Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1998. 49:479­502
Copyright  1998 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved
HUMAN ABILITIES
Robert J. Sternberg and James C. Kaufman
Department of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, Connecticut
06520-8205; e-mail: robert.sternberg@yale.edu; e-mail: james.kaufman@yale.edu
KEY WORDS: intelligence, biological approaches, psychometric approaches, cultural
approaches, cognitive approaches
ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews recent literature, primarily from the 1990s, on human
abilities. The review opens with a consideration of the question of what intel-
ligence is, and then considers some of the major definitions of intelligence,
as well as implicit theories of intelligence around the world. Next, the chap-
ter considers cognitive approaches to intelligence, and then biological ap-
proaches. It proceeds to psychometric or traditional approaches to intelli-
gence, and then to broad, recent approaches.
The different approaches raise somewhat different questions, and hence
produce somewhat different answers. They have in common, however, the
attempt to understand what kinds of mechanisms lead some people to adapt
to, select, and shape environments in ways that match particularly well the
demands of those environments.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
DEFINITIONS OF INTELLIGENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
Western Psychological Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
Cross-Cultural Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Early Biological Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Modern Biological Views and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
THE PSYCHOMETRIC APPROACH TO INTELLIGENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Theoretical Developments: Carroll's and Horn's Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
An Empirical Curiosity: The Flynn Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Psychometric Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
The Bell Curve Phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
BROAD THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE AND OF KINDS OF INTELLIGENCE . . . . . 492
Multiple Intelligences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Successful Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
0066-4308/98/0201-0479$08.00
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True Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
The Bioecological Model of Intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Emotional Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
INTRODUCTION
The study of intelligence is like a real-world Jeopardy game. Curiously, there is
more agreement regarding answers than there is regarding what questions these an-
swers answer. For example, it is uncontroversial that on conventional tests of intelli-
gence, members of certain socially identified racial and ethnic groups differ on av-
erage. But what does such a difference show? What question does it answer?
Does it answer the question of whether there are differences across groups in intelli-
gence, whether the tests are differentially biased for members of different groups,
whether different groups have had different educational opportunities, or whether
different groups differ on a narrow subset of skills that constitutes only a small part
of intelligence, or some other question still? To understand the field of human abili-
ties and intelligence, one must consider questions at least as much as answers.
The goal of this chapter is to consider some of the main questions being asked
and answers being offered today in the field of human abilities, in general, and of
human intelligence, in particular, and to consider the match between them. What
are the important questions, and what are the questions that available data answer?
We organize our review around some of the main paradigms in the study of
human abilities, because the paradigm one uses generates, to a large extent, the
questions that are viewed as important or not important. Before we consider
these theories, however, we first consider even what intelligence is, going back
in history and up to the present.
DEFINITIONS OF INTELLIGENCE
What is intelligence? It turns out that the answer depends on whom you ask,
and that the answer differs widely across disciplines, time, and places. We dis-
cuss the diversity of views about what intelligence is because empirical studies
often assume rather than explore the nature of the construct they are investigat-
ing--in this case, intelligence.
Western Psychological Views
How have Western psychologists conceived of intelligence? Almost none of
these views is adequately expressed by Boring's (1923) operationistic view of
intelligence as whatever it is that intelligence tests test. This empty and circu-
lar definition is still used by some investigators in the field.
For example, in a 1921 symposium (Intelligence and Its Measurement: A
Symposium) on experts' definitions of intelligence, researchers emphasized
480 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

the importance of the ability to learn and the ability to adapt to the environ-
ment. Sixty-five years later, Sternberg & Detterman (1986) conducted a simi-
lar symposium, again asking experts their views on intelligence. Learning and
adaptive abilities retained their importance, and a new emphasis crept in: me-
tacognition, or the ability to understand and control oneself. Of course, the
name is new, but the idea is not, because Aristotle emphasized long before the
importance for intelligence of knowing oneself.
Cross-Cultural Views
In some cases, Western notions about intelligence are not shared by other cul-
tures. For example, at the mental level, the Western emphasis on speed of men-
tal processing (Sternberg et al 1981) is not shared by many cultures. Other cul-
tures may even be suspicious of the quality of work done very quickly and may
emphasize depth rather than speed of processing. They are not alone: Some
prominent Western theorists have pointed out the importance of depth of proc-
essing for full command of material (e.g. Craik & Lockhart 1972).
Yang & Sternberg (1997a) have reviewed Chinese philosophical concep-
tions of intelligence. The Confucian perspective emphasizes the characteristic
of benevolence and of doing what is right. As in the Western notion, the intelli-
gent person spends much effort in learning, enjoys learning, and persists in
life-long learning with enthusiasm. The Taoist tradition, in contrast, empha-
sizes the importance of humility, freedom from conventional standards of
judgment, and full knowledge of oneself and of external conditions.
The difference between Eastern and Western conceptions of intelligence
may persist even today. Yang & Sternberg (1997b) studied contemporary Tai-
wanese Chinese conceptions of intelligence and found five factors underlying
these conceptions: (a) a general cognitive factor, much like the g factor in con-
ventional Western tests; (b) interpersonal intelligence; (c) intrapersonal intel-
ligence; (d) intellectual self-assertion; and (e) intellectual self-effacement. In a
related study but with different results, Chen (1994) found three factors under-
lying Chinese conceptualizations of intelligence: nonverbal reasoning ability,
verbal reasoning ability, and rote memory. The difference may be due to dif-
ferent subpopulations of Chinese, to differences in methodology, or to differ-
ences in when the studies were done.
The factors uncovered in both studies differ substantially from those
identified in US people's conceptions of intelligence by Sternberg et al
(1981)--(a) practical problem solving, (b) verbal ability, and (c) social com-
petence--although in both cases, people's implicit theories of intelligence
seem to go quite far beyond what conventional psychometric intelligence tests
measure. Of course, comparing the Chen (1994) study to the Sternberg et al
(1981) study simultaneously varies both language and culture.
HUMAN ABILITIES 481

