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Measured thinking styles of first-year South African university students using the Sternberg Mental Self-government Thinking Styles Inventory. Found that the preferred thinking styles were executive, legislative, hierarchic, internal, and conservative. Major and language were differentiating factors in thinking style preferences; gender was not. However, gender was a differentiating factor within majors and the Afrikaans-speaking group. (EV)

Explores the genetics of childhood disorders and intelligence. Conceptualization of intelligence in different ethnic groups; Abilities that are distinct from the kinds of abilities measured by conventional intelligence tests.

The authors describe an approach to psychology they refer to as unified psychology, which is the multiparadigmatic, multidisciplinary, and integrated study of psychological phenomena through converging operations. In this article, they unpack this definition and explore some of its implications. First, they review some previous efforts to conceive of a unified psychology and consider objections to such an undertaking. Second, they discuss the importance of converging operations for psychology. Third, they consider the need for multidisciplinary and integrated study of psychological phenomena that focuses on the phenomena rather than on particular lines of disciplinary inquiry. Fourth, they ponder the problem of investigators' becoming locked into a single paradigm with its attendant set of presuppositions about psychological theory and research. Fifth, they outline some possible objections to their proposal and respond to them. Finally, they discuss some implications of their views.

Creativity refers to the potential to produce novel ideas that are task-appropriate and high in quality. Creativity in a societal context is best understood in terms of a dialectical relation to intelligence and wisdom. In particular, intelligence forms the thesis of such a dialectic. Intelligence largely is used to advance existing societal agendas. Creativity forms the antithesis of the dialectic, questioning and often opposing societal agendas, as well as proposing new ones. Wisdom forms the synthesis of the dialectic, balancing the old with the new. Wise people recognize the need to balance intelligence with creativity to achieve both stability and change within a societal context.

This article presents the results of an investigation of the construct validity of J. B. Biggs's (1987) theory of learning approaches and of R. J. Sternberg's (1988) theory of thinking styles in two Chinese populations. The study is also an examination of the nature of the relations between the two theories. University students from Hong Kong (n = 854) and from Nanjing, mainland China (n = 215), completed the Study Process Questionnaire (J. B. Biggs, 1992) and the Thinking Styles Inventory (R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner, 1992). Results indicated that both inventories were reliable and valid for assessing the constructs underlying their respective theories among both Hong Kong and Nanjing university students. Results also showed that the learning approaches and thinking styles are related in the hypothesized ways: The surface approach was hypothesized to be positively and significantly correlated with styles associated with less complexity, and negatively and significantly correlated with the legislative, judicial, liberal, and hierarchical styles. The deep approach was hypothesized to be positively and significantly correlated with styles associated with more complexity, and negatively and significantly correlated with the executive, conservative, local, and monarchic styles. Implications of these relations are discussed.

Exactly what is human intelligence and how should we measure it? Such questions have plagued us since the time of Plato, who first proposed that the seat of intelligence is in the brain. In a Perspective, Sternberg discusses new findings (Duncan et al.) that purport to show that the seat of general intelligence is located in the brain's frontal lobes. But, as Sternberg points out, measures of intelligence are only as good as the tests you use and the conclusions that you draw from them.

There are at least 4 good reasons to study the history of psychology. First, we can give credit to those who deserve it. Second, historical views can provide converging operations that help demonstrate the validity of our own views (or rather, operations that invalidate our views). Third, we learn that other natural and social sciences can inform our views. Fourth, we learn that philosophical and psychological analyses often converge. I show how historical views can inform current thinking about intelligence.

This chapter reviews recent literature, primarily from the 1990s, on human abilities. The review opens with a consideration of the question of what intelligence is, and then considers some of the major definitions of intelligence, as well as implicit theories of intelligence around the world. Next, the chapter considers cognitive approaches to intelligence, and then biological approaches. It proceeds to psychometric or traditional approaches to intelligence, and then to broad, recent approaches. The different approaches raise somewhat different questions, and hence produce somewhat different answers. They have in common, however, the attempt to understand what kinds of mechanisms lead some people to adapt to, select, and shape environments in ways that match particularly well the demands of those environments.

