Intelligent Thinking: A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to Understanding Theories of Intelligence, Quick Thinking, Smart Decision Making Through Fast Thought Processing

By Cathrine Kowal

Each day in our life, we are always faced with situations that require us to make choices. Some are easy but there are some which are hard to decide. Most of the time, we make decisions quick enough we never thought about them not unless we realized we have made the wrong ones.  

Difficult decisions are thos

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cathrine Kowal
• Release date: Jun 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088162217

Book preview

Introduction

Understanding Intelligence

People typically equate an intelligent person as someone who’s academically excellent, or to some extent, being book smart.  They excel in mathematics, science, logic, and reasoning.  They’re full of scientific knowledge and skills and can apply those in numerous ways.  Surmise to say, people believe that they can naturally achieve great things. 

Meanwhile, people who don’t exhibit the above-mentioned characteristics are automatically labeled as average.  For instance, many don’t consider an individual who is proficient in multiple languages an intelligent person but only as someone skillful—that’s all.  This is now proven a wrong conception.

Intelligence has been one of the most controversial subjects for many years and yet until now, there is no standard definition of truly constitute intelligence.  But what exactly is intelligence?  There are some researchers who suggested that it is a single, general ability.  However, there are others who strongly opposed believing that intelligence encompassed a range of skills, aptitudes, and talents.  In today’s psychological landscape, intelligence is generally defined as the capacity to learn from experiences and adapt to one’s environment. 

How Intelligence is Defined by Psychologist

Throughout various points in the history of psychology, researchers provide multiple definitions to the word, intelligence.  While these definitions vary according to theories, the present concept of intelligence involves the level of ability to do the following:

Learn – the acquisition, usage, and retention of knowledge is a significant component of intelligence

Recognize problems – In the course of applying knowledge, people must be able to identify possible issues that need to be addressed.

Solve problems - People need to apply what they have learned to come up with possible solutions to problems they had recognized.

Intelligence involves the use of different mental abilities such as:

Logic and reasoning

Problem-solving

Planning

Although researchers and psychologists have some disagreements when it comes to defining intelligence, research on this subject plays a major role in many areas of development.  These areas include the use of testing tools to assess job applicants or the use of testing to assess if a student needs additional help in academic.

The Development of the Concept of Intelligence

The term Intelligent Quotient or IQ was first coined by William Stern, a German psychologist in the 20th century while it was Alfred Binet, another psychologist who developed the first intelligent tests to aid the French government in identifying school children who needed extra academic assistance.  The concept of mental age was also first introduced by Binet.  This concept is a set of abilities possessed by children of certain ages.

It was at that point when intelligence testing was widely used as a tool that led to the development of other tests of skill and aptitude.  This development, however, didn’t put to rest the different opinions and formulations regarding the use of such testing, cultural biases, influences on intelligence and even in defining intelligence.

History of General Intelligence

The first man to propose the theory of intelligence was Francis Galton who was influenced by Charles Darwin who happened to be his first cousin.  According to Galton, intelligence was a real faculty with a biological basis which could be studied by measuring reaction times to specific cognitive tasks.  Galton took the effort of measuring head sizes of some British scientists along with a number of ordinary citizens and yet found no correlation between the head size and what he defined as intelligence.

It was around 1900 when Alfred Binet started administering intelligence tests to school-age children in France in a more in-depth search for understanding of human intelligence.  It was his goal to develop a form of measurement that would help establish the difference between normal and subnormal children.  Theodore Simon, who served as his assistant helped him develop the test for measuring intelligence which later became known as the Binet-Simon Scale, the predecessor of the modern IQ test.

In 1904 an article about General Intelligence was published by Charles Spearman in the American Journal of Psychology. In the said article, Spearman made the conclusion – after studying results of a series of studies collected in England – that there was a common function across intellectual activities he referred to as g or general intelligence.  Since then, additional succeeding research found g to be related to many social outcomes and was considered to be the only predictor of successful job performance.  Currently, the American Psychological Association defines intelligence as involving a three-level hierarchy of intelligence factors with g at its highest level.

