What Intelligence Tests Miss Read online

  But if we look at the secondary definitions of the term, we see what is motivating the phrase “smart but acting stupid.” The second definition of the word stupid in Dictionary.com is “tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes”—a phrase which attenuates the sense of contradiction. A similar thing happens if we analyze the word dumb to see if the phrase, “smart but acting dumb,” makes sense. The primary definition describes “dumb” as the antonym of “intelligent,” again leading to a contradiction. But in phrases referring to decisions or actions such as “what a dumb thing to do!” we see a secondary definition like that of stupid: tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes. These phrases pick out a particular meaning of “stupid” or “dumb”—albeit not the primary one.

  For this reason, Sternberg suggested that a better phrasing for these examples is that they represent smart people acting foolishly.1 Harvard cognitive scientist David Perkins likewise prefers the term folly to characterize what is being described in these examples. A foolish person is a person “lacking good sense or judgment; showing a lack of sense; unwise; without judgment or discretion.” This picks out the aspect of “stupid” and “dumb” that we wish to focus on here—the aspect that refers not to intelligence (general mental “brightness”), but instead to the tendency to make judicious decisions (or, rather, injudicious ones).

  I am not at all concerned with arguing about the terminology here. However we phrase it—“smart but acting dumb,” “smart but acting foolish,” or whatever—it is only essential that the phrase pick out the phenomenon that we are discussing: intelligent people taking injudicious actions or holding unjustified beliefs.

  The Broad versus Narrow Intelligence Debate

  There is just one problem here. Some conceptualizations of intelligence define it, at least in part, as the ability to adapt to one’s environment.2 But surely the tendency to make judicious decisions that serve one’s goals is part of what we mean by adaptation to the environment. Thus, we are right back at the problem of contradiction again. If we are concerned with cases where intelligent people make foolish decisions (decisions that do not serve their goals), and intelligence is in part the tendency to make decisions that serve one’s goals, then we have a contradiction—smart people can’t possibly have the (general) tendency to act foolishly.3

  What is happening here is that we are bumping up against an old controversy in the study of cognitive ability—the distinction between broad and narrow theories of intelligence. Broad theories include aspects of functioning that are captured by the vernacular term intelligence (adaptation to the environment, showing wisdom and creativity, etc.), whether or not these aspects are actually measured by existing tests of intelligence. Narrow theories, in contrast, confine the concept of intelligence to the set of mental abilities actually tested on extant IQ tests. Narrow theories adopt the operationalization of the term that is used in psychometric studies of intelligence, neurophysiological studies using brain imaging, and studies of brain disorder. This definition involves a statistical abstraction from performance on established tests and cognitive ability indicators. It yields a scientific concept of general intelligence usually symbolized by g or, in cases where the fluid/crystallized theory is adopted, fluid intelligence (Gf) and crystallized intelligence (Gc). I am referring here to the Cattell/Horn/Carroll theory of intelligence—as close as there is to a consensus view in the field of intelligence research.4 Sometimes called the theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence (symbolized Gf/Gc theory), this theory posits that tests of mental ability tap a small number of broad factors, of which two are dominant. Fluid intelligence (Gf) reflects reasoning abilities operating across of a variety of domains—in particular, novel ones. It is measured by tasks of abstract reasoning such as figural analogies, Raven Matrices, and series completion (for example, what is the next number in the series 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, __?). Crystallized intelligence (Gc) reflects declarative knowledge acquired from acculturated learning experiences. It is measured by vocabulary tasks, verbal comprehension, and general knowledge measures. The two dominant factors in the fluid/crystallized theory reflect a long history of considering two aspects of intelligence: intelligence-as-process (Gf) and intelligence-as-knowledge (Gc).

  The narrow view of intelligence then takes these operationally defined constructs—g, Gf, Gc—and validates them in studies of brain injury, educational attainment, cognitive neuroscience, developmental trends, and information processing. These constructs of the narrow theory are grounded in the types of mental abilities measured on traditional tests of intelligence.

  It might help the discussion of broad versus narrow views if we mark these abilities with an easily remembered acronym—MAMBIT (to stand for: the mental abilities measured by intelligence tests). The narrow view of the intelligence concept, in viewing intelligence as MAMBIT, differs from the broad view in expressly not including in its primary definition a host of things that appear in broad theories: adaptation to the environment, real-life decision making, showing wisdom and creativity, etc. Notice that the contradictions that I discussed above in the phrases “smart but acting dumb” or “smart but acting foolish” do not occur if a narrow definition of intelligence is adopted—but they present a paradox if a broad view is adopted. On the former view, the “smart but acting foolish” phenomenon might occur quite frequently. Why? Simple really. On the narrow view, smart and foolish are two different things. Smart refers to the mental faculties that are specifically tapped by IQ tests (MAMBIT; most likely Gf). MAMBIT does not encompass variation in the qualities that lead to behavioral acts that we call dumb, stupid, or foolish—failure to show: judicious decision making, adequate behavioral regulation, wise goal prioritization, sufficient thoughtfulness, or the proper calibration of evidence. If smart is just MAMBIT and dumb refers to a set of characteristics not encompassed by MAMBIT, then the phrase “smart but acting dumb” simply marks a case where two different mental faculties are out of kilter (one is high and one is low).

