Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T16:43:15.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

44 - Intelligence and Motivation

from Part VIII - Intelligence and Allied Constructs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2019

Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, we argue that to understand intelligence one must understand motivation. In the past, intelligence was often cast as an entity unto itself, relatively unaffected by motivation. In our chapter, we spell out how motivational factors determine (1) whether individuals initiate goals relating to the acquisition and display of intellectual skills, (2) how persistently they pursue those goals, and (3) how effectively they pursue those goals, that is, how effectively they learn and perform in the intellectual arena. As will be seen, motivational factors can have systematic and meaningful effects on intellectual ability, performance, and accomplishment over time. Our discussion emphasizes that heritability is not incompatible with the malleability of intelligence and that motivation is the vehicle through which intellectual skills are successfully acquired, expressed, and built upon.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreoletti, C., & Lachman, M. E. (2004). Susceptibility and resilience to memory aging stereotypes: Education matters more than age. Experimental Aging Research, 30(2), 129148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Aronson, J., Fried, C. B., & Good, C. (2002). Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38(2), 113125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aronson, J., Lustina, M. J., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C. M., & Brown, J. (1999). When White men can’t do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 2946.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 12521265.Google Scholar
Baumeister, R. F., & Heatherton, T. F. (1996). Self-regulation failure: An overview. Psychological Inquiry, 7(1), 115.Google Scholar
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497529.Google Scholar
Baumeister, R. F., Twenge, J. M., & Nuss, C. K. (2002). Effects of social exclusion on cognitive processes: Anticipated aloneness reduces intelligent thought. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(4), 817827.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, T., Fein, S., & Inzlicht, M. (2005). Arousal and stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(2), 174181.Google Scholar
Binet, A., & Simon, T. (1913). A method of measuring the development of the intelligence of young children (trans. C. H. Town). Lincoln, IL: Courier.Google Scholar
Binet, A. (1909/1975). Modern ideas about children (trans. S. Heisler). Menlo Park, CA: Suzanne Heisler.Google Scholar
Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blair, C., & Razza, R. P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78(2), 647663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bosson, J. K., Haymovitz, E. L., & Pinel, E. C. (2004). When saying and doing diverge: The effects of stereotype threat on self-reported versus non-verbal anxiety. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(2), 247255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. P., & Josephs, R. A. (1999). A burden of proof: Stereotype relevance and gender differences in math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(2), 246257.Google Scholar
Bull, R., & Scerif, G. (2001). Executive functioning as a predictor of children’s mathematics ability: Inhibition, switching, and working memory. Developmental Neuropsychology, 19(3), 273293.Google Scholar
Cadinu, M., Maass, A., Frigerio, S., Impagliazzo, L., & Latinotti, S. (2003). Stereotype threat: The effect of expectancy on performance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(2), 267285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cadinu, M., Maass, A., Rosabianca, A., & Kiesner, J. (2005). Why do women underperform under stereotype threat? Evidence for the role of negative thinking. Psychological Science, 16(7), 572578.Google Scholar
Carr, P. B., & Steele, C. M. (2009). Stereotype threat and inflexible perseverance in problem solving. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 853859.Google Scholar
Claxton, G., & Meadows, S. (2009). Brightening up: How children learn to be gifted. In Balchin, T., Hymer, B., & Matthews, D. J. (Eds.), The Routledge international companion to gifted education (pp. 39). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Colombo, J., Shaddy, D. J., Blaga, O. M., Anderson, C. J., & Kannass, K. N. (2009). High cognitive ability in infancy and early childhood. In Horowitz, F. D., Subotnik, R. F., & Matthews, D. (Eds.), The development of gift-edness and talent across the life-span (pp. 2342). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Conley, J. J. (1984). The hierarchy of consistency: A review and model of longitudinal findings on adult individual differences in intelligence, personality and self-opinion. Personality and Individual Differences, 5(1), 1125.Google Scholar
Cordova, D. I., & Lepper, M. R. (1996). Intrinsic motivation and the process of learning: Beneficial effects of contextualization, personalization, and choice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(4), 715730.Google Scholar
Croizet, J., & Claire, T. (1998). Extending the concept of stereotype and threat to social class: The intellectual underperformance of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(6), 588594.Google Scholar
Cury, F., Da Fonseca, D., Zahn, I., & Elliot, A. (2008). Implicit theories and IQ test performance: A sequential mediational analysis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 783791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cury, F., Elliot, A. J., Da Fonseca, D., & Moller, A. C. (2006). The social-cognitive model of achievement motivation and the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(4), 666679.Google Scholar
Dai, D. Y., & Sternberg, R. J. (2004). Beyond cognitivism: Toward an integrated understanding of intellectual functioning and development. In Dai, D.Y. & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.), Motivation, emotion, and cognition: Integrative perspectives on intellectual functioning and development (pp. 340). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Dar-Nimrod, I., & Heine, S. J. (2006). Exposure to scientific theories affects women’s math performance. Science, 314(5798), 435–435.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Davies, P. G., Spencer, S. J., Quinn, D. M., & Gerhardstein, R. (2002). Consuming images: How television commercials that elicit stereotype threat can restrain women academically and professionally. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(12), 16151628.Google Scholar
