Outline the biological and environmental determinants of intelligence.

Psychologists have long debated how to best conceptualize and measure intelligence (Sternberg, 2003). These questions include how many types of intelligence there are, the role of nature versus nurture in intelligence, how intelligence is represented in the brain, and the meaning of group differences in intelligence.

General (g) Versus Specific (s) Intelligences

In the early 1900s, the French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–1914) and his colleague Henri Simon (1872–1961) began working in Paris to develop a measure that would differentiate students who were expected to be better learners from students who were expected to be slower learners. The goal was to help teachers better educate these two groups of students. Binet and Simon developed what most psychologists today regard as the first intelligence test, which consisted of a wide variety of questions that included the ability to name objects, define words, draw pictures, complete sentences, compare items, and construct sentences.

Binet and Simon (Binet, Simon, & Town, 1915; Siegler, 1992) believed that the questions they asked their students, even though they were on the surface dissimilar, all assessed the basic abilities to understand, reason, and make judgments. And it turned out that the correlations among these different types of measures were in fact all positive; students who got one item correct were more likely to also get other items correct, even though the questions themselves were very different.

On the basis of these results, the psychologist Charles Spearman (1863–1945) hypothesized that there must be a single underlying construct that all of these items measure. He called the construct that the different abilities and skills measured on intelligence tests have in common the general intelligence factor (g). Virtually all psychologists now believe that there is a generalized intelligence factor, g, that relates to abstract thinking and that includes the abilities to acquire knowledge, to reason abstractly, to adapt to novel situations, and to benefit from instruction and experience (Gottfredson, 1997; Sternberg, 2003). People with higher general intelligence learn faster.

Soon after Binet and Simon introduced their test, the American psychologist Lewis Terman (1877–1956) developed an American version of Binet’s test that became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test . The Stanford-Binet is a measure of general intelligence made up of a wide variety of tasks including vocabulary, memory for pictures, naming of familiar objects, repeating sentences, and following commands.

Although there is general agreement among psychologists that g exists, there is also evidence for specific intelligence (s), a measure of specific skills in narrow domains . One empirical result in support of the idea of s comes from intelligence tests themselves. Although the different types of questions do correlate with each other, some items correlate more highly with each other than do other items; they form clusters or clumps of intelligences.

One distinction is between fluid intelligence , which refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems and performing activities, and crystallized intelligence , which refers to the accumulated knowledge of the world we have acquired throughout our lives (Salthouse, 2004). These intelligences must be different because crystallized intelligence increases with age—older adults are as good as or better than young people in solving crossword puzzles—whereas fluid intelligence tends to decrease with age (Horn, Donaldson, & Engstrom, 1981; Salthouse, 2004).

Other researchers have proposed even more types of intelligences. L. L. Thurstone (1938) proposed that there were seven clusters of primary mental abilities , made up of word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory. But even these dimensions tend to be at least somewhat correlated, showing again the importance of g.

One advocate of the idea of multiple intelligences is the psychologist Robert Sternberg. Sternberg has proposed a triarchic (three-part) theory of intelligence that proposes that people may display more or less analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence . Sternberg (1985, 2003) argued that traditional intelligence tests assess analytical intelligence, the ability to answer problems with a single right answer, but that they do not well assess creativity (the ability to adapt to new situations and create new ideas) or practicality (e.g., the ability to write good memos or to effectively delegate responsibility).

As Sternberg proposed, research has found that creativity is not highly correlated with analytical intelligence (Furnham & Bachtiar, 2008), and exceptionally creative scientists, artists, mathematicians, and engineers do not score higher on intelligence than do their less creative peers (Simonton, 2000). Furthermore, the brain areas that are associated with convergent thinking , thinking that is directed toward finding the correct answer to a given problem, are different from those associated with divergent thinking , the ability to generate many different ideas for or solutions to a single problem (Tarasova, Volf, & Razoumnikova, 2010). On the other hand, being creative often takes some of the basic abilities measured by g, including the abilities to learn from experience, to remember information, and to think abstractly (Bink & Marsh, 2000).

Studies of creative people suggest at least five components that are likely to be important for creativity:

• Expertise . Creative people have carefully studied and know a lot about the topic that they are working in. Creativity comes with a lot of hard work (Ericsson, 1998; Weisberg, 2006).
• Imaginative thinking . Creative people often view a problem in a visual way, allowing them to see it from a new and different point of view.
• Risk taking . Creative people are willing to take on new but potentially risky approaches.
• Intrinsic interest . Creative people tend to work on projects because they love doing them, not because they are paid for them. In fact, research has found that people who are paid to be creative are often less creative than those who are not (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010).
• Working in a creative environment . Creativity is in part a social phenomenon. Simonton (1992) found that the most creative people were supported, aided, and challenged by other people working on similar projects.

The last aspect of the triarchic model, practical intelligence, refers primarily to intelligence that cannot be gained from books or formal learning. Practical intelligence represents a type of “street smarts” or “common sense” that is learned from life experiences. Although a number of tests have been devised to measure practical intelligence (Sternberg, Wagner, & Okagaki, 1993; Wagner & Sternberg, 1985), research has not found much evidence that practical intelligence is distinct from g or that it is predictive of success at any particular tasks (Gottfredson, 2003). Practical intelligence may include, at least in part, certain abilities that help people perform well at specific jobs, and these abilities may not always be highly correlated with general intelligence (Sternberg, Wagner, & Okagaki, 1993). On the other hand, these abilities or skills are very specific to particular occupations and thus do not seem to represent the broader idea of intelligence.

Another champion of the idea of multiple intelligences is the psychologist Howard Gardner (1983, 1999). Gardner argued that it would be evolutionarily functional for different people to have different talents and skills, and proposed that there are eight intelligences that can be differentiated from each other (Table \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Gardner noted that some evidence for multiple intelligences comes from the abilities of autistic savants , people who score low on intelligence tests overall but who nevertheless may have exceptional skills in a given domain, such as math, music, art, or in being able to recite statistics in a given sport (Treffert & Wallace, 2004).

Source: Adapted from Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century . New York, NY: Basic Books.

The idea of multiple intelligences has been influential in the field of education, and teachers have used these ideas to try to teach differently to different students. For instance, to teach math problems to students who have particularly good kinesthetic intelligence, a teacher might encourage the students to move their bodies or hands according to the numbers. On the other hand, some have argued that these “intelligences” sometimes seem more like “abilities” or “talents” rather than real intelligence. And there is no clear conclusion about how many intelligences there are. Are sense of humor, artistic skills, dramatic skills, and so forth also separate intelligences? Furthermore, and again demonstrating the underlying power of a single intelligence, the many different intelligences are in fact correlated and thus represent, in part, g (Brody, 2003).

Measuring Intelligence: Standardization and the Intelligence Quotient

The goal of most intelligence tests is to measure g, the general intelligence factor. Good intelligence tests are reliable , meaning that they are consistent over time, and also demonstrate construct validity , meaning that they actually measure intelligence rather than something else. Because intelligence is such an important individual difference dimension, psychologists have invested substantial effort in creating and improving measures of intelligence, and these tests are now the most accurate of all psychological tests. In fact, the ability to accurately assess intelligence is one of the most important contributions of psychology to everyday public life.

Intelligence changes with age. A 3-year-old who could accurately multiply 183 by 39 would certainly be intelligent, but a 25-year-old who could not do so would be seen as unintelligent. Thus understanding intelligence requires that we know the norms or standards in a given population of people at a given age. The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of people at different ages and computing the average score on the test at each age level .

It is important that intelligence tests be standardized on a regular basis, because the overall level of intelligence in a population may change over time. The Flynn effect refers to the observation that scores on intelligence tests worldwide have increased substantially over the past decades (Flynn, 1999). Although the increase varies somewhat from country to country, the average increase is about 3 IQ points every 10 years. There are many explanations for the Flynn effect, including better nutrition, increased access to information, and more familiarity with multiple-choice tests (Neisser, 1998). But whether people are actually getting smarter is debatable (Neisser, 1997).

