THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE

Robert Sternbergs Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Robert Jeffrey Sternberg (born December 8, 1949), is an

American psychologist and psychometrician and the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. Sternberg has offered one of the most influential attemps to specify in detail the proccesses of intelligent behaviour. Sternberg description is called a triarchic theory (in contrast to spearmans monarchic theory) because sternberg deals with three aspects of intelligence, such as : a) The cognitive processes that occur within the individual (componential intelligence) The mental mechanisms people use to plan and execute tasks, included metacomponents : are the processes by which people diside the nature of an intellectual problem, select a strategy for solving it and allocate their resource; performance components : the processes actually used to perform word recognition and working memory; and knowledge components : are those person used to gain new knowledge by sitting out relevant information and intergrating it with what he or she already knows. b) The identificaton of situations (experimential intelligence) The ability to deal efectively with novel situations and to automatically solve problems that have been encountered previously. Its important to distinguish novel situations from repeated situation because they require different responses. In a novel situation, examine a problem in various ways until we find a successful approach. In a repeated situation, we profit by developing automatic habits so that we can quickly make a successful response.

c) The ability to use intelligence in the external world (contextual intelligence) According to sternberg, intelligence that reflects the behaviours that were subject to natural selection in our evolutionary history. In this theory takes three forms, such as : Adaptation Consists of fitting oneself into ones environment by developing usefull skills and behaviors. In different cultures, adaptation will take different forms. Selection Refers to the ability to find ones own niche in the environment. the difference was a reflection of the selective aspect of contextual intelligence. Shaping Sometimes, adapting to the environment or selecting a new one is not possible or profitable. In this case, intelligent behavior consist of shaping the environment it self. The importance of sternbergs emphasis on practical in intelligence is supported by observations of people with damage to their frontal lobes. Thus, we were tempted to conclude that their intelligence is unimpaired. But such people lose the ability to plan their lives or even their dialy activities. The fact that this component is not measured by most intelligence test indicates that these tests are missing something important.

Theories of Intelligence and Tests of Intelligence

The standard IQs tests, which we shall consider momentarily, were devised decades ago. There are several theories about intelligence and a variety of intelligence tests, but these theories have little relationship to the rest. Physicists measured gravity and magnetism long before they understood them theoretically. Maybe psychologists can do the same with intelligence. Many psychologists are dissatisfied with the

currently available intelligence tests, and some are working toward eventually producing a fundamentally better test. In the meantime the available tests have both strengths and weaknesses.

Thurstones Theory of Primary Mental Abilities Like Spearman, louis thurstone used factor analysis to determine the nature of intelligence. But unlike spearman, thrustone concluded that there is no general intelligence factor. He identified seven factors, which he called primary mental abilities reasoning, word fluency, perceptual speed, verbal comperhansion, spatial visualization, numerical

calculation, and assosiative memory. Though scores on tests measuring these abilities had moderately high positive correlations with one another, they did not correlate highly enough for thurstone to assume the existence of a general underlying intelligence factor. Suppose that you took tests to assess your abilities in reasoning, verbal comprehension, and numerical calculation. Thurstone would insist that your performance on any single test would reflect, not the influence of a general intelligence factor, but instead the influence of a specific intelligence factor related to the particular ability assessed by that test.