  In contrast, the broad view of intelligence creates problems of interpretation. The broad view has trouble articulating just what it is that the phrase “smart but acting dumb” is drawing our attention to. A broad view that defines “smart” (intelligence) as encompassing adaptation to the environment or judicious decision making has no place for a smart person repeatedly acting foolishly (maladaptively, injudiciously, or unwisely). Under the broad view, smart people who continually act foolishly are simply not as smart as we thought they were.

  Why do people resist this conclusion? Why does folk psychology not dispense with the notion of “smart but acting stupid” and simply treat “smart but acting stupid” people as “not smart”? I conjecture it is because we have noticed that such people possess a lot of that quality that is assessed, narrowly, on existing IQ tests, and that folk psychology has evolved to mark and value this mental capacity.

  What I am suggesting is that there is an inconsistency in the folk view of intelligence. Studies of people’s folk theories of intelligence have found that people tend to take a broad view of intelligence.5 But, nonetheless, people seem to find something odd in the “smart but acting dumb” phenomenon. I suggest that the folk theory finds something worth noting in the phenomenon because the folk theory does recognize MAMBIT. That people are surprised when this quality (MAMBIT) is out of kilter with adaptive behavior shows that people have a so-called g-model lodged in their broad folk theory of intelligence—a model that dictates that all aspects of mental functioning should vary together (if high on one, high on the other).

  In short, the folk theory overvalues MAMBIT by viewing as odd any case where other good mental qualities do not go together with high MAMBIT. In this way, the folk theory undervalues other mental faculties by giving pride of place to MAMBIT in defining what is “odd.” In fact, some psychologists have encouraged this folk psychological tendency by adopting broad definitions of intelligence that, ironically, impede us from giving proper recognition to ot
her mental faculties. I say ironically because many of these same psychologists have adopted broad definitions in an explicit attempt to reduce the importance of “the part of intelligence that IQ tests measure.” However, in adopting a broad definition they have fostered just the opposite—they have encouraged the concept of intelligence to become an imperialist power in the language of the mental. This is not the best strategy for scientific purposes—and it has untoward social implications as well.

  Rationality—the Missing Element

  Broad definitions of intelligence conflate the two individual difference factors in the phrase “smart but acting foolishly” into one concept. The “smart” part is MAMBIT. The foolish part refers to tendencies to take or not take judicious actions, make sensible decisions, or behave appropriately to the situation. Broad theories conjoin the two (MAMBIT and sensible decision making) under the umbrella term intelligence. Such broad views of intelligence lead to the privileging of MAMBIT and the devaluing of the non-MAMBIT parts of the broad definition. This is because MAMBIT has a name (IQ), is measured explicitly (by IQ tests), and has a one-hundred-year history that many people know at least a little about. If we would name (and measure) the other things (and not just call them part of intelligence), we would be better able to give them proper emphasis. And we do have an omnibus name for these other things. Adaptive behavioral acts, judicious decision making, efficient behavioral regulation, sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, the proper calibration of evidence—all of the characteristics that are lacking when we call an action foolish, dumb, or stupid—are precisely the characteristics that cognitive scientists study when they study rational thought.

  Dictionary definitions of rationality tend to be rather lame and unspecific (“the state or quality of being in accord with reason”), and some critics who wish to downplay the importance of rationality have promulgated a caricature of rationality that involves restricting its definition to artificial skills such as solving logic problems of the type found in textbooks. The meaning of rationality in modern cognitive science is, in contrast, much more robust and important.6

  Cognitive scientists recognize two types of rationality: instrumental and epistemic. The simplest definition of instrumental rationality—the one that emphasizes most that it is grounded in the practical world—is: Behaving in the world so that you get exactly what you most want, given the resources (physical and mental) available to you. Somewhat more technically, we could characterize instrumental rationality as the optimization of the individual’s goal fulfillment. Economists and cognitive scientists have refined the notion of optimization of goal fulfillment into the technical notion of expected utility. The model of rational judgment used by decision scientists is one in which a person chooses options based on which option has the largest expected utility.7 One discovery of modern decision science is that if people’s preferences follow certain patterns (the so-called axioms of choice) then they are behaving as if they are maximizing utility—they are acting to get what they most want. This is what makes people’s degrees of rationality measurable by the experimental methods of cognitive science. The deviation from the optimal choice pattern is an (inverse) measure of the degree of rationality.

  The other aspect of rationality studied by cognitive scientists is termed epistemic rationality. This aspect of rationality concerns how well beliefs map onto the actual structure of the world.8 The two types of rationality are related. Importantly, a critical aspect of beliefs that enter into instrumental calculations (that is, tacit calculations) is the probabilities of states of affairs in the world. Although many people feel (mistakenly or not) that they could do without the ability to solve textbook logic problems (which is why the caricatured view of rationality works to undercut its status), virtually no person wishes to eschew epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality, properly defined. Virtually all people want their beliefs to be in some correspondence with reality, and they also want to act to maximize the achievement of their goals.