Once the standardization has been accomplished, we have a picture of the average abilities of people at different ages and can calculate a person’s mental age, which is the age at which a person is performing intellectually . If we compare the mental age of a person to the person’s chronological age, the result is the intelligence quotient (IQ), a measure of intelligence that is adjusted for age . A simple way to calculate IQ is by using the following formula:

IQ = mental age ÷ chronological age × 100.

Thus a 10-year-old child who does as well as the average 10-year-old child has an IQ of 100 (10 ÷ 10 × 100), whereas an 8-year-old child who does as well as the average 10-year-old child would have an IQ of 125 (10 ÷ 8 × 100). Most modern intelligence tests are based the relative position of a person’s score among people of the same age, rather than on the basis of this formula, but the idea of an intelligence “ratio” or “quotient” provides a good description of the score’s meaning.

A number of scales are based on the IQ. The Wechsler Adult lntelligence Scale (WAIS) is the most widely used intelligence test for adults (Watkins, Campbell, Nieberding, & Hallmark, 1995). The current version of the WAIS, the WAIS-IV, was standardized on 2,200 people ranging from 16 to 90 years of age. It consists of 15 different tasks, each designed to assess intelligence, including working memory, arithmetic ability, spatial ability, and general knowledge about the world (Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\)). The WAIS-IV yields scores on four domains: verbal, perceptual, working memory, and processing speed. The reliability of the test is high (more than 0.95), and it shows substantial construct validity. The WAIS-IV is correlated highly with other IQ tests such as the Stanford-Binet, as well as with criteria of academic and life success, including college grades, measures of work performance, and occupational level. It also shows significant correlations with measures of everyday functioning among the mentally retarded.

The Wechsler scale has also been adapted for preschool children in the form of the Wechsler Primary and Preschool Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-III) and for older children and adolescents in the form of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) .

The intelligence tests that you may be most familiar with are aptitude tests , which are designed to measure one’s ability to perform a given task, for instance, to do well in college or in postgraduate training. Most U.S. colleges and universities require students to take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT), and postgraduate schools require the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), or the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). These tests are useful for selecting students because they predict success in the programs that they are designed for, particularly in the first year of the program (Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones, 2010). These aptitude tests also measure, in part, intelligence. Frey and Detterman (2004) found that the SAT correlated highly (between about r = .7 and r = .8) with standard measures of intelligence.

Intelligence tests are also used by industrial and organizational psychologists in the process of personnel selection . Personnel selection is the use of structured tests to select people who are likely to perform well at given jobs (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). The psychologists begin by conducting a job analysis in which they determine what knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics ( KSAPs ) are required for a given job. This is normally accomplished by surveying and/or interviewing current workers and their supervisors. Based on the results of the job analysis, the psychologists choose selection methods that are most likely to be predictive of job performance. Measures include tests of cognitive and physical ability and job knowledge tests, as well as measures of IQ and personality.

The Biology of Intelligence

The brain processes underlying intelligence are not completely understood, but current research has focused on four potential factors: brain size, sensory ability, speed and efficience of neural transmission, and working memory capacity.

There is at least some truth to the idea that smarter people have bigger brains. Studies that have measured brain volume using neuroimaging techniques find that larger brain size is correlated with intelligence (McDaniel, 2005), and intelligence has also been found to be correlated with the number of neurons in the brain and with the thickness of the cortex (Haier, 2004; Shaw et al., 2006). It is important to remember that these correlational findings do not mean that having more brain volume causes higher intelligence. It is possible that growing up in a stimulating environment that rewards thinking and learning may lead to greater brain growth (Garlick, 2003), and it is also possible that a third variable, such as better nutrition, causes both brain volume and intelligence.

Another possibility is that the brains of more intelligent people operate faster or more efficiently than the brains of the less intelligent. Some evidence supporting this idea comes from data showing that people who are more intelligent frequently show less brain activity (suggesting that they need to use less capacity) than those with lower intelligence when they work on a task (Haier, Siegel, Tang, & Abel, 1992). And the brains of more intelligent people also seem to run faster than the brains of the less intelligent. Research has found that the speed with which people can perform simple tasks—such as determining which of two lines is longer or pressing, as quickly as possible, one of eight buttons that is lighted—is predictive of intelligence (Deary, Der, & Ford, 2001). Intelligence scores also correlate at about r = .5 with measures of working memory (Ackerman, Beier, & Boyle, 2005), and working memory is now used as a measure of intelligence on many tests.

Although intelligence is not located in a specific part of the brain, it is more prevalent in some brain areas than others. Duncan et al. (2000) administered a variety of intelligence tasks and observed the places in the cortex that were most active. Although different tests created different patterns of activation, as you can see in Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\), these activated areas were primarily in the outer parts of the cortex, the area of the brain most involved in planning, executive control, and short-term memory.

Is Intelligence Nature or Nurture?

Intelligence has both genetic and environmental causes, and these have been systematically studied through a large number of twin and adoption studies (Neisser et al., 1996; Plomin, DeFries, Craig, & McGuffin, 2003). These studies have found that between 40% and 80% of the variability in IQ is due to genetics, meaning that overall genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals (Plomin & Spinath, 2004). The IQs of identical twins correlate very highly ( r = .86), much higher than do the scores of fraternal twins who are less genetically similar ( r = .60). And the correlations between the IQs of parents and their biological children ( r = .42) is significantly greater than the correlation between parents and adopted children ( r = .19). The role of genetics gets stronger as children get older. The intelligence of very young children (less than 3 years old) does not predict adult intelligence, but by age 7 it does, and IQ scores remain very stable in adulthood (Deary, Whiteman, Starr, Whalley, & Fox, 2004).

But there is also evidence for the role of nurture, indicating that individuals are not born with fixed, unchangeable levels of intelligence. Twins raised together in the same home have more similar IQs than do twins who are raised in different homes, and fraternal twins have more similar IQs than do nontwin siblings, which is likely due to the fact that they are treated more similarly than are siblings.

The fact that intelligence becomes more stable as we get older provides evidence that early environmental experiences matter more than later ones. Environmental factors also explain a greater proportion of the variance in intelligence for children from lower-class households than they do for children from upper-class households (Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron, D’Onofrio, & Gottesman, 2003). This is because most upper-class households tend to provide a safe, nutritious, and supporting environment for children, whereas these factors are more variable in lower-class households.

Social and economic deprivation can adversely affect IQ. Children from households in poverty have lower IQs than do children from households with more resources even when other factors such as education, race, and parenting are controlled (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997). Poverty may lead to diets that are undernourishing or lacking in appropriate vitamins, and poor children may also be more likely to be exposed to toxins such as lead in drinking water, dust, or paint chips (Bellinger & Needleman, 2003). Both of these factors can slow brain development and reduce intelligence.

If impoverished environments can harm intelligence, we might wonder whether enriched environments can improve it. Government-funded after-school programs such as Head Start are designed to help children learn. Research has found that attending such programs may increase intelligence for a short time, but these increases rarely last after the programs end (McLoyd, 1998; Perkins & Grotzer, 1997). But other studies suggest that Head Start and similar programs may improve emotional intelligence and reduce the likelihood that children will drop out of school or be held back a grade (Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann 2001).

Intelligence is improved by education; the number of years a person has spent in school correlates at about r = .6 with IQ (Ceci, 1991). In part this correlation may be due to the fact that people with higher IQ scores enjoy taking classes more than people with low IQ scores, and they thus are more likely to stay in school. But education also has a causal effect on IQ. Comparisons between children who are almost exactly the same age but who just do or just do not make a deadline for entering school in a given school year show that those who enter school a year earlier have higher IQ than those who have to wait until the next year to begin school (Baltes & Reinert, 1969; Ceci & Williams, 1997). Children’s IQs tend to drop significantly during summer vacations (Huttenlocher, Levine, & Vevea, 1998), a finding that suggests that a longer school year, as is used in Europe and East Asia, is beneficial.

