• Question: What is intelligence?

    Asked by anon-188264 to Warren, Shanti, Pizza Ka Yee, Paul, Nadine, Alex on 9 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Alex Reid

      Alex Reid answered on 9 Nov 2018: last edited 9 Nov 2018 4:10 pm

      Hi this is a fantastic question, the answer is also quite complicated, and different psychologists will use different definitions of what they think it means to be intelligent. In fact there is literally a whole gigantic area of psychology dedicated to trying to figure out the answer(s) to your question. While it is not my specialism an important thing to know is that intelligence is formed up of lots of different parts, and is not one singular dimension (ranging from ‘dumb’ to ‘smart’). An Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test, for example, features measures of analytical thinking, mathematical ability and short term memory (among others) that contribute to an overall score. It is entirely possible for people to score highly in one dimension but less so in another. This includes many additional dimensions, such as creativity and social intelligence, which are not measured through traditional IQ tests. In short: there are different ways you can be intelligent. Using myself as an example, I am reasonably good at analytical thinking but I also frequently push on pull doors and it takes me a whole five minutes to get a straw into a Capri Sun. Take from that what you will, but I am definitely smarter in some ways and not so much in others…

    • Photo: Paul Matusz

      Paul Matusz answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      Hi Ana mate,

      This is one of the hardest questions in cogntive psychology! As Alex mentioned, there is no one clear way to define it, nor being highly intelligent as per high IQ makes you a well happy or adjusted person! Personally, i think intelligence is the ability to adjust to the demands of a given environment / context – closely related to “cogntive flexibility”, another skill thought to be important for learning. It’s a very big area of reserach – have a look here for an interview with one of the internaional researchers of intelligence , Elsbeth Stern – https://bold.expert/intelligence-is-the-most-important-commodity-in-todays-society/.

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