Conceptions of Intelligence

Robert Sternberg's earlier studies have shown that both expert psychometricians and lay people agree surprisingly well in their definitions of 'intelligence'. Very few follow recent suggestions by Most people and psychologists define ' intelligence' pragmatically as the ability to solve the problems encountered in everyday life. Zoologists tend towards similar definitions and have difficulty comparing the 'intelligence' of species of different animals with equally successful, albeit intensely specialised, adaptations to diverse ecological niches. In this conceptual framework, intelligence is 'what works best' for an animal or a person. The specialised survival adaptations of academics, aborigines and artists can be regarded as equally valid manifestations of'intelligence', in the sense that they can all be successful ways of coping with different, complex life demands. In terms of this contextual model of intellectual development, intelligence is defined as ' the mental ability involved in successfully adapting to one's environment'. In the sense that as people age they must adapt to radically altered environments, problems and life-roles, it may be more appropriate to say that their intelligence must certainly qualitatively alter as they grow old but does not necessarily decline.