Chen & Chen (1988) varied only language. They explicitly compared the
concepts of intelligence of Chinese graduates from Chinese-language versus
English-language schools in Hong Kong. They found that both groups consid-
ered nonverbal reasoning skills as the most relevant skills for measuring intelli-
gence. Verbal reasoning and social skills came next, and then numerical skills.
Memory was seen as least important. The Chinese-language-schooled group,
however, tended to rate verbal skills as less important than did the English--
language-schooled group. Moreover, in an earlier study, Chen et al (1982) found
that Chinese students viewed memory for facts as important for intelligence,
whereas Australian students viewed these skills as of only trivial importance.
Das (1994), also reviewing Eastern notions of intelligence, has suggested
that in Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, intelligence involves waking up, no-
ticing, recognizing, understanding, and comprehending but also includes such
things as determination, mental effort, and even feelings and opinions in addi-
tion to more intellectual elements.
Differences between cultures in conceptions of intelligence have been rec-
ognized for some time. Gill & Keats (1980) noted that Australian University
students value academic skills and the ability to adapt to new events as critical
to intelligence, whereas Malay students value practical skills, as well as speed
and creativity. Dasen (1984) found that Malay students emphasize both social
and cognitive attributes in their conceptions of intelligence.
The differences between East and West may be due to differences in the
kinds of skills valued by the two kinds of cultures (Srivastava & Misra 1996).
Western cultures and their schools emphasize what might be called "techno-
logical intelligence" (Mundy-Castle 1974), and so things like artificial intelli-
gence and so-called smart bombs are viewed, in some sense, as intelligent, or
smart. According to this view, intelligence ends up being oriented toward the
development and improvement of technology.
Western schooling also emphasizes other things (Srivastava & Misra 1996),
such as generalization, or going beyond the information given (Connolly &
Bruner 1974, Goodnow 1976), speed (Sternberg 1985a), minimal moves to a
solution (Newell & Simon 1972), and creative thinking (Goodnow 1976).
Moreover, silence is interpreted as a lack of knowledge (Irvine 1978). In con-
trast, the Wolof tribe in Africa views people of higher social class and distinc-
tion as speaking less (Irvine 1978). This difference between the Wolof and
Western notions suggests the usefulness of looking at African notions of intel-
ligence and its manifestations in behavior as a possible contrast to US notions.
Studies in Africa, in fact, provide yet another window on the substantial dif-
ferences. Ruzgis & Grigorenko (1994) have argued that, in Africa, concep-
tions of intelligence revolve largely around skills that help to facilitate and
maintain harmonious and stable intergroup relations; intragroup relations are
482 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

probably equally important and at times more important. For example, Serpell
(1974, 1977, 1982) found that Chewa adults in Zambia emphasize social re-
sponsibilities, cooperativeness, and obedience as important to intelligence; in-
telligent children are expected to be respectful of adults. Kenyan parents also
emphasize responsible participation in family and social life as important as-
pects of intelligence (Super & Harkness 1982; CM Super & S Harkness, un-
published manuscript). In Zimbabwe, the word for intelligence, ngware, actu-
ally means to be prudent and cautious, particularly in social relationships.
Among the Baoule, service to the family and community and politeness to-
ward and respect for elders are seen as key to intelligence (Dasen 1984).
Similar emphasis on social aspects of intelligence has been found as well
among two other African groups--the Songhay of Mali and the Samia of
Kenya (Putnam & Kilbride 1980). The Yoruba, another African tribe, empha-
size the importance of depth--of listening rather than just talking--to intelli-
gence, and of being able to see all aspects of an issue and to place the issue in
its proper overall context (Durojaiye 1993).
The emphasis on the social aspects of intelligence is not limited to African
cultures. Notions of intelligence in many Asian cultures also emphasize the so-
cial aspect of intelligence more than does the conventional Western or IQ--
based notion (Azuma & Kashiwagi 1987, Lutz 1985, Poole 1985, White 1985).
It should be noted that neither African nor Asian notions emphasize exclu-
sively social notions of intelligence. In a collaborative study with a number of
investigators, Sternberg & Grigorenko (1997b) are currently studying concep-
tions of intelligence in rural Kenya. In one village (Kissumu), many and proba-
bly most of the children are at least moderately infected with a variety of para-
sitic infections. Consequently, they experience stomachaches quite frequently.
Traditional medicine suggests the usefulness of a large variety (actually hun-
dreds) of natural herbal medicines that can be used to treat such infections. It
appears that at least some of these--although perhaps a small percentage--ac-
tually work. More important for our purposes, however, is that children who
learn how to self-medicate with these natural herbal medicines are viewed as
being at an adaptive advantage over those who do not have this kind of infor-
mal knowledge. Clearly, the kind of adaptive advantage that is relevant in this
culture would be viewed as totally irrelevant in the West, and vice versa.
Although these conceptions of intelligence much more emphasize social
skills than do conventional US conceptions of intelligence, they simultane-
ously recognize the importance of cognitive aspects of intelligence. Note,
however, that there is no one overall US conception of intelligence. Okagaki &
Sternberg (1993) found that different ethnic groups in San Jose, California,
had rather different conceptions of what it means to be intelligent. For exam-
ple, Latino parents of schoolchildren tended to emphasize the importance of
HUMAN ABILITIES 483

