Contemporary Directions:

Sternberg has pioneered research in the area of what he calls the third type of intelligence. Specifically, he calls this “creative” intelligence.

Creative Intelligence:  the ability to create, invent, or imagine something. When Sternberg measures analytic intelligence in the standard way, by SAT or ACT scores or IQ tests, and practical and creative intelligence by more novel measures, he finds that his practical and creative measures add to the predictability of outcomes such as success in school and work performance. Sometimes the increments in predictability are substantial; in fact, they sometimes outperform IQ tests by a significant margin.

Gardner: argued that IQ tests measure only linguistic, logical-mathematical, and spatial abilities but neglect other “intelligences.”

1. Emotional Intelligence: includes being able to accurately perceive the motion, using emotions to facilitate thinking, understanding emotions, and managing emotions in self and others. when it is measured it is found to be virtually uncorrelated with analytic intelligence as measured by IQ tests, but it predicts pure and supervisor ratings of dimensions like interpersonal sensitivity, sociability, contributing to a positive work environment, stress tolerance, and leadership potential.
2. He has also identified musical and bodily kinaesthetic areas of intelligence. Gardner justified his lengthening of the list of intelligences by pointing out that there are child prodigies for most of them, and there is neurological evidence that different areas of the brain are specialized for each of the intelligences he identified. Whether one calls his additions to the intelligence list mere skills or something else, it is clear that they are somewhat separate from the standard analytic ones and that measures of them predict-or in principle could predict-important aspects of skilled human endeavour that the standard ones do not.

Motivation and Achievement

The fact that motivational factors impact academic achievement levels is hardly shocking. However, it is somewhat more shocking that motivation may sometimes actually be a better predictor of academic achievement than IQ is. Qualities such as the ability to delay gratification, self-discipline, and be intrinsically motivated have been found to be as important, if not more important, than a high IQ. The research in this area is still burgeoning but there is evidence that the hypothesis is sound. 

What Does IQ Actually Predict?

When multiple-regression equations are utilized to determine the causal impact of various factors there seems to be some correlation between IQ earlier in life and adult socioeconomic status. Other factors that researchers often consider are the socioeconomic status of the family of origin, living circumstances when the individual was a child, number of siblings, by the family had a library card, the educational attainment of the individual, and other variables. Once all of these factors are considered (and the magnitude of the contribution of each towards adult socioeconomic status derived) it does turn out that IQ is important to outcomes. However, it is very difficult to tease out a standalone variable. Higher socioeconomic status of parents is related to educational attainment of the child, but higher-socioeconomic-status parents have higher IQs, and this affects both the genes that the child has and the emphasis that the parents are likely to place on education and the quality of the parenting with respect to encouragement of intellectual skills and so on.

What Does This All Mean?

With all this talk about “intelligences” and other factors it is sometimes difficult to really determine what an IQ score is actually telling us about a student’s future and prospects for success. In fact, the very word success has so many sides to it that it becomes a useless term unless its multifaceted nature is considered.

IQ does matter. However, it is not all that matters. You will remember that we said earlier that IQ has a .50 correlation with academic grades. What then about the other .50? Also, we have not even talked about the correlation between academic grades and adult “success”. Modern studies have shown this to be very difficult to measure and quantitative measures such as adult income or value of home are often used because these are quantitative measures. More qualitative measures such as personal contentment, satisfaction with job, and others are far more difficult to measure and therefore correlate.

In my career I have worked with literally hundreds of students from two years of age to 22 years of age. I have been fortunate enough to follow many of them as they have left the school system and moved into the adult world. My experience has shown me that self-discipline, resiliency, and tenacity are just as important as IQ for overall life success. In the end, we are trying to create independent, satisfied, and content adults. The recipe to create this has several ingredients.