The field of intelligence as applied to lifelong learning has some new ideas about what intellectual abilities are and how they can be measured. The field also has come to a realization of what some of the limitations are both of conventional tests and even of new tests that are starting to emerge. What does the future hold for this field? It is in our hands, as a field, to decide.

The authors consider the empirical validity of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) as a predictor of various kinds of performance in a graduate psychology program, including 1st- and 2nd-year grades; professors' ratings of students' dissertations; and professors' ratings of students' analytical, creative, practical, research, and teaching abilities. On the basis of the triarchic theory of intelligence, the GRE was predicted to be of some use in predicting graduate grades but of limited or no use in predicting other aspects of performance. In fact, the test was found to be useful in predicting 1st-year grades but not other kinds of performance, with one exception--performance on the GRE Analytical test was predictive, but only for men. The authors conclude that there is a need to develop better theory-based tests.

This article describes a theoretical model of reading disability that integrates a wide range of research findings in cognitive psychology, reading, and education across the age and grade span. The model shows how reading disability relates to normal reading acquisition, and includes four possible patterns of reading disability: nonalphabetic readers, compensatory readers, nonautomatic readers, and readers delayed in the acquisition of word-recognition skills. We compare our model to the models of other investigators and argue that our model is especially useful to practitioners. Finally, we discuss some of the educational implications of the model.

This article considers the relation between rationality and intelligence. The article is divided into three main parts: In the first, I consider the concept of rationality and conclude that rational thinking is a part of intelligence, but not a major part. In the second, I consider Stanovich's concept of dysrationalia, and propose that an alternative concept, practical intelligence (or the lack thereof), may better accomplish the goals that Stanovich wishes to achieve with his concept. Finally, I draw some conclusions.

In 5 experiments using a priming methodology, the role of contextual factors on Ss' performance in a word-recognition task was investigated. Ss read short stories, and then their recognition of words from the stories was tested. Effects of contextual factors on Ss' performance were examined by manipulating the context of the stories' presentation and by designing the experimental materials to weaken the effects of semantic relations between primes and targets, thereby enhancing Ss' opportunity to use contextual relations between the words. The overall results of all 5 experiments indicate that context influences the priming effect of close semantic relations. They can be interpreted as supporting cue-retrieval models of priming mechanisms.

This paper presents a pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness and a set of data testing the theory. The exposition is divided into five parts. First, I discuss what an implicit theory is and why such theories are important. Second, I describe the pentagonal theory, specifying five conditions claimed to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient for a person to be labelled as gifted. These conditions not only help us understand why some people are labelled as 'gifted', but also why some others are not. Third, I consider the relation of the pentagonal theory to explicit theories of giftedness. Fourth, I present data supporting the theory. Finally, I discuss some implications of the pentagonal theory for gifted education.

To examine whether young, middle-aged, and older adults view the concept of intelligent person as similar or different during adulthood, 140 adults of various ages rated how likely it would be for individuals of average and exceptional intelligence at 30, 50, and 70 years of age to be engaged in behaviors previously identified by adults as characterizing adult intelligence. Adults perceived more similarity between exceptionally intelligent prototypes of closer ages (i.e., 30 and 50 and 50 and 70). Intelligence was perceived to consist of interest and ability to deal with novelty, everyday competence, and verbal competence--dimensions that were perceived to be differentially important for different-aged prototypes and by individuals of different ages. Participants' conceptions also included the idea that intelligence is malleable and that abilities differentially increase or decrease across the life span.

