INTELLIGENCE

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Intelligent people disagree on just what intelligence is. Some equate it with the ability to reason abstractly, others with the ability to learn and profit from experience in daily life. Some emphasize the ability to think rationally, others the ability to act purposefully. These qualities are all probably part of what most people mean by intelligence, but theorists weigh them differently.
One of the longest-running debates in psychology is whether an overall quality called “intelligence” even exists. A typical intelligence test asks you to do several things: provide a specific hit of information, notice similarities between objects, solve arithmetic problems, define words, fill in the missing parts of incomplete pictures, arrange pictures in a logical order, arrange blocks to resemble a design, assemble puzzles, use a coding scheme, or judge what behavior would be appropriate in a particular situation. Researchers use a statistical method called factor analysis to try to identify which basic abilities underlie performance on the various items. Most scientists believe that a general ability underlies the specific abilities and talents measured by intelligence tests. But others dispute the existence of a factor on the grounds that a person can excel in some tasks yet do poorly in others. Disagreements over how to define intelligence have led some writers to argue that intelligence is "whatever intelligence tests measure."

The Triarchic Theory
One well-known cognitive theory is Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence(triarchic means "three part"), it distinguishes three aspects of intelligence:

1. Componential intelligence refers to the information-processing strategies you use when you are thinking intelligently about a problem. These mental "components" include recognizing the problem, selecting a strategy for solving it, mastering and carrying out the strategy, and evaluating the result. This is the type of intelligence generally tapped by IQ tests.
   Some of these operations require not only analytic skills but also metacognition, the knowledge or awareness of your own cognitive processes and the ability to monitor and control those processes. Metacognitive skills help you learn. Students who are weak in metacognition fail to notice when a passage in a textbook is difficult, and they do not always realize that they haven't understood what they've been reading. In contrast, students who are strong in metacognition check their comprehension by restating what they have read, backtracking when necessary, and questioning what they are reading, so they learn better.
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2. Experiential intelligence refers to your creativity in transferring skills to new situations. People with experiential intelligence cope well with novelty and learn quickly to make new tasks automatic those who are lacking in this area perform well only under a narrow set of circumstances. For example, a student may do well in school, where assignment have specific due dates and feedback is immediate but be less successful after graduation if her job requires her to set her own deadlines and her employer doesn't tell her how she is doing.
3. Contextual intelligence refers to the practical application of intelligence, which requires you to take into account the different contexts in which you find yourself. If you are strong in contextual intelligence, you know when to adapt to the environment(you are in a dangerous neighbourhood, so you become more vigilant). You know when to change environments(you had planned to be a teacher but discover that you dislike working with kids, so you switch to accounting). And you know when to fix the situation(your marriage is rocky, so you and your spouse go for counseling).
   Contextual intelligence allows you to acquire tacit knowledge--practical, action-oriented strategies for achieving your goals that are not formally taught but must instead be inferred by observing others. In studies of university professors, business managers, and salespeople, tacit knowledge is a strong predictor of effectiveness on the job. In university students, tacit knowledge about how to be a good student actually predicts academic success as well as university entrance exams do.
   
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The environment and Intelligence
By now you may be wondering what kind of experiences hinder intellectual development and what kinds of environmental "nutrients" promote it. Here are some of the influences associated with reduced mental ability:

• Poor prenatal care. If a pregnant woman is malnourished, contrasts infections, takes certain drugs, smokes, drinks alcohol, or is exposed to environmental pollutants, the fetus is at risk of having learning disabilities and lower IQ.
• Malnutrition. The average IQ gap between severely malnourished and well nourished children can be as high as 20 points.
• Exposure to toxins. Lead, for example, can damage the nervous system, producing attention problems, lower IQ scores, and poor school achievement. Many children in the United states are exposed to dangerous levels of lead from dust, contaminated soil, old lead-based paint, and old lead pipes, and the concentration of lead in black children's blood is 50 percent higher than in white children's.
• Stressful family circumstances. Factors that predict reduced intellectual competence include, for example, having a father who does not live with the family, a mother with a history of mental illness, parents with limited work skills, and a history of stressful events in early life. On average, each risk factor reduces a child's IQ score by 4 points. Children with seven risk factors score more than 30 points lower than those with no risk factors.

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