Sternberg's view of intelligence has been closely linked to Aristotle's ancient premise that intelligence is composed of three aspects theoretical, practical, and productive intelligence. In Sternberg's view intelligence revolves around the interchange of analytical, practical, and creative aspects of the mind.  (More on Sternberg views on intelligence and creativity.)

Sternberg's definition of includes:
"Intelligent behavior involves adapting to your environment, changing your environment, or selecting a better environment."

Componential intelligence (often called analytical)

Traditional notion of intelligence
Abstract thinking & logical reasoning
Verbal & mathematical skills

Experiential intelligence (often called creative)

Creativity
Divergent thinking (generating new ideas)
Ability to deal with novel situations
 

Contextual intelligence (often called practical intelligence)

Street smarts
Ability to apply knowledge to the real world
Ability to shape one's environment; choose an environment
 

(Summarized from: Sternberg, Robert (1988) The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Intelligence. NY: Viking Press.)

Professor Robert Sternberg (formerly of  Yale University and now the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts) developed a concept of intelligence that equates to combinations of individual preferences from three levels of mental self-management. These three areas correspond with:

1. Functions of governments of the mind,

2. Stylistic preferences, and

3. Forms of mental self-government.

Examples: As a combination a person might prefer legislative functions, internal variables and hierarchic habits of mental self-government; while another individual might prefer executive functions; external variables and anarchic habits of mental self-government, and so forth.

 I. Functions of governments of the mind are:

• Legislative - creating, planning, imagining, and formulating.

• Executive - implementing and doing.

• Judicial - judging, evaluating, and comparing.

II. Scope - stylistic variables:

• Internal - by themselves

• External - collaboration

III. Forms of mental self-government:

• Monarchic people perform best when goals are singular. They deal best with one goal or need at a time.

• Hierarchic people can focus on multiple goals at once and recognize that all goals cannot be fulfilled equally. These people can prioritize goals easily.

• Oligarchic people deal with goals that are of equal weight well, but they have difficulty prioritizing goals of different weight.

• Anarchic people depart from form and precedent. Often they don't like or understand the need for rules and regulations. These people operate without rules or structure, creating their own problem-solving techniques with insights that often easily break existing mindsets.

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Think about it:

On the surface many of Sternberg's descriptions appear to equate to some of the aspects of personality type theory. For instance, it may be apparent to those who have studied some of Carl Jung's work on personality preferences that Sternberg's "scope variables" of internal and external might equate to preferences for either introversion or extraversion in Jungian typology. In this context, preferences for internal (introversion) or external (extraversion) mental operations might be accurately calculated on popular personality tests like the Myers-Briggs or Kiersey-Bates.

• Looking at Sternberg's other descriptors in the areas of "forms" and "functions", see if you can find any other parallels between his descriptors and aspects of traditional personality typologies.

• Also, in varied combinations (3 [functions] x 2 [scopes] x 3 [forms] = 18) Sternberg's Triarchic Model would yield 18 different combinations for mental preferences. Within Sternberg's patterns, see if you can categorize and profile your own mental preferences and those of others you know well.

Other books by Robert Sternberg, Successful Intelligence; Beyond IQ: A Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence; Cognitive Psychology; How to Develop Creativity in Students; and Teachers, Intelligence, Heredity, and Environment; and Teaching for Thinking.

Robert J. Sternberg & Wendy Williams, Educational Psychology, 1st ed: Pearson Addison Wesley ( This book explains teaching and learning through interactions of analytical, practical and creative thinking. )

Learn more:

Excellent articles explaining Sternberg's work at:

Online articles : Successful Intelligence in the classroom

See if you can find other articles on Sternberg on the web.

Lots of internal site links

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