It is important to remember that the relative roles of nature and nurture can never be completely separated. A child who has higher than average intelligence will be treated differently than a child who has lower than average intelligence, and these differences in behaviors will likely amplify initial differences. This means that modest genetic differences can be multiplied into big differences over time.

Psychology in Everyday Life: Emotional Intelligence

Although most psychologists have considered intelligence a cognitive ability, people also use their emotions to help them solve problems and relate effectively to others. Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to accurately identify, assess, and understand emotions, as well as to effectively control one’s own emotions (Feldman-Barrett & Salovey, 2002; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000).

The idea of emotional intelligence is seen in Howard Gardner’s interpersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand the emotions, intentions, motivations, and desires of other people) and intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand oneself, including one’s emotions). Public interest in, and research on, emotional intellgence became widely prevalent following the publication of Daniel Goleman’s best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (Goleman, 1998).

There are a variety of measures of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008; Petrides & Furnham, 2000). One popular measure, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test ( http://www.emotionaliq.org ), includes items about the ability to understand, experience, and manage emotions, such as these:

• What mood(s) might be helpful to feel when meeting in-laws for the very first time?
• Tom felt anxious and became a bit stressed when he thought about all the work he needed to do. When his supervisor brought him an additional project, he felt ____ (fill in the blank).
• anger and fear
• fear and surprise
• disgust and anger
• surprise and disgust
• Action 1: She started to make a list of things at home that she needed to do.
• Action 2: She began thinking about where and when she would go on her next vacation.
• Action 3: She decided it was best to ignore the feeling since it wouldn’t last anyway.

One problem with emotional intelligence tests is that they often do not show a great deal of reliability or construct validity (Føllesdal & Hagtvet, 2009).Although it has been found that people with higher emotional intelligence are also healthier (Martins, Ramalho, & Morin, 2010), findings are mixed about whether emotional intelligence predicts life success—for instance, job performance (Harms & Credé, 2010). Furthermore, other researchers have questioned the construct validity of the measures, arguing that emotional intelligence really measures knowledge about what emotions are, but not necessarily how to use those emotions (Brody, 2004), and that emotional intelligence is actually a personality trait, a part of g, or a skill that can be applied in some specific work situations—for instance, academic and work situations (Landy, 2005).

Although measures of the ability to understand, experience, and manage emotions may not predict effective behaviors, another important aspect of emotional intelligence— emotion regulation —does. Emotion regulation refers to the ability to control and productively use one’s emotions. Research has found that people who are better able to override their impulses to seek immediate gratification and who are less impulsive also have higher cognitive and social intelligence. They have better SAT scores, are rated by their friends as more socially adept, and cope with frustration and stress better than those with less skill at emotion regulation (Ayduk et al., 2000; Eigsti et al., 2006; Mischel & Ayduk, 2004).

Because emotional intelligence seems so important, many school systems have designed programs to teach it to their students. However, the effectiveness of these programs has not been rigorously tested, and we do not yet know whether emotional intelligence can be taught, or if learning it would improve the quality of people’s lives (Mayer & Cobb, 2000).

Key Takeaways

• Intelligence is the ability to think, to learn from experience, to solve problems, and to adapt to new situations. Intelligence is important because it has an impact on many human behaviors.
• Psychologists believe that there is a construct that accounts for the overall differences in intelligence among people, known as general intelligence (g).
• There is also evidence for specific intelligences (s), measures of specific skills in narrow domains, including creativity and practical intelligence.
• The intelligence quotient (IQ) is a measure of intelligence that is adjusted for age. The Wechsler Adult lntelligence Scale (WAIS) is the most widely used IQ test for adults.
• Brain volume, speed of neural transmission, and working memory capacity are related to IQ.
• Between 40% and 80% of the variability in IQ is due to genetics, meaning that overall genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals.
• Intelligence is improved by education and may be hindered by environmental factors such as poverty.
• Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify, assess, manage, and control one’s emotions. People who are better able to regulate their behaviors and emotions are also more successful in their personal and social encounters.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

• Consider your own IQ. Are you smarter than the average person? What specific intelligences do you think you excel in?
• Did your parents try to improve your intelligence? Do you think their efforts were successful?
• Consider the meaning of the Flynn effect. Do you think people are really getting smarter?
• Give some examples of how emotional intelligence (or the lack of it) influences your everyday life and the lives of other people you know.

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Can we define Intelligence?

Richard Haier, James R. Flynn, Robert J. Sternberg

Participants:

James R. Flynn,  University of Otago , New Zealand

Richard Haier, University of California , Irvine

Robert Sternberg,  Cornell University , New York

Can We Define Intelligence?

James r. flynn:.

Jensen rejected the concept of intelligence because it attracted no consensus and could not be directly measured. He was mistaken:  we have to define intelligence on two levels.  Scientific theories do need mathematically measured concepts so we can verify whether IQ scores predict school achievement, job eligibility, and so forth. Competing theories (like Sternberg’s) offer a test score that may make better predictions (by including items about practical intelligence (how to write a reference) and creativity (write an essay on the octopus’s sneakers).

Over and above these scientific measures of intelligence stands a general concept whose role is not to make predictions but to put all intelligence tests into context. My definition of intelligence on that level runs thus:  determine the hierarchy of cognitive problems that a particular time and place wants you to solve in order of priority; see which person learns to solve those problems better or faster given equal opportunity.  For example, Australian aborigines put the sort of logical analysis we use in schools well down compared to map reading (need it to avoid dying of thirst).  Americans in 1900 (who had little schooling) put it below the practical intelligence you need to run a farm or do a factory job.  Any test must measure these abilities in order of priority, so none would bridge cultural divides.

Europeans tried to produce a culturally reduced test to compare all cultures (Raven’s Progressive Matrices).  My research (massive IQ gains over time) showed that it was more culturally sensitive than any other test because it tests school-type logic.  In Holland, the average Raven’s score was 80 in 1952 compared to 100 in 1982.  This did not mean that the average Dutchman of 1952 was close to mental retardation.  Over 30 years, Holland had re-prioritized the cognitive problems considered significant.

Intelligence is the ability to think analytically, creatively, practically, and wisely so as to learn from experience and adapt to, shape, and select environments. – Robert Sternberg   

Robert Sternberg:

Analytical thinking is what you use when you analyse, compare and contrast, critique, judge, or evaluate.  Creative thinking is what you use when you create, invent, discover, imagine, or suppose.  Practical thinking is what you use when you put into practice, apply, use, utilize, or contextualise.  For example, when you try to convince someone else that an idea you have is a good one, you use creative skills to come up with the idea, analytical skills to make sure the idea is indeed a good one, practical skills to put the idea into practice, and wisdom-based skills to ensure the ideas help to achieve some kind of good, over the long-term as well as the short-term, through the mediation of positive ethical values.

Adaptation occurs when a person changes him or herself to fit the environment.  When that does not work, people often move to shaping, which involves changing the environment better to suit oneself; and if that still does not work, one may choose to select a new environment.

In my own theory of successful intelligence, I emphasize the unique nature of each person’s intelligence.  Intelligence involves formulating a plan for one’s life that fits oneself and the environment in which one does or can live; executing that plan; and then evaluating how well it is working and changing the plan as needed.  A smart person, on this view, is someone who creates the best possible life for him or herself, given the constraints of the environment.  The person recognizes his or her strengths and weaknesses, and then capitalizes on the strengths and compensates for or corrects the weaknesses.  People do not have complete control over their lives, but they need to use what control they have to create the best possible life—that’s what intelligence really is about.