social-competence skills in their conceptions of intelligence, whereas Asian
parents tended rather heavily to emphasize the importance of cognitive skills.
Anglo parents also more emphasized cognitive skills. Teachers, representing
the dominant culture, more emphasized cognitive- rather than social-compe-
tence skills. The rank order of children of various groups' performance (includ-
ing subgroups within the Latino and Asian groups) could be perfectly pre-
dicted by the extent to which their parents shared the teachers' conception of in-
telligence. That is, teachers tended to reward those children who were social-
ized into a view of intelligence that happened to correspond to the teachers'
own. Yet, as we argue below, social aspects of intelligence, broadly defined,
may be as important as or even more important than cognitive aspects of intelli-
gence in later life. For example, a team that needs to complete a cognitive task
may not be able to do so if the members are unable to work together. Some, how-
ever, prefer to study intelligence not in its social aspect but in its cognitive one.
COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCE
Cronbach (1957) called for a merging of the two disciplines of scientific psy-
chology--the differential and the experimental approaches. Serious responses
to Cronbach came in the 1970s, with cognitive approaches to intelligence at-
tempting this merger. Hunt et al (1973) introduced the cognitive-correlates ap-
proach, whereby scores on laboratory cognitive tests were correlated with
scores on psychometric intelligence tests. Sternberg (1977) introduced the
cognitive-components approach, whereby performance on complex psycho-
metric tasks was decomposed into elementary information-processing compo-
nents. Cronbach & Snow (1977; see also Snow 1994) have summarized and
synthesized a large literature on aptitude-treatment interaction approaches,
whereby instruction and assessment would be tailored to patterns of abilities.
In the 1990s, cognitive and biological approaches (discussed next) have be-
gun to merge. A prototypical example is the inspection-time task (Nettlebeck
1982; see review by Deary & Stough 1996). In this task, two adjacent vertical
lines are presented tachistoscopically or by computer, followed by a visual
mask (to destroy the image in visual iconic memory). The two lines differ in
length, as do the lengths of time for which the two lines are presented. The sub-
ject's task is to say which line is longer. Instead of using raw response time as
the dependent variable, however, investigators typically use measures derived
from a psychophysical function estimated after many trials. For example, the
measure might be the mean duration of a single inspection trial at which 50%
accuracy is achieved. Correlations between this task and measures of IQ ap-
pear to be about 0.4, a bit higher than is typical in psychometric tasks. There
are differing theories about why such correlations are obtained, but such theories
484 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

generally attempt to relate the cognitive function of visual inspection time to
some kind of biological function, such as speed of neuronal conduction. Let us
consider, then, some of the biological functions that may underlie intelligence.
BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCE
An important approach to studying intelligence is to understand it in terms of
the functioning of the brain, in particular, and of the nervous system, in gen-
eral. Earlier theories relating the brain to intelligence tended to be global in na-
ture, although not necessarily backed by strong empirical evidence.
Early Biological Theories
Halstead (1951) suggested that there are four biologically based abilities,
which he called (a) the integrative field factor, (b) the abstraction factor, (c) the
power factor, and (d) the directional factor. Halstead attributed all four of these
abilities primarily to the functioning of the cortex of the frontal lobes.
More influential than Halstead has been Hebb (1949), who distinguished
between two basic types of intelligence: Intelligence A and Intelligence B.
Hebb's distinction is still used by some theorists today. According to Hebb, In-
telligence A is innate potential; Intelligence B is the functioning of the brain as
a result of the actual development that has occurred. These two basic types of
intelligence should be distinguished from Intelligence C, or intelligence as
measured by conventional psychometric tests of intelligence. Hebb also sug-
gested that learning, an important basis of intelligence, is built up through cell
assemblies, by which successively more and more complex connections
among neurons are constructed as learning takes place.
A third biologically based theory is that of Luria (1973, 1980), which has
had a major impact on tests of intelligence (Kaufman & Kaufman 1983, Na-
glieri & Das 1997). According to Luria, the brain comprises three main units
with respect to intelligence: (a) a unit of arousal in the brain stem and midbrain
structures; (b) a sensory-input unit in the temporal, parietal, and occipital
lobes; and (c) an organization and planning unit in the frontal cortex.
Modern Biological Views and Research
SPEED OF NEURONAL CONDUCTION More recent theories have dealt with more
specific aspects of brain or neural functioning. For example, one view has sug-
gested that individual differences in nerve-conduction velocity are a basis for indi-
vidual differences in intelligence. Two procedures have been used to measure
conduction velocity, either centrally (in the brain) or peripherally (e.g. in the arm).
Reed & Jensen (1992) tested brain nerve conduction velocities via two medi-
um-latency potentials, N70 and P100, which were evoked by pattern-reversal
stimulation. Subjects saw a black and white checkerboard pattern in which the
HUMAN ABILITIES 485

