The Nature of Intelligence and Its Development in Childhood

Intelligence is not IQ. It's one's ability to make something positively meaningful out of one's life, given one's sociocultural milieu.

Robert J. Sternberg (Author)

9781108791533, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 December 2020

75 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 0.5 cm, 0.13 kg

In this Element, I first introduce intelligence in terms of historical definitions. I show that intelligence, as conceived even by the originators of the first intelligence tests, Alfred Binet and David Wechsler, is a much broader construct than just scores on narrow tests of intelligence and their proxies. I then review the major approaches to understanding intelligence and its development: the psychometric (test-based), cognitive and neurocognitive (intelligence as a set of brain-based cognitive representations and processes), systems, cultural, and developmental. These approaches, taken together, present a much more complex portrait of intelligence and its development than the one that would be ascertained just from scores on intelligence tests. Finally, I draw some take-away conclusions.

1. Introduction
2. Early Conceptions of Intelligence
3. Psychometric Conceptions of Intelligence
4. Cognitive and Neurocognitive Conceptions of Intelligence
5. Systems Conceptions of Intelligence
6. Cultural Conceptions of Intelligence
7. Developmental Conceptions of Intelligence
8. Conclusions about Intelligence and Its Development.

Subject Areas: Intelligence & reasoning [JMRN], Child & developmental psychology [JMC]