Richard Haier:

Intelligence is the opposite of stupidity. If stupidity was a designated disease, we might have a National Institute of Stupidity to fund research on a cause and a cure. This would fund intelligence research. Most intelligence researchers define intelligence as a set of mental abilities (factors) that includes a general ability for problem solving. This is called the general factor of intelligence ( g ) and it is strongly related to another factor called fluid intelligence. The g -factor accounts for at least half the differences among people on intelligence tests and it is the focus of most intelligence research. However, there are other important intelligence factors like verbal ability, numerical ability, and spatial ability. Every person has their own pattern of mental ability strengths and weaknesses but the g -factor is the most predictive of academic and life success indicators like GPA or income. Some researchers, like my friend Bob Sternberg, question whether g is in fact the most important factor or best predictor of real world variables and this is a good debate. Other researchers study how g might develop and how malleable it might be. However, debates about these questions do not mean there is no agreement on how to define intelligence for scientific study. There is agreement enough for over a hundred years of research progress. The definition evolves as more empirical findings are discovered. This what happens in all scientific fields and why the definition of an “atom” or a “gene” has changed dramatically over time. In my view, we may have a more precise definition of intelligence as neuroscience studies of mental abilities advance. That’s a theme of my book.

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————————————————————————————————————-

Week 1 – Can We Define Intelligence?

Week 2 – What role does neuroscience play in understanding intelligence and our capacity to learn?

Week 3 – What role do IQ tests play in measuring intelligence?

Week 4 – How are technological advances, access to instant information and media forces affecting human intelligence?

Week 5 – How can current research inform the development of new methods to assess intelligence?

Week 6 – What does the future hold in the research of intelligence? How much smarter will we be in 100 years’ time?

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About The Authors

Richard Haier

Richard J. Haier earned is Professor Emeritus at the University of California and author of The Neuroscience of Intelligence....

James R. Flynn

James R. Flynn is the author of Does Your Family Make You Smarter? He is professor emeritus at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and a recipient of the University's Gold Medal ...

Robert J. Sternberg

Robert J. Sternberg is Professor of Human Development at Cornell University, New York. Formerly, he was IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University, Connecticut. H...

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Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn)

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Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction describes what psychologists have discovered about how and why people differ in their thinking powers. Drawing on large-scale data, it considers how many types of intelligence there are and how intelligence changes with age. It also tackles some of the most burning questions surrounding intelligence, such as whether larger brains are cleverer, and how genes and environments contribute to people’s intelligence differences. It considers the new field of cognitive epidemiology, which draws links between intelligence and better health, less illness, and longer life, and asks whether intelligence is increasing. In this new edition, the controversial question of whether men and women differ in intelligence is also addressed.

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The Concept of Intelligence Essay

Intelligence is hard to define and quantify like any other abstract notion. Identifying the person’s educational level or even skill and knowledge in one field is relatively easier. However, intelligence is more abstract and measures the understanding of new knowledge and applying it to the environment. Gardner tries to explain and define intelligence in his theory of multiple intelligence. Gardner believes people are not born with intelligence and develop its various forms over time. According to Gardner, these numerous forms are linguistic, logical and mathematical, interpersonal, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, intrapersonal, and naturalist (Alsalhi, 2020). He even anticipates that spiritual, existential, and moral forms of intelligence are possible.

Gardner’s definition challenges the previous tradition of evaluating intelligence based on the educational level. Gardner claims that the educational system and society generally value linguistic, logical, and mathematical intelligence relatively higher than any other type (Ferrero, 2021). This effect leads to misjudging the levels of intelligence in the individuals who possess different, less valued types of intelligence. This focus on linguistic, logical, and mathematical intelligence disadvantages other students who developed various types of intelligence. According to Abenti (2020), this phenomenon requires an individualistic approach to teaching and learning, which accounts for students’ unique needs and abilities. This new teaching approach contrasts the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach to education.

Gardner’s definition of intelligence changed my outlook on my abilities and that of other people. I used to be always uncertain about my intelligence based on my past academic experiences. However, now, I recognize different sides of my intelligence and skills, I must prioritize and develop alongside my academic prowess. Moreover, I realize my past misjudgment of the intelligence levels of other people. Thus, as a future member of the academic community, I must integrate the implications of Gardener’s theory of multiple intelligence into my toolkit: from how I judge others to how I guide them.

Abenti, H. F. (2020). How do I teach you? An examination of multiple intelligences and the impact on communication in the classroom. Language & Communication , 73 , 29-33.

Alsalhi, N. R. I. (2020). The representation of multiple intelligences in the science textbook and the extent of awareness of science teachers at the intermediate stage of this theory. Thinking Skills and Creativity , 38 , 100706.

Ferrero, M., Vadillo, M. A., & León, S. P. (2021). A valid evaluation of the theory of multiple intelligences is not yet possible: Problems of methodological quality for intervention studies . Intelligence , 88 , 101566.

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IvyPanda. (2023, June 13). The Concept of Intelligence. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concept-of-intelligence/

"The Concept of Intelligence." IvyPanda , 13 June 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/the-concept-of-intelligence/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Concept of Intelligence'. 13 June.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Concept of Intelligence." June 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concept-of-intelligence/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Concept of Intelligence." June 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concept-of-intelligence/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Concept of Intelligence." June 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concept-of-intelligence/.

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Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

The concept of multiple intelligences is a theory proposed by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner . When you hear the word intelligence, the concept of  IQ testing  may immediately come to mind. Intelligence is often defined as our intellectual potential; something we are born with, something that can be measured, and a capacity that is difficult to change.

In recent years, however, other views of intelligence have emerged, including Gardner's suggestion that multiple different types of intelligence may exist. The eight intelligences according to Gardner are:

• Visual-spatial
• Linguistic-verbal
• Logical-mathematical
• Body-kinesthetic
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalistic

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

This theory suggests that traditional psychometric views of intelligence are too limited. Gardner first outlined his theory in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences , where he suggested that all people have different kinds of "intelligences."

Gardner proposed that there are eight intelligences, and has suggested the possible addition of a ninth known as "existentialist intelligence."  

In order to capture the full range of abilities and talents that people possess, Gardner theorizes that people do not have just an intellectual capacity, but have many kinds of intelligence, including musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, and linguistic intelligences.

While a person might be particularly strong in a specific area, such as musical intelligence, they most likely possesses a range of abilities. For example, an individual might be strong in verbal, musical, and naturalistic intelligence.

Criticism of Multiple Intelligences

Gardner’s theory has come under criticism from both psychologists and educators. These critics argue that Gardner’s definition of intelligence is too broad and that his eight different "intelligences" simply represent talents, personality traits, and abilities. Gardner’s theory also suffers from a lack of supporting empirical research.

Despite this, the theory of multiple intelligences enjoys considerable popularity with educators. Many teachers utilize multiple intelligences in their teaching philosophies and work to integrate Gardner’s theory into the classroom.

Gardner has cautioned that multiple intelligences should not be conflated with learning styles . (It is also important to stress that evidence has found that matching instruction to a learner's perceived style has no benefits in terms of learning outcomes or educational attainment.)

There is a lack of evidence to demonstrate that learning according to your "intelligence" produces better educational outcomes. However, you may find that learning more about multiple intelligences can give you a better understanding of your strengths and preferences.

Visual-Spatial Intelligence

People who are strong in visual-spatial intelligence are good at visualizing things. These individuals are often good with directions as well as maps, charts, videos, and pictures.  

Visual and spatial judgment

Characteristics

People with visual-spatial intelligence:

• Read and write for enjoyment
• Are good at putting puzzles together
• Interpret pictures, graphs, and charts well
• Enjoy drawing, painting, and the visual arts
• Recognize patterns easily

Potential Career Choices

If you're strong in visual-spatial intelligence, good career choices for you are: 

Linguistic-Verbal Intelligence

People who are strong in linguistic-verbal intelligence are able to use words well, both when writing and speaking. These individuals are typically very good at writing stories, memorizing information, and reading.  