black squares would change to white and the white squares to black. Over many
trials, responses to these changes were analyzed via electrodes attached to the
scalp in four places. Correlations of derived latency measures with IQ were small
(generally in the 0.1­0.2 range of absolute value), but were significant in some
cases, suggesting at least a modest relation between the two kinds of measures.
Vernon & Mori (1992) reported on two studies investigating the relation
between nerve-conduction velocity in the arm and IQ. In both studies, nerve-
conduction velocity was measured in the median nerve of the arm by attaching
electrodes to the arm. In the second study, conduction velocity from the wrist
to the tip of the finger was also measured. Vernon & Mori found significant
correlations with IQ in the 0.4 range, as well as somewhat smaller correlations
(around -0.2) with response-time measures. They interpreted their results as
supporting the hypothesis of a relation between speed of information transmis-
sion in the peripheral nerves and intelligence. However, these results must be
interpreted cautiously, as Wickett & Vernon (1994) later tried unsuccessfully
to replicate these earlier results.
GLUCOSE METABOLISM Some of the most interesting recent work under the
biological approach has been done by Richard Haier and his colleagues. For
example, Haier et al (1988) showed that cortical glucose metabolic rates as re-
vealed by positron emission tomography (PET) scan analysis of subjects solv-
ing Raven Matrix problems were lower for more-intelligent than for less-
intelligent subjects, suggesting that the more intelligent subjects needed to ex-
pend less effort than the less intelligent ones to solve the reasoning problems.
A later study (Haier et al 1992) showed a similar result for more- versus less-
practiced performers playing the computer game of Tetris. That is, smart peo-
ple or intellectually expert people do not have to work as hard as less-smart or
intellectually expert people at a given problem.
What remains to be shown, however, is the causal direction of this finding. One
could sensibly argue that the smart people expend less glucose (as a proxy for
effort) because they are smart, rather than that people are smart because they ex-
pend less glucose. Or both high IQ and low glucose metabolism may be related
to a third causal variable. In other words, we cannot always assume that the bio-
logical event is a cause (in the reductionistic sense). It may be, instead, an effect.
BRAIN SIZE Another approach considers brain size. Willerman et al (1991)
correlated brain size with Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R) IQs,
controlling for body size. They found that IQ correlated 0.65 in men and 0.35
in women, with a correlation of 0.51 for both sexes combined. A follow-up
analysis of the same 40 subjects suggested that, in men, a relatively larger left
hemisphere better predicted WAIS-R verbal than it predicted nonverbal abil-
ity, whereas in women a larger left hemisphere predicted nonverbal ability bet-
486 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

ter than it predicted verbal ability (Willerman et al 1992). These brain-size cor-
relations are suggestive, but it is difficult to say what they mean at this point.
BEHAVIOR GENETICS Another approach that is at least partially biologically
based is that of behavior genetics. A fairly complete review of this extensive
literature is found in Sternberg & Grigorenko (1997a). The literature is com-
plex, but it appears that about half the total variance in IQ scores is accounted
for by genetic factors (Loehlin 1989, Plomin 1997). This figure may be an un-
derestimate, because the variance includes error variance and because most
studies of heritability have been with children, but we know that heritability of
IQ is higher for adults than for children (Plomin 1997). In addition, some stud-
ies, such as the Texas Adoption Project (Loehlin et al 1997), suggest higher es-
timates: 0.78 in the Texas Adoption Project, 0.75 in the Minnesota Study of
Twins Reared Apart (Bouchard 1997, Bouchard et al 1990), and 0.78 in the
Swedish Adoption Study of Aging (Pedersen et al 1992).
At the same time, some researchers argue that effects of heredity and envi-
ronment cannot be clearly and validly separated (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci
1994, Wahlsten & Gottlieb 1997). Perhaps, the direction for future research is
better to figure out how heredity and environment work together to produce
phenotypic intelligence (Scarr 1997), concentrating especially on within-
family environmental variation, which appears to be more important than
between-family variation (Jensen 1997). Such research requires, at the very
least, very carefully prepared tests of intelligence--perhaps some of the newer
tests described in the next section.
THE PSYCHOMETRIC APPROACH TO INTELLIGENCE
The psychometric approach to intelligence is among the oldest of approaches,
and dates back to Galton's (1883) psychophysical account of intelligence and
attempts to measure intelligence in terms of psychophysical abilities (such as
strength of hand grip or visual acuity) and later to Binet & Simon's (1916) ac-
count of intelligence as judgment, involving adaptation to the environment, di-
rection of one's efforts, and self-criticism.
Theoretical Developments: Carroll's and Horn's Theories
Two of the major new theories proposed during the past decade have been Car-
roll's (1993) and Horn's (1994) theories. The two theories are both hierarchi-
cal, suggesting more nearly general abilities higher up in the hierarchy and
more nearly specific abilities lower in the hierarchy. Carroll's theory will be
described briefly as representative of these new developments.
Carroll (1993) proposed his hierarchical model of intelligence, based on
the factor analysis of more than 460 data sets obtained between 1927 and 1987.
HUMAN ABILITIES 487

His analysis encompasses more than 130,000 people from diverse walks of life
and even countries of origin (although non-English-speaking countries are
poorly represented among his data sets). The model Carroll proposed, based on
his monumental undertaking, is a hierarchy comprising three strata: Stratum I,
which includes many narrow, specific abilities (e.g. spelling ability, speed of
reasoning); Stratum II, which includes various group-factor abilities (e.g. fluid
intelligence, involved in flexible thinking and seeing things in novel ways; and
crystallized intelligence, the accumulated knowledge base); and Stratum III,
which is just a single general intelligence, much like Spearman's (1904) gen-
eral intelligence factor.
Of these strata, the most interesting is perhaps the middle stratum, which in-
cludes, in addition to fluid and crystallized abilities, learning and memory pro-
cesses, visual perception, auditory perception, facile production of ideas (simi-
lar to verbal fluency), and speed (which includes both sheer speed of response
and speed of accurate responding). Although Carroll does not break much new
ground, in that many of the abilities in his model have been mentioned in other
theories, he does masterfully integrate a large and diverse factor-analytic lit-
erature, thereby giving great authority to his model.
An Empirical Curiosity: The Flynn Effect
We know that the environment has powerful effects on cognitive abilities. Per-
haps the simplest and most potent demonstration of this effect is the "Flynn ef-
fect" (Flynn 1984, 1987, 1994). The basic phenomenon is that IQ has in-
creased over successive generations around the world through most of the cen-
tury--at least since 1930. The effect must be environmental, because obvi-
ously a successive stream of genetic mutations could not have taken hold and
exerted such an effect over such a short period. The effect is powerful--at least
15 points of IQ per generation for tests of fluid intelligence. And it occurs all
over the world. The effect has been greater for tests of fluid intelligence than
for tests of crystallized intelligence. The difference, if linearly extrapolated (a
hazardous procedure, obviously), would suggest that a person who in 1892 fell
at the 90th percentile on the Raven Progressive Matrices, a test of fluid intelli-
gence, would, in 1992, score at the 5th percentile.
There have been many potential explanations of the Flynn effect, and in 1996
a conference was organized by Ulric Neisser and held at Emory University to
try to explain the effect. Some of the possible explanations includes increased
schooling, greater educational attainment of parents, better nutrition, and less
childhood disease. A particularly interesting explanation is that of more and
better parental attention to children (see Bronfenbrenner & Ceci 1994). What-
ever the answer, the Flynn effect suggests we need to think carefully about the
488 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

