Sunny's AP Psychology Blog

What makes an intelligent person?

Nobody quite knows exactly what is meant by the term ‘intelligence.’ It is a quality ascribed to those with exceptional mental, conversational, or judgmental abilities, but we still do not know exactly what it is. Consider an idiot savant who cannot feed himself or make conversation but can instantaneously multiply numbers in the millions range or come up with the square root of say, 57686 without a calculator. The average person would be hard put to define whether this savant is intelligent or not.
The generally accepted definition for intelligence is ‘the capacity for goal-directed and adaptive behavior involving the abilities to profit from experience, solve problems, and reason effectively.’ In other words, it is defined as ‘a general mental capability that includes reasoning abilities, planning abilities, ability to think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, and learn from experiences, an ability to comprehend and react to one’s surroundings.’
A Sir Francis Galton came up with the concept of intelligence in the 19th century. He believed that intelligence was mainly inherited, and speculated about eugenics. He thought that if intellectually superior humans were the only ones allowed to breed, eventually the general mental capability of the human race would increase. A fellow called Binet came after him and thought that there should be a way to measure intelligence, so came up with a fairly limited test. Lewis Terman came along and adjusted the test to make the ‘Stanford-Binet Test’ and coined the term ‘IQ’ or ‘Intelligence Quotient.’ Evidently, he thought that intelligence should increase with age, so his intelligence quotient factored in age by dividing the general results by age. Certain discrepancies cropped up because of this.
Charles Spearman came up with factor analysis. He thought that there must be a general component to intelligence, and that if one had a lot of it, then one would be more intelligent than most others in most areas of intelligence. Professor Thurston, in contrast, thought of intelligence as emerging in eight different clusters.
People once used to think of this vague attribute called intelligence as a lump sum, a general quality that you could measure in total. Howard Gardner, an American psychologist, thought differently. He proposed a theory of multiple intelligences. He wasn’t the first, but his was comprehensive and definite. He viewed intelligence as having several components, each independent of the others, and that in order to assess a person’s intelligence you had to assess each part separately. The components, or categories, he proposed were spatial, musical, verbal, logical and mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and bodily; he believed that each form has intrinsic value. Gardner thought that everyone had innate tendencies to excel in certain categories, and that we are all equally intelligent, just in different categories.
Robert Sternberg, came up with a similar idea, but his triarchic theory of intelligence focused mostly on cognitive abilities. His idea of intelligence was of three components that interact with each other; academic problem solving skills, practical intelligence, and creative intelligence. Academic problem solving skills are the skills that require logical thinking and the ability to solve problems that are well-defined and have only one answer. Practical intelligence is one’s aptitude in getting through everyday problems. Creative intelligence is the kind needed to react well to novel situations. His theory differs from Gardner’s because he believed that these categories were only sub-divisions that make up one general intelligence.
A somewhat recently popularized aspect of intelligence is EQ, the emotional quotient. EQ is the ability or the skill to detect, assess, and manage one’s own emotions and those of others. Hence, it is a social ability. As it is a relatively new concept, research is still being conducted on EQ. However, people are gradually accepting this concept as one that is as important as or more important than IQ. After all, what good is an IQ of 198 if one is unable to placate an irate client, get a deal from a company representative, or keep one’s employees happy?
There are many different views on that vague quality called intelligence, ranging from the general to the specific, and from academic to social. Personally, I believe that emotional intelligence is the most relevant aspect of intelligence. The most gifted individual can be defeated by his inability to manage his own emotions. We are social animals, and we live with each other. One’s success in this world hangs on both one’s personal abilities and one’s personal relationships. Emotional management is crucial to both; if one cannot keep oneself focused and motivated enough to acquire skills, or make connections and both give and receive help, one simply cannot live a successful or happy life.

posted by 미카 @ 11:58 AM 0 comments

Neo Freudians

Carl Jung, unlike other Neo-Freudians, regarded the unconscious as important, proposing his theory of a collective unconscious shared by all humans across both time and distance. His somewhat mystical view of the unconscious resembles that of Freud in that he too believed that the unconscious had much subtle influence over our lives.
Karen Horney devised 3 strategies for dealing with neurosis. She viewed the early, formative years in a person’s life as the factor that defined what the person would be like throughout their life. In placing such importance on childhood experiences, Horney’s views resemble that of Freud. However, she objected to the notion of the ‘Oedipus complex’ and, possibly in feminist retaliation to Freud’s proposed ‘penis envy,’ came up with ‘womb envy.’
Alfred Adler worked extensively with the idea of an ‘inferiority complex’ suffered by all children and most adults at various levels. Adler seems almost Humanist in assuming that our basic driving force is to better ourselves and that social concern is a part of any normal individual. Adler rejected Freud’s idea of a compartmentalized self.
Erik Erikson is famous for his proposed stages of development, or the different crises that individuals supposedly undergo at periodic points in their lifetime. Like Freud, he believed that one’s childhood has a great deal to do with one’s personality, but unlike Freud, believed that the ego is much more important than the other parts of self. Somewhat like Adler, he believed that overcoming problems drives us towards self-improvement.

The Neo-Freudians, as a group, are less extreme and less focused on sex than Freud. They each seem to focus on different aspects of Freud’s theories and expand and diverge from there. While their ideas are interesting, I really don’t think that any one theory can be applicable to humanity as a whole, or really encompass the depths of any individual’s psyche.

posted by 미카 @ 2:32 AM 0 comments

Some ideas from Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler postulates a single "drive" or motivating force behind all our behavior and experience, the striving for perfection. It is the desire we all have to fulfill our potentials, to come closer and closer to our ideal.
While Freud tended to explain people in terms of parts, such as the id, ego, and superego, Adler was influenced by holism, the idea that in order to understand people, we have to understand them more as unified wholes than as a collection of bits and pieces, and we have to understand them in the context of their environment, both physical and social.
Freud theorized that we are all driven by our past. Adler saw motivation as a matter of moving towards the future, not a mechanical drive by the past. We are drawn towards our goals and ideals. This is called teleology. Life isn’t a set sequence, and you can change your future as you change you goals or ideals.
Adler thought there that as human beings, we are possessed of social interest, in the sense of caring for family, for community, for society, for humanity, even for life. Social concern is a matter of being useful to others. Adler defined mental illnesses as a lack of social concern.
Adler says that when we are overwhelmed by our inferiority, we come to lack social interest, and fall far short of self-actualization. We focus all our attentions on ourselves and our problems when we feel incompetent and lacking. Everyone suffers from inferiority in one form or another, whether it is simple organ inferiority (physical) or psychological inferiority (being told that we are dumb or weak, so we believe it). Some respond to these inferiorities through compensation, overcoming the problem or becoming good at those areas we perceive ourselves to be weak in. Adler noted that children have a natural sense of inferiority due to their small size.
If you are overwhelmed by the forces of inferiority, you develop an inferiority complex, a form of neurosis. You become shy and timid, insecure, indecisive, cowardly, submissive, compliant, and so on. You begin to rely on people to carry you along, even manipulating them into supporting you: "You think I'm smart / pretty / strong / sexy / good, don't you?"
Some respond to inferiority by developing a superiority complex. The superiority complex involves covering up your inferiority by pretending to be superior (e.g. bullies, show offs, Hitler). More subtle examples are attention-seeking drama queens, the ones who feel powerful when they commit crimes, and the ones who put others down for their gender, race, ethnic origins, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, weight, height, etc. etc. Even more subtle still are the people who hide their feelings of worthlessness in the delusions of power afforded by alcohol and drugs.

posted by 미카 @ 3:38 AM 0 comments