Words, language, and writing

People with linguistic-verbal intelligence:

• Remember written and spoken information
• Enjoy reading and writing
• Debate or give persuasive speeches
• Are able to explain things well
• Use humor when telling stories

If you're strong in linguistic-verbal intelligence, good career choices for you are:

• Writer/journalist

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

People who are strong in logical-mathematical intelligence are good at reasoning, recognizing patterns, and logically analyzing problems. These individuals tend to think conceptually about numbers, relationships, and patterns.  

Analyzing problems and mathematical operations

Characteristics 

People with logical-mathematical intelligence:

• Have excellent problem-solving skills
• Enjoy thinking about abstract ideas
• Like conducting scientific experiments
• Can solve complex computations

If you're strong in logical-mathematical intelligence, good career choices for you are:

• Mathematician
• Computer programmer

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

Those who have high bodily- kinesthetic intelligence are said to be good at body movement, performing actions, and physical control. People who are strong in this area tend to have excellent hand-eye coordination and dexterity.  

Physical movement, motor control

People with bodily-kinesthetic intelligence:

• Are skilled at dancing and sports
• Enjoy creating things with his or her hands
• Have excellent physical coordination
• Remember by doing, rather than hearing or seeing

If you're strong in bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, good career choices for you are:

• Craftsperson

Musical Intelligence

People who have strong musical intelligence are good at thinking in patterns, rhythms, and sounds. They have a strong appreciation for music and are often good at musical composition and performance.  

Rhythm and music

People with musical intelligence:

• Enjoy singing and playing musical instruments
• Recognize musical patterns and tones easily
• Remember songs and melodies
• Have a rich understanding of musical structure, rhythm, and notes

If you're strong in musical intelligence, good career choices for you are:

• Music teacher

Interpersonal Intelligence

Those who have strong interpersonal intelligence are good at understanding and interacting with other people. These individuals are skilled at assessing the emotions , motivations, desires, and intentions of those around them.  

Understanding and relating to other people

People with interpersonal intelligence:

• Communicate well verbally
• Are skilled at nonverbal communication
• See situations from different perspectives
• Create positive relationships with others
• Resolve conflicts in group settings

If you're strong in interpersonal intelligence, good career choices for you are:

• Psychologist
• Philosopher
• Salesperson

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Individuals who are strong in intrapersonal intelligence are good at being aware of their own emotional states, feelings, and motivations. They tend to enjoy self-reflection and analysis, including daydreaming, exploring relationships with others, and assessing their personal strengths.  

Introspection and self-reflection

People with intrapersonal intelligence:

• Analyze their strengths and weaknesses well
• Enjoy analyzing theories and ideas
• Have excellent self-awareness
• Understand the basis for his or her own motivations and feelings

If you're strong in intrapersonal intelligence, good career choices for you are:

Naturalistic Intelligence

Naturalistic is the most recent addition to Gardner’s theory and has been met with more resistance than his original seven intelligences. According to Gardner, individuals who are high in this type of intelligence are more in tune with nature and are often interested in nurturing, exploring the environment, and learning about other species. These individuals are said to be highly aware of even subtle changes to their environments.  

Finding patterns and relationships to nature

People with naturalistic intelligence:

• Are interested in subjects such as botany, biology, and zoology
• Categorize and catalog information easily
• Enjoy camping, gardening, hiking, and exploring the outdoors
• Dislikes learning unfamiliar topics that have no connection to nature

If you're strong in naturalistic intelligence, good career choices for you are:

• Conservationist

Existential Intelligence

Existential intelligence is the ninth type of intelligence suggested as an addition to Gardner's original theory. He described existential intelligence as an ability to delve into deeper questions about life and existence. People with this type of intelligence contemplate the "big" questions about topics such as the meaning of life and how actions can serve larger goals.

An ability to see the big picture

People with existential intelligence:

• Have a long-term outlook
• Consider how current actions influence future outcomes
• Interest in questions about the meaning of life and death
• Strong interest and concern for others
• The ability to see situations from an outside perspective

If you have a strong sense of existential intelligence, you might enjoy a career as a:

• Pastoral counselor

What Is Your Intelligence Type? Try Our Quiz

If you'd like to know more about your intelligence style, try our fast and free quiz to learn more about what makes you tick.

Keep in Mind

The theory of multiple intelligences is important because it allows us to think about different types of mental strengths and abilities. Learning more about which types of intelligence you lean towards may help you learn to recognize your own preferences. However, it shouldn't be used as a tool to label and should not be confused with learning styles.

Instead of trying to match what you learn to your perceived type of intelligence, focus on learning new things via various modalities and formats to strengthen encoding and reinforce learning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your child may have high bodily kinesthetic intelligence if they prefer hands on experiences, struggle sitting still and listening for long periods of time, and/or remember information best when they're able to participate in an activity. They may also prefer working alone instead of working in a group.

To tap into your bodily kinesthetic intelligence, try performing activities that require using both your body and mind, such as taking a dance class, learning an instrument, or drawing.

Bakić-mirić N. Implementation of multiple intelligences theory in the English language course syllabus at the University of Nis Medical School. Srp Arh Celok Lek. 2010;138(1-2):105-10.

Cerruti C. Building a functional multiple intelligences theory to advance educational neuroscience. Front Psychol. 2013;4:950. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00950

The Washington Post. Howard Gardner: 'Multiple intelligences' are not 'learning styles .'

Husmann PR, O'Loughlin VD. Another nail in the coffin for learning styles? Disparities among undergraduate anatomy students' study strategies, class performance, and reported VARK learning styles . Anat Sci Educ . 2019;12(1):6-19. doi:10.1002/ase.1777

Levine SC, Ratliff KR, Huttenlocher J, Cannon J. Early puzzle play: a predictor of preschoolers' spatial transformation skill. Dev Psychol . 2012;48(2):530-42. doi:10.1037/a0025913

Singh Y, Makharia A, Sharma A, Agrawal K, Varma G, Yadav T. A study on different forms of intelligence in Indian school-going children. Ind Psychiatry J. 2017;26(1):71-76. doi:10.4103/ipj.ipj_61_16

Sternberg RJ. Intelligence. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2012;14(1):19-27.

Koohestani HR, Baghcheghi N. A comparison of learning styles of undergraduate health-care professional students at the beginning, middle, and end of the educational course over a 4-year study period (2015-2018) .  J Educ Health Promot . 2020;9:208. doi:10.4103/jehp.jehp_224_20

Michelaki E, Bournelli P. The development of bodily - Kinesthetic intelligence through creative dance for preschool students . JESR. doi:10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n3p23

Gardner H. On the Three Faces of Intelligence.  Daedalus. Winter 2002;131(1):139-142.

• Gardner H.  A Multiplicity of Intelligences . Published 2004.
• Gardner H.  Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  New York: Basic Books; 1983.
• Gardner H.  Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century.  New York: Basic Books; 1999.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Global Cognition

What intelligence means to you.

by Winston Sieck updated September 13, 2021

What does intelligence mean to you?

Do you believe you were born with a “smartness score” that’s set for life?

Or is intelligence something you can build and grow? Say, by improving your study skills ?

Now, ask yourself another question – why do you believe that ?

Where did your ideas about the nature of intelligence come from?

There are two main ways that people think about intelligence.

One common view is that intelligence is fixed for each person. You get what you were born with. And it does not change, at least not by normal means.

The second way to think about intelligence is that it can change and grow. The idea is that you can build up your intelligence, just as you can build up your strength or endurance. Doing so will take some effort. But it is very possible to become smarter.

So, which is right?

A better way to think about intelligence

Psychologists and cognitive scientists have studied these different ideas for a long time. Early on, they mostly thought about intelligence as a fixed quantity of a person. Kind of like gravity for a planet.

