What is Intelligence?

Try to think about a hammer, a saw, a log, and a hatchet — which of these object do you think belong in the same group? Your answer would tell a psychologist, a scientist who studies the mind behavior, something about your intelligence. A psychologist who was curious about how people from different cultures think asked farmers in Central asia the same question, the farmers thought: Why would anyone want to divide these things into groups? The psychologist explain that the hammer, the saw, and the hatchet were tools; the log was not, the farmer said all four objects belonged together because without tools and wood nothing could be built. Anyone who would do it differently was “stupid,” in the farmers word.
Everyone uses the word “smart” or “stupid” believing that these hold similar meanings for all of us. But what is considered intelligent varies from society, ideas about intelligence change over time.

Intelligence: One ability or many?

Many of our ideas about what elements, or abilities, make up intelligence testing. In 1905, French psychologists, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon devised the first intelligence test for schoolchildren. It was created to help the French government identify young people who have difficulty with schoolwork. Although the Binet-Simon test result were reported as a single number, Binet did not think intelligence was simply one thing. The number was just a score on a test. He thought a person’s abilities and test score could change with instruction– the more education a person got, the better the person would do on the test.

In 1916, the Binet-Simon test was translated into english and adapted for widespread use in schools by American psychologist Lewis Terman. Terman’s test, the Standford-Binet, has had a very large impact on western society in schooling. Terman reported the test scores as an intelligence quotient or IQ. Unlike Binet, he thought the score represented a person’s life, no matter how much schooling the person had.

Psychologists use a variety of methods to determine the areas of intelligence. Howard Gardner, a leading American psychologist, studied past research and also studied gifted people, brain-damaged people, people from different cultures, and young people’s intellectual development. From his work, he determined that there are at least seven areas of intelligence: movement (which is important to people like dancers and athletes), music, mathematics, language, spatial abilities (which are important to people like artists and engineers), understanding oneself, and understanding others. Robert Sternberg, another American psychologist, studied the processes people use in solving test problems and also looked at the way they carried out work in their daily lives. He identified three areas of intelligence: planning, performance, and knowledge acquisition.

Psychologists are not only interested in what makes up intelligence, but also in how it grows and changes over time. Jean Piaget, a Swiss scholar, studied the development of intellectual abilities in young people. Piaget did not use paper-and-pencil tests. Instead, he observed young people and questioned them as they worked on task he had invented.

Piaget found that young people went through four stages of development. During the earliest stage (from birth to about 2 years of age), young people learned about the world through their senses and physical activity. In the two middle stages (from about 2 to 11 years of age) , they learned through their experiences with objects or information in their immediate environment. By the last stage (from about 11 years of age and older), they could begin to make use abstract-thinking skills, like those needed for algebra or physics. Piaget thought the four stages were universal- they applied to all forms of learning in all cultures.

While experts recognize the importance of Piaget’s work, many no longer agree with his ideas. Later scholars found that Piaget’s four stages did not apply to problems in language, music, and other subject areas Piaget did not study. Also, the stages were not as unchangeable as Piaget proposed. Younger children often appear more capable than Piaget imagined. On the other hand, older children and adults may not reach the fourth stage, even with advance schooling.

Where does intelligence come from?

Is intelligence the result of genetic inheritance (heredity) or the result of an individual’s upbringing and experience (environment)? This is one of the main questions about intelligence. If intelligence is due to heredity, then it is possible to believe that people are born with all the abilities they will ever have and can only be as intelligent as those abilities will allow. In other hand, if intelligence is due to an individual’s environment, it is possible to believe that most people would be pretty intelligent if they had the right learning opportunities.
Research suggest that both heredity and environment are important and that intelligence is not entirely determined by factor by itself. The IQ scores of twins who were raised in seperate homes are very similar. This indicates that intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, is largely determined by genetics. However, other studies reveal the importance of environment. The average IQ scores of many ethic groups that faced discrimination are lower than those of groups that have not historically faced discrimination. When members of these groups move to places that allow them equal opportunities, their children’s average IQ scores are the same as those of other groups.

A person with extraordinary intelligence can be called genius?

Plently of people are smart and even intelligent, but they aren’t quite geniuses because they lack the creative abilities required. Other people are creative to some extent, but they do not have the intellectual capability to harness their creativity. Some famous examples of geniuses include Mozart, Isaac Newton, and albert Einstein, who is often used as the classic illustration for a “genius.” Generally, it is assumed that a genius has a unique and novel way of approaching situations and the world, retooling ideas and potentially creating something so monumental that it changes the way other people think. Einstein, for example, came up with a mathematical formula which changed the face of physics. Again, psychologist once thought, simplistically, that a genius was nothing more than high general intelligence, the capacity measured by the intelligence quotient or IQ. But, the theory is very much debated since the measurement is far from ideal. However, many people think that IQ test are limited, and the true test of a genius is what he or she produce in life. Geniuses are also often talented in multiple fields, in which case they could be also be considered polymaths. The iconic Leonardo da Vinci, for example, was a polymath, skilled in math and sciences.