view that IQ is fixed. It probably is not fixed within individuals (Campbell &
Ramey 1994, Ramey 1994), and it is certainly not across generations.
Psychometric Tests
STATIC TESTS Static tests are the conventional kind where people are given
problems to solve, and are expected to solve them without feedback. Their fi-
nal score is typically the number of items answered correctly, sometimes with
a penalty for guessing.
Psychometric testing of intelligence and related abilities has generally ad-
vanced evolutionarily rather than revolutionarily. Sometimes what are touted
as advances seem cosmetic or almost beside the point, as in the case of newer
versions of the SAT, which are touted to have not only multiple-choice but fill-
in-the-blank math problems. Perhaps the most notable trend is a movement to-
ward multifactorial theories--often hierarchical ones--and away from the no-
tion that intelligence can be adequately understood only in terms of a single gen-
eral, or g, factor (e.g. Gustafsson 1988). For example, the third edition of the
Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC-III; Wechsler 1991) offers
scores for four factors (verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, proc-
essing speed, and freedom from distractibility), but the main scores remain the
verbal, performance, and total scores that have traditionally dominated interpre-
tation of the test. The Fourth Edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
(Thorndike et al 1986) also escapes from the orientation toward general ability
that characterized earlier editions, yielding scores for crystallized intelligence,
abstract-visual reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and short-term memory.
Two new tests also are constructed on the edifice of the theory of fluid and
crystallized intelligence (Cattell 1971, Horn 1994): the Kaufman Adolescent
and Adult Intelligence Test (KAIT; Kaufman & Kaufman 1993; see also Kauf-
man & Kaufman 1996) and the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abil-
ity­Revised (Woodcock & Johnson 1989; see also Woodcock 1996) (for a re-
view of these and other tests, see Daniel 1997). Although the theory is not new,
the tendency to base psychometric tests closely on theories of intelligence is a
welcome development.
The new Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System (Naglieri & Das
1997) is based not on fluid-crystallized theory but rather on the theory of Luria
(1973, 1976; see also Das et al 1994), mentioned above. It yields scores for at-
tention, planning, simultaneous processing, and successive processing.
DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT In dynamic assessment, individuals learn at the time
of test. If they answer an item incorrectly, they are given guided feedback to
help them solve the item, until they either get it correct or until the examiner
has run out of clues to give them.
HUMAN ABILITIES 489

The notion of dynamic testing appears to have originated with Vygotsky
(1962, 1978) and was developed independently by Feuerstein et al (1985). Dy-
namic assessment is generally based on the notion that cognitive abilities are
modifiable, and that there is some kind of zone of proximal development (Vy-
gotsky 1978), which represents the difference between actually developed
ability and latent capacity. Dynamic assessments attempt to measure this zone
of proximal development, or an analogue to it.
Dynamic assessment is cause both for celebration and for caution (EL
Grigorenko & RJ Sternberg, unpublished manuscript). On the one hand, it rep-
resents a break from conventional psychometric notions of a more or less fixed
level of intelligence. On the other hand, it is more a promissory note than a real-
ized success. The Feuerstein test, The Learning Potential Assessment Device
(Feuerstein et al 1985), is of clinical use but is not psychometrically normed or
validated. There is only one formally normed test available in the United States
(Swanson 1996), which yields scores for working memory before and at vari-
ous points during and after training, as well as scores for amount of improve-
ment with intervention, number of hints that have been given, and a subjective
evaluation by the examiner of the examinee's use of strategies. Other tests are
perhaps on the horizon (Guthke & Stein 1996), but their potential for stan-
dardization and validity, too, remains to be shown.
TYPICAL PERFORMANCE TESTS Traditionally, tests of intelligence have been
maximum-performance tests, requiring examinees to work the hardest they can
to maximize their scores. Ackerman (1994, Ackerman & Heggestad 1997, Goff &
Ackerman 1992) has recently argued that typical-performance tests--which, like
personality tests, do not require extensive intellectual effort--should supplement
maximal-performance ones. On such tests, subjects might be asked to what extent
they are characterized by statements like "I prefer my life to be filled with puz-
zles I must solve" or "I enjoy work that requires conscientious, exacting skills."
A factor analysis of such tests yielded five factors: intellectual engagement,
openness, conscientiousness, directed activity, and science/technology interest.
Although the trend has been toward multifaceted views of intelligence and
away from reliance on general ability, some have bucked this trend. Among
those who have are Herrnstein & Murray (1994).
The Bell Curve Phenomenon
A somewhat momentous event in the perception of the role of intelligence in so-
ciety came with the publication of The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray 1994).
The impact of the book is shown by the rapid publication of a number of re-
sponses. A whole issue of The New Republic was devoted to the book, and two
edited books of responses (Fraser 1995, Jacoby & Glauberman 1995) quickly
490 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