It may be partly what the early researchers wanted for psychology as a science. If they could measure people, and assign them a single hard number that doesn’t change, other scientists might take psychology more seriously.

In any case, over time, psychologists’ theories have shifted toward the “growth” view. The current science suggests that intelligence is something that can improve. It does take hard work, but not brain surgery.

Yet, many people still hold on to the idea that intelligence is fixed. They think they’re either smart or not smart. And there’s not much they can do about it.

Hanging on to that “fixed mindset” is a problem. It hurts you.

Folks who hold onto a fixed mindset tend to give up on tough thinking tasks too soon. Why bother to try, if you believe that you either “get things” or you don’t?

If you don’t realize you can change your intelligence, then you won’t even try. And if you don’t try, your intelligence won’t change.

On the other hand, you are more likely to hang tough on challenging problems if you keep in mind that your intelligence can grow. That you get smarter by making your mind work.

Just as you get stronger by making your body work.

Adopting this growth mindset helps you find your motivation to study .

If a fixed mindset is such a problem, why do people believe it?

Lynsey Burke of the University of Stirling and Joanne Williams of the University of Edinburgh asked this question. They studied middle school students’ beliefs about intelligence. They published their paper, “The impact of a thinking skills intervention on children’s concepts of intelligence,” in the journal Thinking Skills & Creativity .

The researchers asked students how much they agreed with statements like:

You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it

You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence

You disagree with both of those statements, right?

Burke and Williams found that most of the students came in to their study believing that intelligence was fixed and inflexible. And it appeared these beliefs were shaped in no small part by the educational system.

For many of us, the notion that our intelligence is fixed has been deeply ingrained into our thinking. We were brought up with the idea that we can learn some things, but we can’t really get any smarter.

And that puts us in a mental rut. A habit of the mind that can be tough to change.

How to change your thinking about intelligence

Looking for a bright side, Burke and Williams asked whether thinking skills training would help students to adopt smarter views of intelligence.

Why should that work?

The idea is that you learn about different strategies you can use to learn and think . You begin to see how some ways of thinking through problems work better than others.

You see how you can become smarter by changing up your thinking and learning strategies.

The researchers tested these ideas in school classrooms. Some students took 6-weeks of thinking skills training. Other students were in a control group and did not get the training.

By the end of the experiment, the students who received the thinking skills training shifted towards the view that their intelligence can improve. They adopted a growth mindset.

They also gained some new ways of thinking.

When they wrote about what intelligence meant to them, the students showed they had made the link between the nature of intelligence and the use of thinking strategies. They now started to regard effective thinking as being central to intelligence. We use a similar approach in our study skills course to foster this idea.

It’s like a two-for-one deal. An upward spiral. A way to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

You start to feel that, maybe, just maybe, you really can get smarter.

You pick up some new skills to learn and think better. These help you see that you really can do it.

From there, you find more ways to further build your intelligence.

So, identify and challenge that old fixed mindset within yourself.

It’s holding you back.

Root it out, and replace it with the idea that you can improve your intelligence. You can build up your learning and thinking skills. You can stick with tough mental challenges.

You can enjoy learning new things.

Image Credit:  leedsn

Burke, L., & Williams, J. (2012). The impact of a thinking skills intervention on children’s concepts of intelligence Thinking Skills and Creativity, 7 (3), 145-152 DOI: 10.1016/j.tsc.2012.01.001

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About Winston Sieck

Dr. Winston Sieck is a cognitive psychologist working to advance the development of thinking skills. He is founder and president of Global Cognition, and director of Thinker Academy .

Reader Interactions

March 14, 2013 at 12:46 am

Nice blog post, the feedback between what somebody thinks they can do and what is possible is one of the most exciting links in psychology. This seems to apply more broadly than just individual humans, but to all of society. In the words of the historian J.M. Roberts:

“Because what humans do is so much a matter of what they believe they can do … it is the making of a culture that is [the] pulse, not the making of a nation or an economy”

My only concern was the vague use of the terms ‘intelligence’ and ‘smart’. These terms can be incredibly slippery and even culture dependent . How were they operationalized in the study? What did the kids equate intelligence to? It seems weird to discuss if something is static or dynamic when that something wasn’t clearly defined.

March 14, 2013 at 10:26 am

Thanks, Artem. Agree with you about the challenge with those terms. Burke and Williams approached it purely subjectively, asking the students to supply their own definitions, and then performing content analysis on the results. They got a wide variety of answers, as anticipated by your comment. Main finding was that students who received the training were more likely to incorporate notions of thinking ability into their definitions. Your point about cultural differences in beliefs about the nature of intelligence is very interesting.

August 19, 2015 at 12:27 pm

Nature Vs Nurture is one of the most interesting thing to learn about and to see how each influences your daily life is gripping. “If you think you can, then you can” is one of the truest statements I have ever heard and needs to be engraved in our brains. The only problem is you never describe what you mean by intelligence? Do you mean IQ, test scores, or ability to retain and recite information? I think this article is a valuable, because it could help us lose the stigma we have on our brain’s capability. Great read, thank you!

August 19, 2015 at 1:20 pm

Glad you enjoyed the post, Lauren. There are different theoretical perspectives on intelligence, each of which imposes a bit of its own meaning on the concept. The dictionary offers a fairly neutral definition: “capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.” –keeping in mind that capacities and aptitudes don’t have to be fixed. IQ is not intelligence, but rather a test score that purports to measure intelligence, generally from a psychometric point of view. Some other conceptions from cognitive viewpoints include Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence and Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. As I mentioned in another comment, Burke and Williams were looking into students’ personal conceptions of intelligence as shaped by their experiences in school and society. That is, the researchers asked the students to describe what they meant by intelligence, and noted whether they felt it was a “something that can change” or not.

July 27, 2021 at 9:35 pm

Thank you so much for the wonderful input. As a person constantly working with children I have observed that cognitive development can be possible but requires constant stimulation for the same and a productive environment to support and enhance the same .And definitely a great commitment from the person who is nurturing irrespective of their learning differences and where they are on the spectrum . Thank you .

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Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Michele Marenus

Research Scientist

B.A., Psychology, Ed.M., Harvard Graduate School of Education

Michele Marenus is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan with over seven years of experience in psychology research.

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Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Howard Gardner first proposed the theory of multiple intelligences in his 1983 book “Frames of Mind”, where he broadens the definition of intelligence and outlines several distinct types of intellectual competencies.

Gardner developed a series of eight inclusion criteria while evaluating each “candidate” intelligence that was based on a variety of scientific disciplines.

He writes that we may all have these intelligences, but our profile of these intelligences may differ individually based on genetics or experience.

Gardner defines intelligence as a “biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture” (Gardner, 2000, p.28).

What is Multiple Intelligences Theory?

• Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences proposes that people are not born with all of the intelligence they will ever have.
• This theory challenged the traditional notion that there is one single type of intelligence, sometimes known as “g” for general intelligence, that only focuses on cognitive abilities.
• To broaden this notion of intelligence, Gardner introduced eight different types of intelligences consisting of: Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist.
• Gardner notes that the linguistic and logical-mathematical modalities are most typed valued in school and society.
• Gardner also suggests that there may other “candidate” intelligences—such as spiritual intelligence, existential intelligence, and moral intelligence—but does not believe these meet his original inclusion criteria. (Gardner, 2011).

Linguistic Intelligence (word smart)

Linguistic Intelligence is a part of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory that deals with sensitivity to the spoken and written language, ability to learn languages, and capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals.

Linguistic intelligence involves the ability to use language masterfully to express oneself rhetorically or poetically. It includes the ability to manipulate syntax, structure, semantics, and phonology of language.

People with linguistic intelligence, such as William Shakespeare and Oprah Winfrey, have the ability to analyze information and create products involving oral and written language, such as speeches, books, and memos.

