1. By Sara Clarke, Catherine Downes, Georgina Durman, Delyth Evans, Sarah Farrant, Helen Gallagher, Emma Jones, Naomi Law, Nathan Lewis & Leighanne Mayall
“Mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real-world environments relevant to one's life” - Robert Sternberg
Sternberg had a background in implicit theories of intelligence, which are the Understanding intelligence is important
common, everyday ideas that people have about intelligence. Sternberg, in everyday life. The way we evaluate
Conway, Ketron and Bernstein (1981) explored what people believed the intelligence of ourselves and those
intelligence to be. They found three main recurring trends that characterised around us can influence long-term and • The triarchic theory relates to real-life success.
the responses of participants. short-term decisions. • Sternberg’s tests also measure covert knowledge and a range of things not
From these ideas, Sternberg went on to develop Triarchic Theory of I believe society is driven by how we measured by standard IQ tests.
Intelligence. perceive and evaluate intelligence. • Testing intelligence using Sternberg’s criteria is time consuming and expensive
Our lives are influenced by our • It may lack generalizability - Sternberg based his theory on students from Yale
understanding of intelligence, such as University.
doing well in a job interview.
 Three types of internal components that underlie intelligence are
defined, and these are tested using methods similar to
psychometric tests.  How experience helps us understand the world around us and
consists of the ability to understand.
 Internal world (cognition) and external reality (our environment)
 The mental mechanisms used for recognising problems, planning strategies, interact to form intelligence.
controlling problem solving, and evaluating success of the proccess .  The more familiar the task is the better performance should be.
EXAMPLE
 If Harry Potter is trying to learn a new Quiddich move he
would use his Metacomponents to think about whether he  Using experience to understand new information.
is getting it right, plan stratagies to improve the move and  Information already attained is used to adapt to new
to test out the move again. situations and information.
EXAMPLE
 When looking at a new dataset in statistics, information
 Carry out the plans made by metacomponents and actually solve the problem. about previous datasets gained in lessons can allow
 It involves perceiving the problem, computing the number of possible solutions people to understand the new dataset.
EXAMPLE
and comparing them.
EXAMPLEabove example Harry would use his Metacomponents to
In the
firstly start to think about whether he is getting the move right
Harry will extent to which he isto help it right. He move then
and the think of sources getting with the would i.e.  When a skill is practiced a lot of times it eventually
asking Viktor Krum, or reading about it in Quidditch check
reassure himself through developed strategies and finally becomes easier to do and requires less effort.
Throughthe strategy is successful by decide which Wronski Feint.
that the Ages. Next he will performing the is best
and use it. EXAMPLE
 Walking: We walk with little effort but toddlers toddle
and topple over.
 The processes involved in acquiring and storing new information. It gives us
the ability to learn new things.
 E.g. sifting out relevant information (selective encoding), putting together
new information (selective combination) and comparing new  Students learn best if they are taught and tested in ways that use all 3 of the
information with old (selective comparison). types of intelligence:
EXAMPLE 1) Creatively oriented teaching
 Harry might find relevant information from the book, combine it Requires invention, discovery, imagination, and
with Viktor’s advice and then use it to perform the move. prediction.
2) Analytically oriented teaching
Requires analytic and critical skills.
3) Practically oriented teaching
Requires practical skills and application.
 This subtheory refers to the practical applications of intelligence in the external environment & how it interacts with the world.
 Intelligence enables us to achieve the optimal fit between ourselves and the environment:
 Making changes to behaviour in order to adapt to our environment.  If it is not possible to adapt to the environment, we can change  Finding an alternative environment that is more
the environment to suit our needs. suited to our strengths and needs.
EXAMPLE
 If your plane crashed on an island inhabited with carnivorous bears, EXAMPLE EXAMPLE
you could learn to adapt to the environment by dressing up in a bear  If you do not have a bear costume, you could instead lay traps to  Making a raft and sailing over to the neighbouring island that is
costume to avoid being eaten. catch the bears so that they are less likely to eat you. inhabited by friendly toucans that are not going to eat you