Robert Sternberg on Intelligence, Triarchic Theory, and IQ - Essay Sample

Introduction

Robert Sternberg is an accomplished psychologist and psychometrician currently working as a Professor at Cornell University under the Human Development discipline. In this context, his opinions and takes on intelligence qualify to inform or enlighten any audience without the consequence of credibility or bias. Consequently, this post is informed by Stenberg’s answers concerning intelligence, triarchic theory, as well as other attributes of IQ.

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According to Sternberg, intelligence, when properly defined and measured, must correlate with an individual’s real-life success. In theory, Sternberg uses the triachic theory of intelligence to elaborate on his definition. In the postulation, Sternberg asserts the three facets of intelligence being, analytical intelligence, similar to standard psychometric tests, refers to an individual’s ability to excel at mental tests. The second facet is componential intelligence reflected by a person’s relation to his inner world. It is thirdly the creative aspect of intelligence concerned with insight, synthesis, and one’s ability to react to new stimuli.

Regarding The Bell Curve, Sternberg believes that the standard psychometric interpretation of intelligence, which the book is based, is a wrong and singular approach towards the definition of intelligence. The professor believes that all three aspects of intelligence, as illustrated in the triarchic theory, can not only be gauged but also developed. One of the debatable issues of intelligence has been its inheritability. In this context, Sternberg believes that there is some heritability of IQ. He, however, notes that if one accepts the use of heritability statistics, they are about 50% correct.

Sternberg goes further to explain that similar to group differences in heritability of say physical traits like height, which is usually at 90%, intelligence to is variable dependent on environmental factors. In the same regard, he posits that the differences in intelligence across the races are not a known truth, and most experts himself included a lack of a specific idea of the correlation between IQ and race. Inherently, he also believes that the predictive value of IQ scores is unreliable and often misleading, especially when one factors in real-life situations. Finally, the interview concludes on the topic of practical intelligence, where Sternberg defines it as the ability of an individual to use what is available in their environment to achieve success.

Conclusion

Conclusively, in as much as one cannot deny the contribution and excellence of Sternberg, there still exist many dissidents to his stands and opinions on intelligence. Some of the criticisms against his work include the question on what Sternberg has contributed to extensive factor analysis in the domain of abilities and his lack of measuring compared to the number of entities he invokes in his work, thus violating Occam’s razor law. Nonetheless, inferring to the discussion above, Sternberg remains an excellent reference and source of insight on intelligence.

References

Skeptics Society. (1995). Skeptic interview with Robert Sternberg. Psychology Department – University of Toronto. Retrieved from: http://www2.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/03.3.fm-sternberg-interview.html