Potential Career Choices

Careers you could dominate with your linguistic intelligence:

Lawyer Speaker / Host Author Journalist Curator

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (number/reasoning smart)

Logical-mathematical intelligence refers to the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically.

Logical-mathematical intelligence involves the ability to use logic, abstractions, reasoning, and critical thinking to solve problems. It includes the capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system.

People with logical-mathematical intelligence, such as Albert Einstein and Bill Gates, have an ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and solve abstract problems.

Careers you could dominate with your logical-mathematical intelligence:

Mathematician Accountant Statistician Scientist Computer Analyst

Spatial Intelligence (picture smart)

Spatial intelligence involves the ability to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately. It includes the ability to transform, modify, or manipulate visual information. People with high spatial intelligence are good at visualization, drawing, sense of direction, puzzle building, and reading maps.

Spatial intelligence features the potential to recognize and manipulate the patterns of wide space (those used, for instance, by navigators and pilots) as well as the patterns of more confined areas, such as those of importance to sculptors, surgeons, chess players, graphic artists, or architects.

People with spatial intelligence, such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Amelia Earhart, have the ability to recognize and manipulate large-scale and fine-grained spatial images.

Careers you could dominate with your spatial intelligence:

Pilot Surgeon Architect Graphic Artist Interior Decorator

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (body smart)

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is the potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body (like the hand or the mouth) to solve problems or to fashion products.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence involves using the body with finesse, grace, and skill. It includes physical coordination, balance, dexterity, strength, and flexibility. People with high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence are good at sports, dance, acting, and physical crafts.

People with bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, such as Michael Jordan and Simone Biles, can use one’s own body to create products, perform skills, or solve problems through mind–body union.

Careers you could dominate with your bodily-kinesthetic intelligence:

Dancer Athlete Surgeon Mechanic Carpenter Physical Therapist

Musical Intelligence (music smart)

Musical intelligence refers to the skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns.

Musical intelligence involves the ability to perceive, discriminate, create, and express musical forms. It includes sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, melody, and tone color. People with high musical intelligence are good at singing, playing instruments, and composing music.

People with musical intelligence, such as Beethoven and Ed Sheeran, have the ability to recognize and create musical pitch, rhythm, timbre, and tone.

Careers you could dominate with your musical intelligence:

Singer Composer DJ Musician

Interpersonal Intelligence (people smart)

Interpersonal intelligence is the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, and desires of other people and, consequently, to work effectively with others.

Interpersonal intelligence involves the ability to understand and interact effectively with others. It includes sensitivity to other people’s moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires. People with high interpersonal intelligence communicate well and can build rapport.

People with interpersonal intelligence, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, have the ability to recognize and understand other people’s moods, desires, motivations, and intentions.

Careers you could dominate with your interpersonal intelligence:

Teacher Psychologist Manager Salespeople Public Relations

Intrapersonal Intelligence (self-smart)

Intrapersonal intelligence is the capacity to understand oneself, to have an effective working model of oneself, including one’s desires, fears, and capacities—and to use such information effectively in regulating one’s own life.

It includes self-awareness, personal cognizance, and the ability to refine, analyze, and articulate one’s emotional life.

People with intrapersonal intelligence, such as Aristotle and Maya Angelou, have the ability to recognize and understand his or her own moods, desires, motivations, and intentions.

This type of intelligence can help a person understand which life goals are important and how to achieve them.

Careers you could dominate with your intrapersonal intelligence:

Therapist Psychologist Counselor Entrepreneur Clergy

Naturalist intelligence (nature smart)

Naturalist intelligence involves the ability to recognize, categorize, and draw upon patterns in the natural environment. It includes sensitivity to the flora, fauna, and phenomena in nature. People with high naturalist intelligence are good at classifying natural forms.

Naturalistic intelligence involves expertise in recognizing and classifying the numerous species—the flora and fauna—of his or her environment.

People with naturalistic intelligence, such as Charles Darwin and Jane Goddall, have the ability to identify and distinguish among different types of plants, animals, and weather formations that are found in the natural world.

Careers you could dominate with your naturalist intelligence:

Botanist Biologist Astronomer Meteorologist Geologist

Critical Evaluation

Most resistance to multiple intelligences theory has come from cognitive psychologists and psychometricians. Cognitive psychologists such as Waterhouse (2006) claimed that there is no empirical evidence to the validity of the theory of multiple intelligences.

Psychometricians, or psychologists involved in testing, argue that intelligence tests support the concept for a single general intelligence, “g”, rather than the eight distinct competencies (Gottfredson, 2004). Other researchers argue that Gardner’s intelligences comes second or third to the “g” factor (Visser, Ashton, & Vernon, 2006).

Some responses to this criticism include that the multiple intelligences theory doesn’t dispute the existence of the “g” factor; it proposes that it is equal along with the other intelligences. Many critics overlook the inclusion criteria Gardner set forth.

These criteria are strongly supported by empirical evidence in psychology, biology, neuroscience, among others. Gardner admits that traditional psychologists were valid in criticizing the lack of operational definitions for the intelligences, that is, to figure out how to measure and test the various competencies (Davis et al., 2011).

Gardner was surprised to find that Multiple Intelligences theory has been used most widely in educational contexts. He developed this theory to challenge academic psychologists, and therefore, he did not present many educational suggestions. For this reason, teachers and educators were able to take the theory and apply it as they saw fit.

As it gained popularity in this field, Gardner has maintained that practitioners should determine the theory’s best use in classrooms. He has often declined opportunities to aid in curriculum development that uses multiple intelligences theory, opting to only provide feedback at most (Gardner, 2011).

Most of the criticism has come from those removed from the classroom, such as journalists and academics. Educators are not typically tied to the same standard of evidence and are less concerned with abstract inconsistencies, which has given them the freedom to apply it with their students and let the results speak for itself (Armstrong, 2019).

Shearer (2020) provides extensive empirical evidence from neuroscience research supporting MI theory.

Shearer reviewed evidence from over 500 functional neuroimaging studies that associate patterns of brain activation with the cognitive components of each intelligence.

The visual network was associated with the visual-spatial intelligence, somatomotor networks with kinesthetic intelligence, fronto-parietal networks with logical and general intelligence, auditory networks with musical intelligence, and default mode networks with intra- and interpersonal intelligences. The coherence and distinctiveness of these networks provides robust support for the neural validity of MI theory

He concludes that human intelligence is best characterized as being multiple rather than singular, with each person possessing unique neural potentials aligned with specific intelligences.

Implications for Learning

The most important educational implications of the theory of multiple intelligences can be summed up through individuation and pluralization. Individuation posits that because each person differs from other another there is no logical reason to teach and assess students identically.

Individualized education has typically been reserved for the wealthy and others who could afford to hire tutors to address individual student’s needs.

Technology has now made it possible for more people to access a variety of teachings and assessments depending on their needs. Pluralization, the idea that topics and skills should be taught in more than one way, activates an individual’s multiple intelligences.

Presenting a variety of activities and approaches to learning helps reach all students and encourages them to be able to think about the subjects from various perspectives, deepening their knowledge of that topic (Gardner, 2011b).

A common misconception about the theory of multiple intelligences is that it is synonymous with learning styles. Gardner states that learning styles refer to the way an individual is most comfortable approaching a range of tasks and materials.

Multiple intelligences theory states that everyone has all eight intelligences at varying degrees of proficiency and an individual’s learning style is unrelated to the areas in which they are the most intelligent.

For example, someone with linguistic intelligence may not necessarily learn best through writing and reading. Classifying students by their learning styles or intelligences alone may limit their potential for learning.

Research shows that students are more engaged and learn best when they are given various ways to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, which also helps teachers more accurately assess student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2010).

