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38 - Historical Evolution of Intelligence

from Part VII - Intelligence and Its Role in Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2019

By
Patricia M. Greenfield
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Historical change in the definition of intelligence has a globalized direction under the influence of sociodemographic change. The main sociodemographic shifts are ever more technology, urbanization, formal education, wealth, and commercialized economies. Under the influence of these sociodemographic shifts, the direction of change in valued intelligence is from the integration of social responsibility, wisdom, and spirituality with cognitive intelligence toward purely cognitive skills; from practical, detailed, and contextualized to abstract, decontextualized cognition; from slow and careful thinking to speeded cognition; from repetition of the known to extrapolation and novelty; from habitual practice to innovation; and, using the language of IQ tests, from crystallized to fluid intelligence. These changes in definition have taken place and continue to take place around the world. While shifts in the definition of intelligence may be more visible in fast-changing societies, they have also taken place in the United States, as seen most dramatically in “what the IQ tests measure.”

Keywords

intelligencehistorical changecultural changeGesellschaftGemeinschaftsociodemographic changeecological changedefinition of intelligence
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence , pp. 916 - 939
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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