What immediately came to mind when you saw the word "intelligence" printed above? I.Q. tests? The math genius who sat next to you in school and got top marks on every exam?

Most have us have been conditioned to associate intelligence with school-based achievement. We are born intelligent or not, with a certain measurable I.Q. level, and how we do in school depends on how bright we are. Right?

Wrong.Intelligence involves much more than acquiring knowledge and memorizing facts. In fact, scientific developments over the last century have given researchers the tools to challenge such narrow and mechanistic ideas of intelligence. Cutting-edge research into human intelligence concentrates on expanding the frameworks and the processes of what comprises intelligent thinking and behavior. It has benefited from major shifts in the field of psychology, the great interest in creating artificial computer intelligence, sophisticated advances in brain imaging equipment, and other such developments.

There are now a number of working intelligence definitions. Current theories overwhelmingly reject the notion of intelligence as a single general ability and the notion of intelligence as fixed or static. Instead, intelligence is now more broadly defined by a range of very different types of ways of knowing which help us understand and make meaning of the world. Furthermore, human beings can expand and learn these frameworks, tools and abilities. This development is extremely concentrated during the first years of human life, but human intelligence(s) can increase (and decrease) all during our life span, depending on the environments we are in.

The intelligence theories presented here cover a spectrum of conceptual approaches and contribute to highly nuanced understandings in the often controversial domain of human intelligence.

Multiple Intelligences

With his Multiple Intelligences Theory (1983), Howard Gardner argues that human beings manifest a portfolio of intelligences that support separate kinds of learning and doing. Thus, Sachin Tendulkar exhibits excellent bodily kinesthetic intelligence and strengths in other intelligences as a cricket player, team member, and former team captain.

Gardner has identified at least nine intelligences that are prevalent in our daily lives. He clarifies that the number and categories may vary depending on how human beings use their brain capacities in different socio-cultural contexts. Gardner also seeks to differentiate between intelligences and skills as mastering a specific skill does not necessarily reflect intelligent knowing and understanding.

Gardner admits that the MI Theory originally suffered from an approach to intelligence centered around the individual. Gardner now speaks of contextualized intelligence. Human beings have certain propensities towards different intelligences, but "intelligence is always an interaction between biological proclivities and opportunities for learning in a particular cultural context." In other words, intelligences develop both from our nature and the environments in which we are nurtured.

Intelligent Behavior Leads to Success

Robert Sternberg's Triarchic Theory (1984) represents another approach to a general intelligence framework. Now, in his most recent work, Sternberg emphasizes three different types of thinking as the bases for "successful intelligence" (see table). However, in addition to the ability to think analytically, creatively, and practically, we must be able to "reflect on when and how to use these abilities effectively". Successful intelligence thus requires knowing how to employ the different parts of our intelligence symbiotically.

Sternberg asserts that getting good grades in school or performing well on an I.Q. test mainly calls on static knowledge-based abilities: "inert intelligence". Life success can only be achieved if we are intelligent in more than one way. In addition, he reminds us that both success and intelligent behavior are defined in innumerable ways in different societies and cultural contexts.

Learning Intelligence

While Gardner and Sternberg stress a variety of ways we can be intelligent, David Perkins lays emphasis on how to actually become more intelligent. His three-part framework (see box) highlights the interplay between genetic predispositions, accumulated experience, and reflective thinking that leads to intelligence growth. Of the three intelligence processes, it is always possible, at all moments in our lives, to directly influence the third component: how we think.

We have immense capacity for learning better thinking. The foundations for thinking are laid in the first years of our lives, but we continue to build on, take apart, and re-build those structures all throughout our lives. Thus, Perkins concentrates on examining the different aspects of reflective intelligence in order to determine how we can shape and improve it most effectively.

Perkins has coined the term "mindware" to describe the tools used to think analytically and creatively. Mindware, says Perkins, "does three jobs, all of which concern the organization of thought. It works to pattern, repattern, and depattern thinking."

Practice alone does not necessarily lead to better thinking; it can even reinforce poor patterns of thinking. So, we need tools that help us think about our thinking, mindware that allows us to reorganize thought. This conscious reflection on our own thinking is called meta-cognition. (Note: the projects that describe the Venezuelan initiative to develop human intelligence in that country offer concrete examples of how to improve mindware and meta-cognition).

Feelings and Intelligence

The last parameter that we will mention here brings a whole new aspect of intelligence to the fore: emotional intelligence. Goleman argues that our emotional state of mind plays a large role in determining how our other intelligences work. Having the tools to think about and manage our emotions - meta-mood - is crucial to successfully relating to individuals and groups, to making decisions, to solving problems, to learning, and to developing our full human potential. So, Goleman would argue the need to develop something like Perkins' mindware for the emotional realm. Whereas in the past emotions were considered antithetical to intelligence, Goleman insists that we can't possibly be intelligent (or fully human) without them.

Which Theory is Right?

With so many new frameworks to think about, you may be asking yourself how to fit them together. Their authors have chosen very different approaches to highlight specific aspects of intelligence that can no longer be ignored within the whole picture. Broadly stated, these frameworks give ample room to help us recognize and truly develop intelligences in ourselves, our children, our students, our colleagues, our fellow human beings, and our many communities. To recap:

  We all have a number of different and equally important intelligences.

  We can all learn to expand specific intelligences.

  Schools do not effectively allow us to understand, use and develop the full range of our human intelligences.