  Rationality and MAMBIT are two different things. So under a narrow view of intelligence, the notion of smart people acting foolishly presents no conceptual problem. Under a broad view—one that folds rationality into the concept of intelligence—smart people who continually act foolishly simply are not as smart as we thought they were. That there is a certain reluctance to actually call such people unintelligent has led me to believe that by taking the broad view we will not be successful in attenuating the tendency to overvalue MAMBIT. My strategy is the opposite—to press the implications of a narrow view of intelligence, and to thus oppose the tendency of intelligence to rule an imperialist empire in the conceptual landscape of human mental faculties.

  Dysrationalia as an Intuition Pump

  Rationality is different from intelligence defined in the narrow sense as MAMBIT. Thus, it is not surprising for rationality and intelligence to be dissociated—for an individual to be low on one and high on the other. I gave one such dissociation a name in two articles I published in the early 1990s. In those articles, I coined the name for the disability based on the fundamental idea that underlies the concept of a learning disability in educational psychology: the idea of selective cognitive deficit as defined by a discrepancy from measured intelligence. We can see the discrepancy notion at work in, for example, the diagnostic criterion for developmental reading disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM IV) of the American Psychiatric Association. The criterion for reading disorder is: “Reading achievement that falls substantially below that expected given the individual’s chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education” (p. 48). The idea of defining a disability as an aptitude/achievement discrepancy (performance on some domain that is unexpectedly below intelligence) spread widely during the early years of the development of the learning disability concept. Note that the discrepancy idea contains the assumption that all good things should go with high intelligence. When a high IQ-test score is accompanied by subpar performance in some other domain, this is thought “surprising,” and a new disability category is coined to name the surprise. So, similarly, the diagnostic criterion for mathematics disorder (sometimes termed dyscalculia) in DSM IV is that “Mathematical ability that falls substantially below that expected for the individual’s chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education” (p. 50).

  The logic of discrepancy-based classification based on IQ-test performance has created a clear precedent whereby we are almost obligated to create a new disability category when an important skill domain is found to be somewhat dissociated from intelligence. It is just this logic that I exploited in creating a new category of disability—dysrationalia. The proposed definition of the disability was as follows:

  Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in belief formation, in the assessment of belief consistency, and/or in the determination of action to achieve one’s goals. Although dysrationalia may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g., sensory impairment), dysrationalia is not the result of those conditions. The key diagnostic criterion for dysrationalia is a level of rationality, as demonstrated in thinking and behavior, that is significantly below the level of the individual’s intellectual capacity (as determined by an individually administered IQ test).

  Of course, it is easy to recognize that this definition was formulated to contain linguistic and conceptual parallels with the disability definitions devised by the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities and American Psychiatric Association.9 My purpose was to use the concept of dysrationalia as an “intuition pump.” The term intuition pump was coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett to refer to “a device for provoking a family of intuitions by producing variations on a thought experiment. An intuition pump is not, typically, an engine of discovery, but a persuader or pedag
ogical tool—a way of getting people to see things your way” (1980, p. 429). Dysrationalia is my intuition pump to help people see that rationality and intelligence are two different things, and that it should not be surprising that the two often dissociate.

  But why do we need such an intuition pump? Most psychologists realize that IQ tests do not encompass all of the important mental faculties. Most educators also would know this if asked explicitly. Yet despite this, I still contend that most of the time most people forget this fact. In short, I think that IQ tests do fool most of the people most of the time—including psychologists who should know better. By acknowledging the frequent occurrence of dysrationalia, we create the conceptual space to value abilities at least as important as MAMBIT—abilities to form rational beliefs and to take rational action.

  THREE

  The Reflective Mind, the Algorithmic Mind, and the Autonomous Mind

  We engage in our share of rather mindless routine behavior, but our important acts are often directed on the world with incredible cunning, composing projects exquisitely designed under the influence of vast libraries of information about the world.

  —Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 1995

  As a concept in our cultural discourse, intelligence will not be disappearing anytime soon. Nor should it. At the same time, many of the long-standing debates surrounding intelligence will, in fact, gradually disappear. This is already happening. Over a decade ago Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray published their book titled The Bell Curve, and it caused a sensation. That will not happen again. No book on intelligence will cause such a sensation again because, although the public is as yet unaware of it, the seemingly interminable IQ debate is over. All of the major questions about intelligence have been answered to a first order of approximation.1 For example, we know that intelligence is roughly 50 percent heritable (due to genetics) and roughly 50 percent determined by a host of environmental factors. We know that an important portion of the variance in life outcomes (why some people do better than others) is associated with intelligence, but not the majority of the variance. The new debates are about mental abilities beyond those measured on IQ tests. Among those abilities are some that, when missing, cause dysrationalia.