Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:40:52.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - The Concept of Intelligence

from Part I - Intelligence and Its Measurement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2019

By
Robert J. Sternberg
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, I discuss the metaphors of mind that underlie researchers’ thinking about intelligence. I discuss the geographic, computational, biological, genetic-epistemological, sociological, anthropological, and systems metaphors. I point out some of the advantages and disadvantages of the various metaphors. I conclude by arguing that metaphors are not “right” or “wrong” but rather more or less useful for particular purposes. Sometimes, it is optimal even to mix metaphors to understand how different ways of understanding intelligence can be mutually enhancing.

Keywords

anthropological metaphorbiological metaphorcomputational metaphorgenetic-epistemological metaphorgeographic metaphorintelligencesociological metaphorsystems metaphor
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence , pp. 3 - 17
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, J. R. (2015). The adaptive character of thought. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Arlin, P. K. (1975). Cognitive development in adulthood: A fifth stage? Developmental Psychology, 11, 602–606.Google Scholar
Berry, J. W. (1974). Radical cultural relativism and the concept of intelligence. In Berry, J. W. & Dasen, P. R. (Eds.), Culture and cognition: Readings in cross-cultural psychology (pp. 225–229). London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Berry, J. W., & Irvine, S. H. (1986). Bricolage: Savages do it daily. In Sternberg, R. J. & Wagner, R. K. (Eds.), Practical intelligence: Nature and origins of competence in the everyday world (pp. 271–306). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brainerd, C. J. (1978). The stage question in cognitive-developmental theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1, 173–182.Google Scholar
Bryant, P. E., & Trabasso, T. (1971). Transitive inferences and memory in young children. Nature, 13, 456–458.Google Scholar
Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor-analytic studies. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Case, R. (1984). The process of stage transition: A neo-Piagetian view. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Mechanisms of cognitive development (pp. 20–44). New York: Freeman.Google Scholar
Cattell, R. B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 54, 1–22.Google Scholar
Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities: Their structure, growth, and action. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Cronbach, L. J. (1957). The two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 12, 671–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deary, I. J. (2000). Looking down on human intelligence: From psychometrics to the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J., & Kamin, L. (1981). Intelligence: The battle for the mind. New York: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feuerstein, R. (1979). The dynamic assessment of retarded performers: The learning potential assessment device, theory, instruments, and techniques. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Flynn, J. R. (2016). Does your family make you smart? Nature, nurture, and human autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Galotti, K. (2016). Cognitive development: Infancy through adolescence (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gardner, H. (2011). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S. (1970). The bisected brain. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Goswami, U. (Ed.) (2013). The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of child cognitive development (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Grigorenko, E. L., & Sternberg, R. J. (1998). Dynamic testing. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 75–111.Google Scholar
Guilford, J. P. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Guilford, J. P. (1988). Some changes in the structure-of-intellect model. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 48, 1–4.Google Scholar
Gur, R. C., Turetsky, B. I., Matsui, M., Yan, M., Bilker, W., Hughett, P., & Gur, R. E. (1999). Sex differences in brain gray and white matter in healthy young adults: Correlations with cognitive performance. Journal of Neuroscience, 19, 4065–4072.Google Scholar
Haier, R. J. (2017). The neuroscience of intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haier, R. J., Siegel, B., Tang, C., Abel, L., & Buchsbaum, M. S. (1992a). Intelligence and changes in regional cerebral glucose metabolic-rate following learning. Intelligence, 16, 415–426.Google Scholar
Haier, R. J., Siegel, B. V. Jr., MacLachlan, A., Soderling, E., Lottenberg, S., & Buchsbaum, M. S. (1992b). Regional glucose metabolic changes after learning a complex visuospatial/motor task: A positron emission tomographic study. Brain Research, 570, 134–143.Google Scholar
Herrnstein, R. (1973). IQ in the meritocracy. New York: Little-Brown.Google Scholar
Hickendorff, M., van Putten, C. M., Verhelst, N. D., & Heiser, W. J. (2010). Individual differences in strategy use on division problems: Mental versus written computation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 438–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, E. (1980). Intelligence as an information processing concept. British Journal of Psychology, 71, 449–474.Google Scholar