This investigation consists of two studies designed to examine perceived fraudulence, its measurement, and the personality traits associated with the experience in young adults. For Study 1, the Perceived Fraudulence Scale (PFS), a new measure constructed for this study, was administered to a sample of 50 college undergraduates, along with several other self-report measures; a semistructured interview and thought-listing exercise were added to provide convergent assessments of perceived fraudulence. Correlational patterns and regression analyses supported the investigators' conceptualization of perceived fraudulence as involving a combination of fraudulent ideation, depressive tendencies, self-criticism, social anxiety, achievement pressures, and self-monitoring skills. Study 2, in which 100 college undergraduates completed several personality questionnaires, replicated the factor structure of the PFS and provided some evidence for the discriminant validity of the construct of perceived fraudulence.

Theories of intelligence, and some of the research testing them, are designed to answer three basic questions about intelligence: (i) What is the relation of intelligence to the internal world of the individual? (ii) What is the relation of intelligence to the external world of the individual? (iii) What is the relation of intelligence to experience? Various models of the mind underlying the theories have been proposed; the strengths and limitations of these models are assessed. A theory that addresses all three questions simultaneously is the triarchic theory.

This experiment addressed the effect of precue information, which may be either familiar or novel, and either relevant or irrelevant, on the solution of inductive reasoning problems. Sixty undergraduate students each completed 216 verbal inductive reasoning problems and five psychometric ability tests. The reasoning problems were equally divided among analogies, classifications, and series completions, with half of each kind of item presented in a standard, uncued format, and half presented with a precue. With respect to internal validation, it was found that for analogies and classifications, subjects take longer to process irrelevant than relevant information if the precue is familiar, but they take longer to process relevant than irrelevant information if the precue is novel. For series completions, this relation does not hold; rather, both novelty and irrelevance add time to the processing of information, with the time for irrelevance greater than that for novelty. The utility of precues for different tasks was explored, and it was found that familiar relevant precues facilitated solution of the more difficult kinds of items (classifications and series completions), but hampered solution of the easier, more automatically solved items (analogies). With respect to external validation, it was found that the nonentrenched induction tasks overlapped with psychometric tests in terms of abilities measured, that the abilities measured were fluid rather than crystallized, and that the precued (more nonentrenched) items were better measures of fluid abilities than were the uncued items.

In this article, we have reviewed research in diverse domains that has provided evidence for the assertion that intelligence can be construed, in part, as a response to novelty. We began by distinguishing two types of continuities, namely, the continuity in the fundamental nature of intelligence throughout development and the relative stability of individual differences in intellectual abilities at various ages. Current empirical and theoretical work has culminated in a proposition that the actual nature of intelligence is discontinuous, at least in the early years of life, and that individual differences in intellectual functions are unstable (Bayley, 1970; McCall, 1979a,b). Research on aspects of an infant's response to novelty and the relationship between this response and later intellectual functioning was examined and interpreted as reflective not only of one element of continuity in the actual nature of intelligence throughout development but also of a stable source of individual differences in intellectual development. Other literature reviewed suggested that the interest in and ability to deal with novelty remains an integral component of individual differences in intelligence throughout the life span. A framework for conceptualizing intelligence as, in part, the response to novelty was offered to provide some synthesis to the literature we have reviewed on the relationship between one's response to novelty and intelligence across the life span. This framework comprises two major aspects: a motivational aspect, referring to interest in, curiosity about, and preference for novelty, and an information-extraction aspect, referring to component processes that are involved in the acquisition of novel information. These two aspects of dealing with novelty were evident in the literature that was reviewed above. They seem integral to intellectual development. We are not alone in positing the importance of one's response to novelty as a major element of individual differences in intelligence across the life span. Other researchers and theorists from diverse disciplines within psychology, such as artificial intelligence, Piagetian psychology, and psychometric intelligence, as well as layperson's commonsense notions about intelligence, have also indicated the importance of the ability to deal with novelty in intelligent functioning. We view the motivational and information-processing response to novelty as a source of stability in intellectual functions across development and as an element of continuity in the actual nature of intelligence.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)