David Wechsler in 1942 became a major critic of Binet - Simon scale and general intelligence. Wechsler was an influential figure advocating for the concept of non-intellective factors or those variables contributing to the overall score in intelligence but do not consist of intelligence-related elements such as the fear of failure, lack of confidence, attitudes, and many others.  He believed that these elements should be incorporated into intelligence which the Binet-Simon scale failed to include. He believed that these elements are necessary for the prediction of a person’s capability for success in life.  Wechsler defined intelligence as the capacity of an individual to act with a purpose, to think rationally, and to effectively deal with their situation or surroundings. 

Early Theory of Multiple Intelligence

The earliest theory of Multiple Intelligence was suggested in 1920 by Edward Thorndike, an American psychologist.  He strongly opposed the theory of general intelligence and believed intelligence involved were mutually independent elements.

Social – this refers to the ability to understand and manage individuals including the ability to communicate with others and perform in social relations.

Mechanical – this refers to the ability to control your physical body and manipulate objects

Abstract – The ability to verbal and symbolic thoughts

Thorndike’s model came up at a time when many believed that intelligence is a universal factor.  Thorndike focused on behavior rather than consciousness in his research and his theory paved a way to other succeeding research related to social intelligence.  In human resource management, Thorndike’s model is used in job analysis – job creation and staffing.  Since these three elemental components are independent, during different task and activities, different forms of intelligence are applied in varying degrees.

In the middle of the 20th century, rather than the single general intelligence, Raymond Bernard Cattell, a British-American psychologist proposed two types of intelligence.  First is Fluid Intelligence (GF), which is the ability to think logically and solve problems in unique and unexpected situations, independent of acquired knowledge.  Second is Crystallized Intelligence (GC), which is the ability to utilize skills and experience which does not equate to memory but relies on accessing information from long-term memory. 

Cattell believed that Fluid Intelligence increased until it reaches the adolescent stage where it starts to decline.  Conversely, Crystallized Intelligence increased gradually and remains stable through most of the adulthood stage and declining only in late adulthood.

Howard Gardner in 1983 wrote a book about Multiple Intelligence which breaks down intelligence into eight divisions:  musical, kinesthetic, linguistic, spatial, naturalist, logical, Interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence. A few years after this, Robert Sternberg suggested the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence which proposes three fundamental types of cognitive ability, namely; Creative Intelligence, Practical Intelligence, and Analytic Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

It was only in 1990 when Peter Salovey and John Mayer introduced the concept of Emotional Intelligence and defined it as the awareness one’s own emotions and that of other people and use this to guide one’s thinking and actions. 

Hendrie Weisinger likewise worked with theories of Emotional Intelligence as he emphasized the significance of learning and making emotions work to improve self and relationship with others.  Both social intelligence and emotional intelligence were positively associated with good leadership abilities and skills as well as good interpersonal skills which have positive results in the workplace and in classroom situations.

Chapter 1

Different Theories of Intelligence

Today, the Three-Stratum Theory is considered the most widely accepted theory of Intelligence recognizing three different levels of intelligence which are all governed by the top level g or the general intelligence factor.  However, there are also other theories of Multiple Intelligence which have their own uses in delineating certain intellectual skills set which can vary.  There are also a set of people like those with Savant Syndrome that do not fit the standard definition of intelligence and to which Multiple Intelligence Theory can offer a useful way of understanding their situations.

Intelligence is defined as the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.  Having said that, different theories of intelligence like the one proposed by Howard Gardner provides a solid basis.  According to him, soft skills such as intrapersonal or interpersonal skills are actually different forms of intelligence.  This makes sense since being a math whiz doesn’t guarantee that one knows every aspect of life by simply knowing the various mathematical equations.

The Nine Types of Intelligence by Howard Gardner

Howard Gardner first conceptualized the theory in his 1983