- [Instructor] There are a
number of different theories
about what intelligence
is and how to define it.
But before I get into
that, I want to talk about
a debate that pervades all
of these different theories.
And that's the question of whether or not
there's one general intelligence,
or whether intelligence
has multiple aspects,
or whether there are
multiple intelligences.
And so, as we go through all
of these different theories,
I want you to keep that debate in mind
and really think about where
each theorist stands on this debate.
The first theory I want to talk about
is the theory of general intelligence
which was put forth by a
man named Charles Spearman.
He used factor analysis, which
is a statistical procedure
to identify clusters of related abilities.
He predicted the idea of
a general intelligence,
which is sometimes referred
to as the G Factor,
or sometimes just G.
And he predicted that
this general intelligence
could predict our outcomes
in varied academic areas.
There is actually a lot of
evidence to support this.
Studies have shown that
those who score high
in one area, like verbal intelligence,
also tend to score highly in other areas,
like spacial reasoning.
However, this idea was controversial then
and it's still controversial now.
When you really think about it,
human abilities are incredibly diverse.
Do we really think that one single factor
could account for all of them?
Well another psychologist, L.L.
Thurnston, didn't think so.
So he proposed a theory that focused on
primary mental abilities.
Thurnston came up with seven
factors of intelligence
instead of Spearman's single one.
I'm not going to write them all down,
but they include word
fluency, verbal comprehension,
spacial reasoning, perceptual speed,
numerical ability, inductive
reasoning, and memory.
For me, one of the main
strengths of this theory
is that it seems more
accurate to have a break down.
After all, we can imagine
that someone might have
good inductive reasoning
skills while maybe
not having high verbal comprehension.
But the problem with Thurnston's theory
is the very thing that was
a strength for Spearman's,
which is that those who do
well on one of these factors
also tend to do well on the others,
which suggests an underlying
single intelligence factor.
But both of these theories
actually have another limitation,
and that's that they seem really limited
in what they consider to be intelligence.
Even Thurnston's theory,
which has seven factors,
tends to focus primarily
on what we would consider
to be book smarts.
And so in order to try and expand on this,
in order to try to be more inclusive,
Howard Gardner created the
theory of multiple intelligence,
which expanded our ideas
of what kind of things
might be included as intelligence.
And Gardner divided our
intelligence into seven,
and then nine independent intelligences.
And they're independent in that
they don't rely on each other,
or they don't depend on each other,
meaning that your intelligence in one area
doesn't predict your
intelligence in another area.
And again, I'm not going
to write these all down,
'cause that would take up a lot of time,
but he predicted a
logical-mathematical intelligence,
a linguistic intelligence,
a musical intelligence,
a spatial intelligence, a
body-kinesthetic intelligence,
an intrapersonal intelligence
and an interpersonal intelligence.
Later on, he added the idea
of a naturalist intelligence,
as well as an existential intelligence.
The strength of this theory is, of course,
is that it includes more
than just book smarts.
It takes lots of other human
abilities into account.
But are all of these intelligences?
Why do we need to use that word?
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense
to refer to these as abilities or talents?
And it kind of depends on whether or not
we think that there's any repercussion
to labeling them in
intelligence versus a talent.
To me it seems like it
only makes a difference
if you're giving this term
intelligence a certain weight,
that somehow, by labeling
this in intelligence,
you're making it more
important or more serious
than it was before when
it was just a talent,
and I really don't know
if I agree with that.
It seems to me like it's important
and worthwhile either way.
Another problem with this theory
is that there simply
isn't a lot of evidence
to support it, and this
partially has to do with
the fact that there's
no real way to test it.
I know that might come
as a surprise to people
who have heard of this theory before,
or heard of things like
different learning styles
which stems from this theory.
To me, it really sounds like a nice idea,
but as of right now,
it just isn't supported
by the research.
The last theory I want to talk about
was put forth by Robert Sternberg,
and that's the triarchic
theory of intelligence.
Sternberg agreed with Gardner
about the existence of
multiple intelligences,
but he said that there were three of them
not seven, eight, or nine.
Sternberg restricted his
definition of intelligence
to things that he thought would
lead to real world success.
He's included analytical intelligence
or problem solving ability,
creative intelligence,
and practical intelligence.
He specifically picked things out
that he thought led to
success in the real world.
Another benefit was that we
can reliably measure things
along these lines because
it's fairly easy to define,
so it's easy to test.
As for problems, we kind of
fall back on the initial one,
which is that research has shown
that individuals who score highly
on one of these three intelligences
tend to score highly
on the others as well.
So are these three intelligences
really just three sides of the same coin?
And now that I've written it down,
this sentence kind of
looks a bit funny to me,
but I think that you get the idea,
which is that maybe
these three intelligences
vary together, because
we're still talking about
general intelligence, or G.
I want to take a moment to step away
from these different
theories of intelligence
to talk about the problem
that I first brought up,
which was whether or not
there's one general intelligence
versus multiple intelligences.
Because taken together,
a lot of the research
seems to point in the direction
of there being one general intelligence.
And on a personal note, I will admit
that I sometimes have
trouble with the idea
of general intelligence.
After all, there's so
many different traits
that we can measure a person on.
And so, for a long time I was
pretty skeptical of this idea.
But there were two things
that really helped me.
The first one I brought
up when I was talking
about some of the problems with the theory
of multiple intelligences.
And that's that why does everything
need to be an intelligence?
Does that word really matter?
Does that word actually hold any meaning?
And maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't,
because when I go and I
listen to an orchestra,
it doesn't really matter whether or not
I say that the musicians have
a high musical intelligence
or a very high musical ability.
It's still wonderful to listen to.
And another thing that
helped me better understand
and appreciate it was
when a teacher that I had
compared general
intelligence to athleticism.
Because, on the one hand,
there are many, many things
that would enable someone
to do well in sports:
eye-hand coordination, speed,
quick reflexes, muscle mass.
And just because someone
does well in one sport,
doesn't mean that they're
going to do well in another.
There's no reason to assume that someone
who has a gold medal in figure skating
is going to be a good volleyball player.
But that said, there does seem to be
some kind of general athletic ability.
And so it helped me a lot
to think about intelligence
like athleticism, that
while you can split it up
into things like mathematical
ability and spatial awareness,
maybe there is some kind of
general underlying intelligence,
just as there might be some
general underlying athleticism.
