Journeys across mindscapes
S.M. Anwaruddin appreciates explorations of creativity
Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized
R.J. Sternberg
Cambridge University Press
Robert J. Sternberg presents a synthesis of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom in his book Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity Synthesized. He carefully examines each of these three domains and reviews the background work on them. Then he presents his own theories of intelligence, creativity and wisdom, which are sufficiently supported with research done by him and his associates. His theories are particularly useful for teachers who want to play significant roles to help their students become intelligent, creative and wise. Sternberg's theories of wisdom can be linked to the issue of social justice because wise people, according to him, should work toward a common good.
Conventionally, intelligence is measured by IQ tests, SAT scores, GPA and the like. This approach encourages students to focus excessively on memorization. However, Sternberg in his theory of successful intelligence claims that a person is successfully intelligent if she is able to achieve success according to her "personal standards" and within her "sociocultural context." Her success is also dependent on her ability to capitalize on her strengths and correct or compensate for her weaknesses. Moreover, a successfully intelligent person needs "to adapt to, shape, and select environments." Finally, she has to maintain "a balance of analytical, creative, and practical abilities."
According to Sternberg, four types of fallacy are likely to occur in the thinking of a conventionally intelligent person. The first one is called stable-trait fallacy which holds that if a person is smart once, s/he will remain smart forever. Some students believe that their success in life is guaranteed because they have high test scores or GPA at school. The second type called general-ability fallacy occurs when people think that they are smart in one domain, so they will be smart in all other domains. The third one is called life-success fallacy, which claims that success in schools guarantees success in life. However, research shows that "people cannot succeed in their lives on the basis on IQ alone." The fourth one is called moral-equivalence fallacy which claims a "belief that to be smart is to be good."
Sternberg explains two theories of creativity in detail. They are the investment theory of creativity and the propulsion theory of creative contributions. The investment theory portrays creativity as a decision. There are many people in the world who have creativity, but they fail to utilize their creative intelligence due to various reasons. Therefore, the creative people, metaphorically speaking, "decide to buy low and sell high in the world of ideasthat is, they generate ideas that tend to 'defy the crowd' (buy low), and then, when they have persuaded many people, they sell high…." The propulsion theory of creative contributions deals with people's decision mentioned in the investment theory, that is, how people decide to invest their creative intelligence. It also states that "creativity can be of different kinds, depending on how it propels existing ideas forward." In the propulsion model, Sternberg suggests eight types of creative contributions. The first four contributions accept current paradigms in a field and try to extend them. These four are replication, redefinition, forward incrementation, and advance forward incrementation. The next three types of contribution reject current paradigms in a given field and try to replace them. These three are redirection, reconstruction, and reinitiation. The last contribution in the list is integration which merges current paradigms and combines diverse ways of thinking in a single way of thinking about a phenomenon.
Sternberg views successful intelligence and creativity as the strong bases for wisdom, but they are not sufficient. For example, "IQs have been rising over the past several generations," but an increase of wars and genocides does not seem to indicate that wisdom has also been rising. Therefore, wisdom, according to Sternberg, is an "application of successful intelligence and creativity" which has to be "mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good." Wisdom is different from successful intelligence and creativity because one may utilize successful intelligence and creativity to seek outcomes which are good for oneself or a particular group of people. But, in wisdom, one applies intelligence and creativity to seek a common good. Therefore, a wise person is expected to make a balance among intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extra-personal interests by adapting to or shaping existing environments, and/or selecting new environments. Sternberg further claims that "wisdom requires knowledge, but the heart of wisdom is tacit, informal knowledge of the kind learned in the school of life, not the kind of explicit formal knowledge taught in schools."
To simplify the basic relationships of these three, Sternberg says that intelligence is based on "the analytical aspect of successful intelligence," creativity is based on "the creative aspect of successful intelligence," and wisdom is based on "the practical aspect of successful intelligence, and in particular, tacit knowledge." We, therefore, can claim that the most important component of these three ideas is the successful intelligence, which is found in all intelligent, creative, and wise people with a varying degree. They also differ from each other to some extent. For example, a creative individual usually enjoys a freedom of spirit and is reluctant to abide by the unwritten cannons of society, but this characteristic is often absent in a highly intelligent person. Likewise, a wise individual shares a similar analytical reasoning ability with an intelligent one; however, the former shows greater ability to listen to others, learn from other's experiences, admit his/her mistakes, and change courses of action based on situations.
In short, wisdom results from an application of successful intelligence and creativity which is mediated by a balancing of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal interests. This also has to be directed toward a common good. From Sternberg's synthesis, we can conclude that wisdom is not a passive way of thinking about things; it is rather an active process. It requires doing things in the right waya way which can be linked to the conception of social justice. If educators focus on only students' IQs and test scores, they will fail to create a just society because there is no guarantee that academically intelligent students will always work for a common good. For example, there are so many criminals and corrupts in the world who are academically intelligent, but not wise.
Another significant effect the book has on our understanding of education psychology is that there is no one definition of success. We often notice that most of our students equate success with GPA. From Sternberg's book, we can learn that success is very relative to and dependent on how an individual defines it according to her socio-cultural context. This also implies that there is no singular way of being successful in life. Hence, teachers should make their students aware of this fact and encourage and help them to define what success means to them. They should also utilize various instructional methods for cultivating analytical, creative, and practical learning, in addition to memory learning. In this way, they will be able to teach for successful intelligence because a variety of methods will accommodate various learning styles and preferences of students. Each of them will find a place for him/herself in the learning process. This way of teaching for successful intelligence will also help the teachers inculcate the values of wisdom in their students. It is frustrating that even though we are at the peak of scientific and technological advancement, our world is plagued by wars and poverty. There is no doubt that only IQs and high test scores are not enough to make our world a better place. For a just world, we need to produce wise students who will go beyond their personal interests and work toward a common good. And for teachers who want to work for this cause, Sternberg's book Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity Synthesized can be a very useful resource.
S. M. Anwaruddin is a lecturer (on study leave) at BRAC University Center for Languages, Dhaka. He can be reached at sanwaruddin@luc.edu.
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