Three heads are better than one

Three Heads are Better Than One: Response

Robert J. Trotter, in this article on intelligence tests, focuses on the recent work of Sternberg (an IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University). Sternberg recalls at the beginning how his test scores on standardized tests were terrible as a child in the fifth grade because he was always nervous and ended up freaking out mid test. This continued until one year he had to retake a test with the grade below him where he noticed he was not near as nervous because he was around “babies”. This strange occurrence in his life lead Sternberg to study Psychology and attend Princeton for his graduate degree. He focused mainly on IQ tests and how IQ directly can influence people’s ability to decide how successful or unsuccessful someone can be at a certain occupation. While he was working as at Yale University he noticed how the graduate students that applied with exemplary grades, test scores, recommendations and accommodations were fought over by the Ivy League schools. Yet these same students would graduate statistically lower than their test scores and undergraduate grades would assume. Secondly, he noticed that students with quite low-test scores and grades, for Yale, with great recommendations when given a chance would succeed with flying colors. Finally a third group with mediocre test scores recommendations and grades managed to have great job placement opportunities. These case studies lead to his creation of the Triarchic Theory of intelligence. Sternberg hypothesized that there are three types of intelligence each with an important role in academic studies and in the work force. Componential intelligence revolves around analytical thinking and is great for test taking and undergraduate studies. Experiential intelligence surrounds around using your experiences to think creatively. Lastly, contextual intelligence is the ability to be able to recognize the world around you and how to come out on top in any situation. The most interesting part of this article was that it stated as Sternberg was conducting his study and asking both psychologists and Fortune 500 executives if they felt prepared for their jobs from college and graduate school, they almost all answered that graduate school did not prepare them well at all. Today in Society College is not an option for people who want to get high paying jobs later in life. Although they were only looking at people who had IQ’s between 110 and 150, the differences in IQ scores had almost no effect on the performance or the merit based promotions an individual received. Intelligence will never take the place of creativity in graduate school, or real life job environments. Sternberg argues “There are three ways to be smart but ultimately what you want to do is take the components, apply them to your experience, and use them to adapt to and shape your environment.” The origin of basic intelligence testing as argued by Richard J. Gerig was originally hypothesized by Plato as he stated in the Republic “no two people are born exactly alike; but each differs from one and other in natural endowments, one being suited for one occupation and one for another.” The next important researcher for the creation of intelligence testing was Francis Galton in England. Galton had a fascination with measuring human traits through the survival of the fittest as Charles Darwin was his cousin. Galton tested over 10,000 different people at the 1884 London Exposition based on reaction time, sensory acuity, physical strength, and body proportions. His test however did not lead to any correlated answers and he was left with almost no understanding of intelligence. Although he failed, he did however leave us with a good idea of hereditary intelligence as he hypothesized that genius was transferred through generations. The modern analytical based testing for intelligence was started by Alfred Binet at the turn of the twentieth century in France. Binet started these tests to give schools a way to know if a student had mental deficiencies at a young age in order for students with special needs to receive help. He created the idea of mental age in order to create a mental baseline of intelligence for different ages. Different scores indicated different ages and students with disabilities would score significantly lower in age than their true physical age. Gerrig references Sternberg deriving his idea of multiple intelligence from Howard Gardner’s Eight Intelligence theory (1983). The book states “Gardner views intelligence as multiple abilities that come in different packages… Brain damage for example may destroy one ability but leave others intact.” Gardner argues that the eight forms of intelligence every human has are interpersonal, naturalist, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, and intrapersonal. His argument almost exactly mirrors Sternberg in the idea the idea that intelligence tests are not correct for measuring true intelligence because they only show analytical or logical-mathematical and linguistic skills. Gardner states “the poet, the computer programmer, the street smart adolescent who becomes a crafty executive, and the basketball team’s point guard exhibit different kinds of intelligence.” (Gardner, 1998) To prove this point from Gardner in 2007 Jay Zagorsky tracked 7403 participants across 25 years and correlated their IQ scores to their salaries later in life and the correlation was only a +.30. This low correlation point directly to the problem with IQ tests, they do not account for street smarts, artistic ability or even those with a savant syndrome. There are 4 main theories of intelligence Spearman’s general intelligence theory or the (g) theory, Thurstone’s primary mental ability theory, Gardner’s 8 faceted theory, and Spearman’s triarchic. Each theory has strengths and weaknesses including Thurstone’s and Gardner’s multiple intelligences overlapping too much and Spearman’s general intelligence over simplifying the intelligence argument. To fully understand intelligence you have to look at all 4 and find a middle ground. Reading this paper has given me more insight in how to truly use my strengths and weakness to my advantage in my everyday life. Sternberg says “I know I am not the best, but I find ways to either make them unimportant or find someone else to do them for me.” People expect that going to college or even grad school automatically makes you prepared for your job, school is only meant to make you prove your strengths and weaknesses in certain analytical and partial creative aspects of intelligence. Sternberg makes a comparison in this article by saying “no one taught me how to ask for grant money in school, but without grant money nothing would have gotten done and I would have been fired.” You have to be resourceful and use your strengths in order to learn fast on your feet. I believe that I firmly deserve extra credit for this paper because reading this article not only made me realize that being smart does not directly correlate to a successful worker or even a great professor. Reading this article almost makes me angry that we are judged solely off our scores in school or our SAT’s when a college selects us for enrollment. SAT’s correlate to IQ scores not directly but closely, so if a college is only selecting students off of analytical intelligence and baseline IQ potency they are only selecting students that are smart in one area of intelligence, they are leaving out those with great levels of creativity and “street smarts”. The only argument I have for Sternberg is that he believes that IQ tests are not a quality test for intelligence, I would argue that IQ tests are a great test for analytical intelligence yet not a good test for other types of intelligence. With no current testing capability for other types of intelligence colleges and graduate schools alike are stuck only being able to use a basic test for analytical analysis as their standard for overall intelligence. How then can we say that the most intelligent students attend Harvard or Yale? Secondly what if the facets do not even predict success, what if success in our society is completely based of luck, physical stature, or simply knowing the right people at the right time. Intelligence is strange because although many people have it not everyone uses it in their everyday life, in order for people to be successful who are intelligent they have to actually take the steps necessary to show others their talents, people who are intelligent can also be lazy and never amount to much. In conclusion, intelligence is a very broad and complicated facet of our every day life. Sternberg’s triarchic, in my opinion, is the most comprehensive of the theories yet it still has weaknesses and flaws. No one theory will ever fully explain intelligence yet understanding all the theories gives a great picture of how to comprehend, measure, and use intelligence.