Therapeutic Benefits of Incorporating Multiple Intelligences Within Therapy

Pearson et al. (2015) investigated the experiences of 8 counselors who introduced multiple intelligences (MI) theory and activities into therapy sessions with adult clients. The counselors participated in a 1-day MI training intervention and were interviewed 3 months later about their experiences using MI in practice.

The major themes that emerged from qualitative analysis of the interviews were:

• MI helped enhance therapeutic alliances. Counselors felt incorporating MI strengthened their connections with clients, increased counselor and client comfort, and reduced client suspicion/resistance.
• MI led to more effective professional work. Counselors felt MI provided more tools and flexibility in responding to clients. This matches findings from education research on the benefits of MI.
• Clients responded positively to identifying strengths through MI. The MI survey helped clients recognize talents/abilities, which counselors saw as identity-building. This aligns with the literature on strength-based approaches.
• Clients appreciated the MI preference survey. It provided conversation starters, increased self-reflection, and was sometimes a catalyst for using music therapeutically.
• Counselors felt comfortable with MI. They experienced increased confidence and professional comfort. Counselor confidence contributes to alliance building (Ackerman & Hilsenroth, 2003).
• Music use stood out as impactful. In-session and extratherapeutic music use improved client well-being after identifying musicality through the MI survey. This matches the established benefits of music therapy (Koelsch, 2009).
• MI training opened up therapeutic possibilities. Counselors valued the experiential MI training. MI appeared to expand their skills and activities.

The authors conclude that MI may enhance alliances, effectiveness, and counselor confidence. They recommend further research on long-term impacts and optimal training approaches. Counselor education could teach MI theory, assessment, and tailored interventions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can understanding the theory of multiple intelligences contribute to self-awareness and personal growth.

Understanding the theory of multiple intelligences can contribute to self-awareness and personal growth by providing a framework for recognizing and valuing different strengths and abilities.

By identifying their own unique mix of intelligences, individuals can gain a greater understanding of their own strengths and limitations and develop a more well-rounded sense of self.

Additionally, recognizing and valuing the diverse strengths and abilities of others can promote empathy , respect, and cooperation in personal and professional relationships.

Why is multiple intelligence theory important?

Understanding multiple intelligences is important because it helps individuals recognize that intelligence is not just about academic achievement or IQ scores, but also includes a range of different abilities and strengths.

By identifying their own unique mix of intelligences, individuals can develop a greater sense of self-awareness and self-esteem, as well as pursue career paths that align with their strengths and interests.

Additionally, understanding multiple intelligences can promote more inclusive and personalized approaches to education and learning that recognize and value the diverse strengths and abilities of all students.

Are certain types of intelligence more valued or prioritized in society than others?

Yes, certain types of intelligence, such as linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence, are often prioritized in traditional education and assessment methods.

However, the theory of multiple intelligences challenges this narrow definition of intelligence and recognizes the value of a diverse range of strengths and abilities.

By promoting a more inclusive and personalized approach to education and learning, the theory of multiple intelligences can help individuals recognize and develop their unique mix of intelligences, regardless of whether they align with traditional societal expectations.

What is the difference between multiple intelligences and learning styles?

The theory of multiple intelligences proposes that individuals possess a range of different types of intelligence. In contrast, learning styles refer to an individual’s preferred way of processing information, such as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.

While both theories emphasize the importance of recognizing and valuing individual differences in learning and development, multiple intelligence theory proposes a broader and more diverse range of intelligences beyond traditional academic abilities, while learning styles are focused on preferences for processing information.

Armstrong, T. (2009). Multiple intelligences in the classroom . Ascd.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). Performance Counts: Assessment Systems That Support High-Quality Learning . Council of Chief State School Officers .

Davis, K., Christodoulou, J., Seider, S., & Gardner, H. E. (2011). The theory of multiple intelligences.  Davis, K., Christodoulou, J., Seider, S., & Gardner, H.(2011). The theory of multiple intelligences . In RJ Sternberg & SB Kaufman (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence , 485-503.

Edutopia. (2013, March 8). Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say? https://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-research

Gardner, H. E. (2000). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century . Hachette UK.

Gardner, H. (2011a). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences . Hachette Uk.

Gardner, H. (2011b). The theory of multiple intelligences: As psychology, as education, as social science. Address delivered at José Cela University on October, 29, 2011.

Gottfredson, L. S. (2004). Schools and the g factor . The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), 28 (3), 35-45.

Pearson, M., O’Brien, P., & Bulsara, C. (2015). A multiple intelligences approach to counseling: Enhancing alliances with a focus on strengths.  Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 25 (2), 128–142

Shearer, C. B. (2020). A resting state functional connectivity analysis of human intelligence: Broad theoretical and practical implications for multiple intelligences theory.  Psychology & Neuroscience, 13 (2), 127–148.

Visser, B. A., Ashton, M. C., & Vernon, P. A. (2006). Beyond g: Putting multiple intelligences theory to the test . Intelligence, 34 (5), 487-502.

Waterhouse, L. (2006). Inadequate evidence for multiple intelligences, Mozart effect, and emotional intelligence theories . Educational Psychologist, 41 (4), 247-255.

Further Information

• Multiple Intelligences Criticisms
• The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• Multiple Intelligences FAQ
• “In a Nutshell,” the first chapter of Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons
• Multiple Intelligences After Twenty Years”
• Intelligence: Definition, Theories and Testing
• Fluid vs Crystallized Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence refers to the intelligence of machines. This is in contrast to the natural intelligence of humans and animals. With Artificial Intelligence, machines perform functions such as learning, planning, reasoning and problem-solving. Most noteworthy, Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence by machines. It is probably the fastest-growing development in the World of technology and innovation . Furthermore, many experts believe AI could solve major challenges and crisis situations.

Types of Artificial Intelligence

First of all, the categorization of Artificial Intelligence is into four types. Arend Hintze came up with this categorization. The categories are as follows:

Type 1: Reactive machines – These machines can react to situations. A famous example can be Deep Blue, the IBM chess program. Most noteworthy, the chess program won against Garry Kasparov , the popular chess legend. Furthermore, such machines lack memory. These machines certainly cannot use past experiences to inform future ones. It analyses all possible alternatives and chooses the best one.

Type 2: Limited memory – These AI systems are capable of using past experiences to inform future ones. A good example can be self-driving cars. Such cars have decision making systems . The car makes actions like changing lanes. Most noteworthy, these actions come from observations. There is no permanent storage of these observations.

Type 3: Theory of mind – This refers to understand others. Above all, this means to understand that others have their beliefs, intentions, desires, and opinions. However, this type of AI does not exist yet.

Type 4: Self-awareness – This is the highest and most sophisticated level of Artificial Intelligence. Such systems have a sense of self. Furthermore, they have awareness, consciousness, and emotions. Obviously, such type of technology does not yet exist. This technology would certainly be a revolution .

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Applications of Artificial Intelligence

First of all, AI has significant use in healthcare. Companies are trying to develop technologies for quick diagnosis. Artificial Intelligence would efficiently operate on patients without human supervision. Such technological surgeries are already taking place. Another excellent healthcare technology is IBM Watson.

Artificial Intelligence in business would significantly save time and effort. There is an application of robotic automation to human business tasks. Furthermore, Machine learning algorithms help in better serving customers. Chatbots provide immediate response and service to customers.

AI can greatly increase the rate of work in manufacturing. Manufacture of a huge number of products can take place with AI. Furthermore, the entire production process can take place without human intervention. Hence, a lot of time and effort is saved.

Artificial Intelligence has applications in various other fields. These fields can be military , law , video games , government, finance, automotive, audit, art, etc. Hence, it’s clear that AI has a massive amount of different applications.

To sum it up, Artificial Intelligence looks all set to be the future of the World. Experts believe AI would certainly become a part and parcel of human life soon. AI would completely change the way we view our World. With Artificial Intelligence, the future seems intriguing and exciting.

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