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Real-World Intelligence Theory

How is our examination of the Intelligence Elephant going so far? Cognitive Abilities Theory gave us a foundation that describes some of the basic abilities of the human brain. Multiple Intelligences Theory gave us the idea that there are many ways to be intelligent. Both will give us ways to help our kids become more intelligent. Now we come to our third theory. Once again, it will enlarge your view of what intelligence is and clarify for you what it really means to be intelligent.

Real-World Intelligence Theory makes two basic contributions to the Intelligence River:

• What really matters is our performance in the world.
• Competent people, people who succeed in the world, bring a package of intelligences to life’s tasks. Isolated skills won’t cut it.

Get Real!

Real-World Intelligence Theory tells us that what matters is how well intelligence gets used to meet our goals in the real world. But what exactly does “the real world” mean? Of course everything is part of the real world: school, jobs, even computer games that take you to a fantasy world. But that’s too big to be useful: No sane person tries to be good at everything in the world — instead, we all have some spheres in which our success matters to us.

The things that matter most to us change as we move along through our lives. When we’re babies, we succeed if we feel loved. Later on, scores on a video game matter more to some of us, scores on weekly spelling tests to others. As adults, we move on to goals like making gobs of money or spending more time with our kids.

What people, places, and things make up your personal “real world?” Give it even a moment’s thought, and you’ll see that your “real world” isn’t exactly the same as the “real world” of any other person on earth. Our real worlds, though they have much in common, are as varied as we are. We all have goals for ourselves as well as criteria to judge our success in meeting our goals. We feel successful when we reach our goals — when we meet our personal standards for success.

Real-World Intelligence Theory not only gives us this important criterion — success in the real world that matters to us individually — but also deepens our understanding of intelligence in another way. Isolated intelligence in one area very seldom leads to success in the world. People who have a super-star intelligence in one area, but have no supporting cast are typically unable to function in the world at all — psychology calls them savants, referring to their peculiar “wisdom,” but their lives are deeply marred. The person who is stunningly strong in one intelligence only, but strikingly lacking in others, is unlikely to express that intelligence fully unless other people smooth the path and pick up the pieces. Many real-world competences must work together to make us effective in the world. It’s coordinated skills, working in unison, we want for our children.

What exactly do we mean when we talk about a package of intelligences? There are likely as many combinations of abilities as there are people. Certainly, there isn’t a “CPA Package” and a “Master Chef Package” or any such restrictive arrangement. Instead, all kinds of skill blendings allow us to succeed. Imagine three successful musicians. One has extraordinary motor skills that lead to unbelievable virtuosity. His ex-wives all agree he’s a jerk, but his fans overlook that because of his overwhelming skill. Another musician’s compositions inspire and touch people. A third is not really a great performer at all, but she’s taught a whole string of people who have gone on to successful careers. Each of these musicians has a unique blend of intelligences — a unique package of skills. Each has found a way to combine their native gifts and their experiences and training to give the world a valued product. We see the same in every field: Not every attorney is a Perry Mason — we need people who can patiently research a point of law at least as much as we need flashy courtroom showboaters.

In the last chapter, I asked you to set the book aside and think for a moment about the question “How are you smart?” Now, you might take a few minutes to ask the parallel question that is the focus of this chapter: What package of intelligences, skills, and abilities do you bring to the world? How do they work together to engender your successes?

My ideas here are inspired by two sources. The first is the work of Stephen Greenspan and John Driscoll, as summarized in The Role of Intelligence in a Broad Model of Personal Competence. My second source is the work of Robert Sternberg. His book, Successful Intelligence, and much of his other work, looks at the components of successful real-world intelligence.

A Model of Competence

Greenspan and Driscoll’s theory is elegant and beautifully worked out. Please understand that I’m pulling some elements from it that will be of special use to us, rearranging some, and not presenting all of it.

In their view, part of our competence in the world comes from our physical abilities. That doesn't refer simply to whether we’re “athletic,” but to all the physical characteristics of our bodies. Our key body systems (vision, hearing, heart, and so on) and our physical attributes (size, strength, coordination, and mobility) support our actions in the world. Presumably, our level of these competences results from a blend of genetic inheritance, life events, and the physical care we take of ourselves. Some people may have extraordinary gifts here, others may have significant weaknesses. We can each maximize what we started with, or squander it.

Part of our competence is emotional. In turn, part of this emotional competence comes to us through biological forces. For example, whether we tend to be calm or excitable is to some extent built into our brains from birth. But part of our emotional makeup is primarily affected by our environment — by our experiences with other people. This distinction between how our brains come “wired” into the world, and how they are shaped by the events of our lives, is complex, subtle, interactive, and poorly understood (although little by little, we are understanding more). These two sources of influence — how we entered the world and how we’ve developed since — shape every social contact in our lives for better or worse.

Another part of our competence involves thinking and problem solving in the real world.

Part of our problem-solving skill takes us right back to the social realm: One kind of thinking is the skill we use to solve problems involving our relations with other people. This is a vital part of our social skills. It often operates without our being aware of it. But there are also times when we deliberately think about our social contact with others. We’re social animals, and of course it is enormously important for us to have the skills to get along with others, so our skills here need to run deep.

The socially competent person uses not only a base of emotional competence, but also conscious thinking skills, to solve social problems and tasks. Notice that in this sense of “problems,” we all solve hundreds or thousands of problems daily. Think about walking along the street and meeting someone you know. In a flash, you say hello in a tone that is appropriate to how well you know them — from a formal “Good afternoon” to a huge bear hug! That is social problem solving. You’re doing it so quickly you scarcely notice it happening. But if you think it’s easy, try to program a computer to emulate it!

Another kind of thinking competence is practical intelligence. This is thinking with hands and eyes — the thinking a child does as she builds with Legos®. We use this ability in two ways. Sometimes we think about objects (for example, an architect imagines the design of a new building). Sometimes we think with objects (for example, a mechanic explores a complex component with eyes and hands to understand how it works). You may think of this important kind of thinking as “hands-on” intelligence, although it often involves “handling” something only inside our heads. This is an especially important ability to notice, because it so often goes unnoticed in school, but is so important once we get to “Life.” The trouble is, for some kids with ample practical intelligence, school is long, and “Life” is very distant!

Part of our competence also involves the sort of abstract thinking traditionally prized in schools: formal logic (“Socrates is a man. All men are human. Thus, Socrates is human.”) This is good and important stuff, and sometimes we don’t do enough of it. But day-to-day, most of our real problem solving is “fuzzier” than formal logic: We ruminate, bounce ideas off friends, and “feel” our way to solutions to roughly formulated problems.

Finally, part of our competence is based in our use of language — the collection of skills that lets us communicate with others. We’ve seen this key competence in all the theories we’ve looked at.