Hunt, E. (2010). Human intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Johnson, W., & Bouchard, T., Jr. (2005). The structure of human intelligence: It is verbal, perceptual, and image rotation (VPR), not fluid and crystallized. Intelligence, 33, 393–416.Google Scholar
Jung, R. E., & Haier, R. J. (2007). The parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) of intelligence: Converging neuroimaging evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(2), 135–154; discussion 154–187. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X07001185Google Scholar
Kamin, L. (1974). The science and politics of IQ. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Levy, J., Trevarthen, C., & Sperry, R. W. (1972). Perception of bilateral chimeric figures following hemispheric disconnection. Brain, 95, 61–78.Google Scholar
Lubinski, D. (in press). Mapping the outer envelope of intelligence: A multidimensional view from the top. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), The nature of human intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mandelman, S. D., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2011). Genes, environments, and their interactions. In Sternberg, R. J. & Kaufman, S. B. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of intelligence (pp. 85–106). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Neubauer, A., Freudenthaler, H. H., & Pfurtscheller, G. (1995). Intelligence and spatiotemporal patterns of event-related desynchronization (ERD). Intelligence, 20, 249–266.Google Scholar
Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Pietschnig, J., Penke, L., Wicherts, J. M., Zeiler, M., & Voracek, M. (2015). Meta-analysis of associations between human brain volume and intelligence differences: How strong are they and what do they mean?” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 57, 411–432.Google Scholar
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., Knopik, V. S., & Neiderhiser, J. (2012). Behavioral genetics (6th ed.). New York: Worth.Google Scholar
Roid, G. H. (2003). Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (5th ed.). Itasca, IL: Riverside Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Schank, R. C. (1972). Conceptual dependency: A theory of natural language understanding. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 552–631.Google Scholar
Spearman, C. (1923). The nature of “intelligence” and the principles of cognition. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Spearman, C. (1927). The abilities of man: Their nature and assessment. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (1977). Intelligence, information processing, and analogical reasoning: The componential analysis of human abilities. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (1983). Components of human intelligence. Cognition, 15, 1–48.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.) (1984). Mechanisms of cognitive development. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.) (1985a). Human abilities: An information-processing approach. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (1985b). Human intelligence: The model is the message. Science, 230, 1111–1118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.) (1988). Advances in the psychology of human intelligence, vol. 4. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (1990). Metaphors of mind: Conceptions of the nature of intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (2004). Culture and intelligence. American Psychologist, 59(5), 325–338.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (1999). Genetics and intelligence. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 38, 486–488.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2002). Dynamic testing. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J., & Kaufman, S. B. (Eds.) (2011). Cambridge handbook of intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J., & Weil, E. M. (1980). An aptitude–strategy interaction in linear syllogistic reasoning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 226–234.Google Scholar
Thurstone, L. L. (1924). The nature of intelligence. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Thurstone, L. L. (1938). Primary mental abilities. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Toklas, A. B. (1963). What is remembered? New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Turkheimer, E., Haley, A., Waldron, M., d’Onofrio, B., & Gottesman, I. (2003). Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children. Psychological Science, 14, 623–628. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0956-7976.2003.psci_1475.xGoogle Scholar
Vernon, P. E. (1950). The structure of human abilities. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Visser, B. A., Ashton, M. C., & Vernon, P. A. (2006). Beyond g: Putting multiple intelligences theory to the test. Intelligence, 34(5), 487–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (2008). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Willis, J. O., Dumont, R., & Kaufman, A. S. (2011). Factor-analytic models of intelligence. In Sternberg, R. J. & Kaufman, S. B. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of intelligence (pp. 39–57). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Witelson, S. F., Beresh, H., & Kigar, D. L. (2006). Intelligence and brain size in 100 postmortem brains: Sex, lateralization and age factors. Brain, 129, 386–398.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×