appeared. Some of the responses were largely political or emotional in charac-
ter, but others attacked the book on scientific grounds. A closely reasoned at-
tack appeared a year after these collections (Fischer et al 1996). The American
Psychological Association also sponsored a report that, although not directly a
response to The Bell Curve, was largely motivated by it (Neisser et al 1996).
Some of the main arguments of the book are that (a) conventional IQ tests
measure intelligence, at least to a good first approximation; (b) IQ is an impor-
tant predictor of many measures of success in life, including school success but
also including economic success, work success, success in parenting, avoidance
of criminality, and avoidance of welfare dependence; (c) as a result of this pre-
diction, people who are high in IQ are forming a cognitive elite, meaning that
they are reaching the upper levels of society, whereas those who are low in IQ
are falling toward the bottom; (d) tests can and should be used as a gating mecha-
nism, given their predictive success; (e) IQ is fairly highly heritable, and hence is
passed on through the genes from one generation to the next, with the heritabil-
ity of IQ probably in the .5­.8 range; (f) there are racial and ethnic differences
in intelligence, with blacks in the United States, for example, scoring about
one standard deviation below whites; (g) it is likely, although not certain, that
at least some of this difference between groups is due to genetic factors.
Herrnstein & Murray attempted to document their claims, using available
literature and also their own analysis of the NLSY (National Longitudinal
Study of Youth) data that were available to them. Although their book was
written for a trade (popular) audience, the book was unusual among books for
such an audience in its use of fairly sophisticated statistical techniques.
It is not possible here to review the full range of responses to Herrnstein &
Murray (1994). Among psychologists, there seems to be fairly widespread
agreement that the social-policy recommendations of Herrnstein & Mur-
ray--which call for greater isolation of and paternalism toward those with
lower IQs--do not follow from their data, but rather represent a separate ideo-
logical statement (Neisser et al 1996). Beyond that, there is a great deal of dis-
agreement regarding the claims made by these authors.
Our own view (Sternberg 1995) is that it would be easy to draw much
stronger inferences from the Herrnstein-Murray analysis than the data warrant,
and perhaps even than Herrnstein & Murray themselves would support.
First, Herrnstein & Murray (1994) acknowledge that, in the United States, IQ
typically accounts only for roughly 10% of the variation, on average, in individual
differences across the domains of success they survey. Put another way, about
90% of the variation, and sometimes quite a bit more, remains unexplained.
Second, even the 10% figure may be inflated by the fact that US society
uses IQ-like tests to select, place, and ultimately, to stratify students, so that
some of the outcomes that Herrnstein & Murray mention may actually be re-
HUMAN ABILITIES 491

sults of the use of IQ-like tests rather than results of individual differences in
intelligence per se. For example, admission to selective colleges in the US
typically requires students to take either the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)
or the American College Test (ACT), both of which, for whatever they may be
named, are similar (although not identical) in kind to conventional tests of IQ.
Admission to graduate and professional programs requires similar kinds of
tests. The result is that those who do not test well may be denied access to these
programs, and to the routes that would lead them to job, economic, and other
socially sanctioned forms of success in our society.
It is thus not surprising, in a sense, that test scores would be highly correlated
with, say, job status. People who do not test well have difficulty gaining access
to high-status jobs, which in turn pay better than other jobs to which they might
be able to gain access. If we were to use some other index instead of test
scores--for example, social class or economic class--then different people
would be selected for the access routes to societal success. In fact, we do use
these alternative measures to some degree, although less so than in the past.
Finally, although group differences in IQ are acknowledge by virtually all
psychologists to be real, the cause of them remains very much in dispute. What
is clear is that the evidence in favor of genetic causes is weak and equivocal
(Nisbett 1995; Scarr et al 1977; Scarr & Weinberg 1976, 1983). We are cer-
tainly in no position to assign causes at this time. Understanding of group dif-
ferences requires further analysis and probably requires looking at these dif-
ferences through the lens of broader theories of intelligence.
BROAD THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE AND OF KINDS
OF INTELLIGENCE
During recent years, there has been a trend toward broad theories of intelli-
gence. We consider some of the main such theories next.
Multiple Intelligences
Gardner (1983) proposed that there is no single, unified intelligence but rather
a set of relatively distinct, independent, and modular multiple intelligence. His
theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory) originally proposed seven multi-
ple intelligences: (a) linguistic, as used in reading a book or writing a poem; (b)
logical-mathematical, as used in deriving a logical proof or solving a mathemati-
cal problem; (c) spatial, as used in fitting suitcases into the trunk of a car; (d)
musical, as used in singing a song or composing a symphony; (e) bodily-
kinesthetic, as used in dancing or playing football; (f) interpersonal, as used in
understanding and interacting with other people; and (g) intrapersonal, as used
in understanding oneself.
492 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