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627668.Google Scholar
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 19(2), 109134.Google Scholar
Diamond, A., Barnett, W. S., Thomas, J., & Munro, S. (2007). Preschool program improves cognitive control. Science, 318(5855), 13871388.Google Scholar
Dowsett, S. M., & Livesey, D. J. (2000). The development of inhibitory control in preschool children: Effects of “executive skills” training. Developmental Psychobiology, 36(2), 161174.Google Scholar
Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science, 16(12), 939944.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dweck, C. S. (2009a). Foreword. In Horowitz, F. D., Subotnik, R. F., & Matthews, D. (Eds.), The development of giftedness and talent across the life-span (pp. xixiv). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S. (2009b). Self-theories and giftedness: A reflective conversation. In Balchin, T., Hymer, B., & Matthews, D. J. (Eds.), The Routledge international companion to gifted education (pp. 308316). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256273.Google Scholar
Engle, R. W. (2002). Working memory capacity as executive attention. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(1), 1923.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363406.Google Scholar
Espy, K. A., McDiarmid, M. M., Cwik, M. F., Stalets, M. M., Hamby, A., & Senn, T. E. (2004). The contribution of executive functions to emergent mathematic skills in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26(1), 465486.Google Scholar
Gagné, F. (2009). Talent development as seen through the differentiated model of talent and giftedness. In Balchin, T., Hymer, B., & Matthews, D. J. (Eds.), The Routledge international companion to gifted education (pp. 3241). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Galton, F. (1883). Inquiries into human faculty and its development. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Galton, F. (1892). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gonzales, P. M., Blanton, H., & Williams, K. J. (2002). The effects of stereotype threat and double-minority status on the test performance of Latino women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(5), 659670.Google Scholar
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 645662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottfried, A. E. (1985). Academic intrinsic motivation in elementary and junior high school students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(6), 631645.Google Scholar
Gottfried, A. E. (1990). Academic intrinsic motivation in young elementary school children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(3), 525538.Google Scholar
Gottfried, A. E., Fleming, J. S., & Gottfried, A. W. (2001). Continuity of academic intrinsic motivation from childhood through late adolescence: A longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(1), 313.Google Scholar
Grant, H., & Dweck, C. S. (2003). Clarifying achievement goals and their impact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 541553.Google Scholar
Harter, S. (1981). A new self-report scale of intrinsic versus extrinsic orientation in the classroom: Motivational and informational components. Developmental Psychology, 17(3), 300312.Google Scholar
Hong, Y., Chiu, C., Dweck, C. S., Lin, D. M., & Wan, W. (1999). Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(3), 588599.Google Scholar
Howse, R. B., Calkins, S. D., Anastopoulos, A. D., Keane, S. P., & Shelton, T. L. (2003). Regulatory contributors to children’s kindergarten achievement. Early Education and Development, 14(1), 101119.Google Scholar
Hymer, B. J. (2009). Beyond compare? Thoughts towards an inclusional, fluid and non-normative understanding of giftedness. In Balchin, T., Hymer, B., & Matthews, D. J. (Eds.), The Routledge international companion to gifted education (pp. 299307). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (1999). Rethinking the value of choice: A cultural perspective on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 349366.Google Scholar
Janda, L. (1996). The psychologists’ book of self-tests. New York: Berkley Books.Google Scholar
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Jensen, A. R. (2002). Galton’s legacy to research on intelligence. Journal of Biosocial Science, 34, 145172.Google Scholar
Kane, M. J., Conway, A. R. A., Hambrick, D. Z., & Engle, R. W. (2007). Variation in working memory capacity as variation in executive attention and control. In Conway, A. R. A., Jarrold, C., Kane, M. J., Miyake, A., & Towse, J. N. (Eds.), Variation in working memory (pp. 2146). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krendl, A. C., Richeson, J. A., Kelley, W. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (2008). The negative consequences of threat: A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying women’s underperformance in math. Psychological Science, 19(2), 168175.Google Scholar
Lepper, M. R., Corpus, J. H., & Iyengar, S. S. (2005). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations in the classroom: Age differences and academic correlates. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(2), 184196.Google Scholar
Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “over-justification” hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 129137.Google Scholar
Mangels, J. A., Butterfield, B., Lamb, J., Good, C., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social cognitive neuroscience model. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(2), 7586.Google Scholar
McClelland, M. M., Cameron, C. E., Connor, C. M., Farris, C. L., Jewkes, A. M., & Morrison, F. J. (2007). Links between behavioral regulation and preschoolers’ literacy, vocabulary, and math skills. Developmental Psychology, 43(4), 947959.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mendoza-Denton, R., Kahn, K., & Chan, W. (2008). Can fixed views of ability boost performance in the context of favorable stereotypes? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(4), 11871193.Google Scholar
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. L. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244(4907), 933938.Google Scholar
Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S., Heeter, C., Moran, T. P., & Lee, Y.-H. (2011). Mind your errors: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking growth mind-set to adaptive posterror adjustments. Psychological Science, 22(12), 14841489. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611419520Google Scholar
Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 3352.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nguyen, H. D., & Ryan, A. M. (2008). Does stereotype threat affect test performance of minorities and women? A meta-analysis of experimental evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 13141334.Google Scholar
O’Brien, L. T., & Crandall, C. S. (2003). Stereotype threat and arousal: Effects on women’s math performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(6), 782789.Google Scholar
Ponitz, C. C., McClelland, M. M., Matthews, J. S., & Morrison, F. J. (2009). A structured observation of behavioral self-regulation and its contribution to kindergarten outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 605619.Google Scholar
Ramsden, S., Richardson, F.M., Josse, G., Thomas, M., … & Price, C.J. (2011). Verbal and nonverbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain. Nature, 479(7371), 113116.Google Scholar
Raven, J. C., Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1977). Standard progressive matrices. London: H. K. Lewis.Google Scholar
Robins, R. W., & Pals, J. L. (2002). Implicit self-theories in the academic domain: Implications for goal orientation, attributions, affect, and self-esteem change. Self and Identity, 1(4), 313336.Google Scholar
RuedaR. M., RothbartM. K., McCandliss, B. D., Saccomanno, L., & Posner, M. I. (2005). Training, maturation, and genetic influences on the development of executive attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 1493114936.Google Scholar
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 6878.Google Scholar
Sansone, C., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2000). Looking beyond rewards: The problem and promise of intrinsic motivation. In Sansone, C. & Harackiewicz, J. M. (Eds.), Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: The search for optimal motivation and performance (pp. 113). San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sauce, B., & Matzel, L.D. (2018). The paradox of intelligence: Heritability and malleability coexist in hidden gene-environment interplay. Psychological Bulletin, 144(1), 2647. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000131Google Scholar
Schmader, T., & Johns, M. (2003). Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 440452.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Siegler, R. S. (1992). The other Alfred Binet. Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 179190.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2005). Giftedness and genetics: The emergenic-epigenetic mode and its implications. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 28, 270286.Google Scholar
Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women’s math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 428.Google Scholar
St. Clair-Thompson, H. L., & Gathercole, S. E. (2006). Executive functions and achievements in school: Shifting, updating, inhibition, and working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59(4), 745759.Google Scholar
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613629.Google Scholar
Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797811.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (2005). Intelligence, competence and expertise. In Elliot, A. J. & Dweck, C. S. (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation (pp. 1530). New York: Guilford PressGoogle Scholar
Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (Eds.). (2001). Environmental effects on cognitive abilities. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Subotnik, R. F. (2009). Developmental transitions in giftedness and talent: Adolescence into adulthood. In Horowitz, F. D., Subotnik, R. F., & Matthews, D. (Eds.), The development of giftedness and talent across the life-span (pp. 155170). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Tangney, J. P., Baumeister, R. F., & Boone, A. L. (2004). High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. Journal of Personality, 72(2), 271322.Google Scholar
Terman, L. M. (1916). The measurement of intelligence: An explanation of and a complete guide for the use of the Stanford revision and extension of the Binet-Simon intelligence scale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terman, L. M. (1926). Genetic studies of genius, Vol. 1. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1959). Genetic studies of genius: The gifted group at mid-life, Vol. 5. Oxford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Valiente, C., Lemery-Chalfant, K., Swanson, J., & Reiser, M. (2008). Prediction of children’s academic competence from their effortful control, relationships, and classroom participation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(1), 6777.Google Scholar
Vansteenkiste, M., Simons, J., Lens, W., Sheldon, K. M., & Deci, E. L. (2004). Motivating learning, performance, and persistence: The synergistic effects of intrinsic goal contents and autonomy-supportive contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 246260.Google Scholar
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2003). Stereotype lift. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39(5), 456467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 8296.Google Scholar
Walton, G. M., Logel, C., Peach, J. M., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2015). Two brief interventions to mitigate a “chilly climate” transform women’s experience, relationships, and achievement in engineering. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107, 468485.Google Scholar
Walton, G. M., & Spencer, S. J. (2009). Latent ability: Grades and test scores systematically underestimate the intellectual ability of negatively stereotyped students. Psychological Science, 20(9), 11321139.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1996) Eschelle d’Intelligence de Wechsler pour enfants Troisieme Edition (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Third Edition). Paris: ECPA (Original work published 1971).Google Scholar
Wolfe, R. N., & Johnson, S. D. (1995). Personality as a predictor of college performance. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55(2), 177185.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×