Recently, Gardner 1998 has proposed one additional intelligence as a con-
firmed part of his theory--naturalist intelligence--the kind shown by people
who are able to discern patterns in nature. Charles Darwin would be a notable
example. Gardner has also suggested that there may be two other "candidate"
intelligences: spiritual intelligence and existential intelligence. Spiritual intel-
ligence involves a concern with cosmic or existential issues and the recogni-
tion of the spiritual as the achievement of a state of being. Existential intelli-
gence involves a concern with ultimate issues. Gardner believes the evidence
for these latter two intelligences to be less powerful than the evidence for the
other eight intelligences. Whatever the evidence may be for the other eight, we
agree that the evidence for these two new intelligences is speculative at this
point. As of 1997, there have been no empirical investigations directly testing
the validity of Gardner's theory as a whole.
In the past, factor analysis served as the major criterion for identifying abilities.
Gardner (1983) proposed a new set of criteria, including but not limited to factor
analysis, for identifying the existence of a discrete kind of intelligence: (a) po-
tential isolation by brain damage, in that the destruction or sparing of a discrete
area of the brain may destroy or spare a particular kind of intelligent behavior;
(b) the existence of exceptional individuals who demonstrate an extraordinary
ability (or deficit) in a particular kind of intelligent behavior; (c) an identifiable
core operation or set of operations that are essential to performance of a particular
kind of intelligent behavior; (d) a distinctive developmental history leading from
novice to master, along with disparate levels of expert performance; (e) a dis-
tinctive evolutionary history, in which increases in intelligence may be plausi-
bly associated with enhanced adaptation to the environment; (f) supportive
evidence from cognitive-experimental research; (g) supportive evidence from
psychometric tests; and (h) susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system.
Since the theory was first proposed, many educational interventions have
arisen that are based on the theory, sometimes closely and other times less so
(Gardner 1993). Many of the programs are unevaluated, and evaluations of
others of these programs seem still to be ongoing, so it is difficult to say at this
point what the results will be. In one particularly careful evaluation of a well-
conceived program in a large southern city, there were no significant gains in
student achievement or changes in student self-concept as a result of an inter-
vention program based on Gardner's (1983) theory (Callahan et al 1997).
There is no way of knowing whether these results are representative of such in-
tervention programs, however.
Successful Intelligence
Sternberg (1996) has suggested that we may wish to pay less attention to con-
ventional notions of intelligence and more to what he terms successful intelli-
HUMAN ABILITIES 493

gence, or the ability to adapt to, shape, and select environments to accomplish
one's goals and those of one's society and culture. A successfully intelligent
person balances adaptation, shaping, and selection, doing each as necessary.
The theory is motivated in part by repeated findings that conventional tests of
intelligence and related tests do not predict meaningful criteria of success as
well as they predict scores on other similar tests and school grades (e.g. Stern-
berg & Williams 1997).
Successful intelligence involves an individual's discerning his or her pat-
tern of strengths and weaknesses, and then figuring out ways to capitalize upon
the strengths and at the same time to compensate for or correct the weaknesses.
People attain success, in part, in idiosyncratic ways that involve their finding
how best to exploit their own patterns of strengths and weaknesses.
Three broad abilities are important to successful intelligence: analytical,
creative, and practical abilities.
Analytical abilities are required to analyze and evaluate the options avail-
able to oneself in life. They include things such as identifying the existence of
a problem, defining the nature of the problem, setting up a strategy for solving
the problem, and monitoring one's solution processes.
Creative abilities are required to generate problem-solving options in the
first place. Creative individuals are ones who "buy low and sell high" in the
world of ideas (Sternberg & Lubart 1995, 1996): They are willing to generate
ideas that, like stocks with low price-earnings ratios, are unpopular and per-
haps even depreciated. Having convinced at least some people of the value of
these ideas, they then sell high, meaning that they move on to the next unpopu-
lar idea. Research shows that these abilities are at least partially distinct from
conventional IQ, and that they are moderately domain-specific, meaning that
creativity in one domain (such as art) does not necessarily imply creativity in
another (such as writing) (Sternberg & Lubart 1995).
Practical abilities are required to implement options and to make them
work. Practical abilities are involved when intelligence is applied to real-world
contexts. A key aspect of practical intelligence is the acquisition and use of
tacit knowledge, which is knowledge of what one needs to know to succeed in
a given environment that is not explicitly taught and that usually is not verbal-
ized. Research shows that tacit knowledge is acquired through mindful utiliza-
tion of experience, that it is relatively domain specific, that its possession is
relatively independent of conventional abilities, that it predicts criteria of job
success about as well as and sometimes better than does IQ (McClelland 1973,
Sternberg & Wagner 1993, Sternberg et al 1995).
The separation of practical intelligence from IQ has been shown in a number
of different ways in a number of different studies. Scribner (1984, 1986)
showed that experienced assemblers in a milk-processing plant used complex
494 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

strategies for combining partially filled cases in a manner that minimized the
number of moves required to complete an order. Although the assemblers were
the least educated workers in the plant, they were able to calculate in their
heads quantities expressed in different base number systems, and they rou-
tinely outperformed the more highly educated white collar workers who sub-
stituted when the assemblers were absent. Scribner found that the order-filling
performance of the assemblers was unrelated to measures of academic skills,
including intelligence test scores, arithmetic test scores, and grades.
Ceci & Liker (1986) carried out a study of expert racetrack handicappers
and found that expert handicappers used a highly complex algorithm for pre-
dicting post time odds that involved interactions among seven kinds of infor-
mation. Use of a complex interaction term in their implicit equation was unre-
lated to the handicappers' IQ.
In a series of studies, it has been shown that shoppers in California grocery
stores were able to choose which of several products represented the best buy
for them (Lave et al 1984, Murtaugh 1985), even though they did very poorly
on the same kinds of problems when they were presented in the form of a
paper-and-pencil arithmetic computation test. The same principle that applies
to adults appears to apply to children as well: Carraher et al (1985) found that
Brazilian street children who could apply sophisticated mathematical strate-
gies in their street vending were unable to do the same in a classroom setting
(see also Ceci & Roazzi 1994, Nunes 1994).
One more example of a study of practical intelligence was provided by indi-
viduals asked to play the role of city managers for the computer-simulated city
of Lohhausen (Dorner & Kreuzig 1983, Dorner et al 1983). A variety of prob-
lems were presented to these individuals, such as how best to raise revenue to
build roads. The simulation involved more than one thousand variables. No re-
lation was found between IQ and complexity of strategies used.
There is also evidence that practical intelligence can be taught (Gardner et
al 1994), at least in some degree. For example, middle-school children given a
program for developing their practical intelligence for school (strategies for
effective reading, writing, execution of homework, and taking of tests) im-
proved more from pretest to posttest than did control students who received an
alternative but irrelevant treatment.
None of these studies suggests that IQ is unimportant for school or job per-
formance or other kinds of performance, and indeed, the evidence suggests to
the contrary (Barrett & Depinet 1991, Hunt 1995, Hunter & Hunter 1984,
Schmidt & Hunter 1981, Wigdor & Garner 1982). What the studies do suggest,
however, is that there are other aspects of intelligence that are relatively inde-
pendent of IQ and that are important as well. A multiple-abilities prediction
model of school or job performance would probably be most satisfactory.
HUMAN ABILITIES 495

According to the theory of successful intelligence, children's multiple abili-
ties are underused in educational institutions because teaching tends to value
analytical (as well as memory) abilities at the expense of creative and practical
abilities. Sternberg et al (1996) designed an experiment to illustrate this point.
They identified 199 high school students from around the United States who
were strong in either analytical, creative, or practical abilities; all three kinds
of abilities; or none of the kinds of abilities. Students were then brought to
Yale University to take a college-level psychology course that was taught in a
way that emphasized either memory, analytical, creative, or practical abilities.
Some students were matched, and others were mismatched, to their own
strength(s). All students were evaluated for memory-based, analytical, crea-
tive, and practical achievements.
Sternberg et al found that students whose instruction matched their pattern
of abilities performed significantly better than did students who were mis-
matched. They also found that prediction of course performance was improved
by taking into account creative and practical as well as analytical abilities.
True Intelligence
Perkins (1995) has proposed the theory of true intelligence, which he believes
synthesizes classic views as well as new ones. According to Perkins, there are
three basic aspects to intelligence: neural, experiential, and reflective.
According to Perkins, neural intelligence is in the functioning of people's
neurological systems, with some people's systems running faster and with
more precision than do the neurological systems of others. He mentions "more
finely tuned voltages" and "more exquisitely adapted chemical catalysts" as
well as a "better pattern of connectivity in the labyrinth of neurons" (Perkins
1995, p. 97), although it is not entirely clear what any of these terms mean.
Perkins believes this aspect of intelligence to be largely genetically deter-
mined and unlearnable. This kind of intelligence seems to be somewhat similar
to Cattell's (1971) idea of fluid intelligence.
The experiential aspect of intelligence is what has been learned from expe-
rience. It is the extent and organization of the knowledge base, and thus is simi-
lar to Cattell's (1971) notion of crystallized intelligence.
The reflective aspect of intelligence refers to the role of strategies in mem-
ory and problem solving and appears to be similar to the construct of metacog-
nition or cognitive monitoring (Brown & DeLoache 1978, Flavell 1981). Ceci
(1996) also believes that reflection is important in intelligence.
The Bioecological Model of Intelligence
Ceci (1996) has proposed a bioecological model of intelligence, according to
which multiple cognitive potentials, context, and knowledge are all essential
496 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN

bases of individual differences in performance. Each of the multiple cognitive
potentials enables relationships to be discovered, thoughts to be monitored,
and knowledge to be acquired within a given domain. Although these poten-
tials are biologically based, their development is closely linked to environ-
mental context, and hence it is difficult if not impossible to separate cleanly
biological from environmental contributions to intelligence. Moreover, abili-
ties may express themselves very differently in different contexts. For exam-
ple, children given essentially the same task in the context of a video game and
in the context of a laboratory cognitive task performed much better when the
task was presented in the context of the video game. Part of this superiority
may have been a result of differences in emotional response, which brings us to
the last broader conception we consider.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and ex-
press emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facili-
tate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and
the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth
(Mayer & Salovey 1997). The concept was introduced by Salovey & Mayer
(Mayer & Salovey 1993, Salovey & Mayer 1990) and popularized and ex-
panded upon by Goleman (1995).
There is some, though still tentative, evidence for the existence of emo-
tional intelligence. For example, Mayer & Gehr (1996) found that emotional
perception of characters in a variety of situations correlates with SAT scores,
with empathy, and with emotional openness. Full convergent-discriminant
validation of the construct, however, appears to be needed.
CONCLUSION
Cultures designate as "intelligent" the cognitive, social, and behavioral attrib-
utes that they value as adaptive to the requirements of living in those cultures.
To the extent that there is overlap in these attributes across cultures, there will
be overlap in the cultures' conceptions of intelligence. Although conceptions
of intelligence may vary across cultures, the underlying cognitive attributes
probably do not. There may be some variation in social and behavioral attrib-
utes. As a result, there is probably a common core of cognitive skills that un-
derlies intelligence in all cultures, with the cognitive skills having different
manifestations across the cultures.
A variety of paradigms has been used to study intelligence. These para-
digms are largely complementary rather than contradictory, looking at differ-
ent aspects of and questions about intelligence. Many active research pro-
HUMAN ABILITIES 497

grams are pursuing answers to these questions. Although there is no one right
approach, we believe that the field particularly needs research that expands our
notions about what intelligence is. At the same time, we must be cautious
about theories that are advanced without direct empirical support. We also
must be cautious about how to interpret behavior-genetic studies, which deal
with correlations, not means. The Flynn effect shows that whatever the herita-
bility of IQ, IQ is highly modifiable, at least across generations. Perhaps the in-
creases in IQ that have been observed across generations will one day start to
manifest themselves in people's behavior. To date, signs that increases in IQ
are reflected in more intelligent everyday behavior have been conspicuous by
their absence.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Preparation of this chapter was supported in part under the Javits Act Program
(Grant R206R50001) as administered by the Office of Educational Research
and Improvement, US Department of Education. The opinions expressed in
this chapter do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement or the US Department of Education.
Visit the Annual Reviews home page at http://www.AnnualReviews.org.
498 STERNBERG & KAUFMAN
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