The Problem of Intelligence

One of the most harmful instances of hyperreality that is spawned by testing is the peculiar notion of intelligence that holds sway in America. A grossly abbreviated and distorted signifier of the complex and varied capacities of the mind, the components of this notion are that intelligence is a single entity, that it is unequally distributed in the population such that some people have considerably more of it than others, that each person's allotment of it is fixed throughout life, and that it has a great deal to do with the vocations to which people might aspire and the success they can expect to achieve in them. In some of its forms, "intelligence" has additional, particularly destructive corollaries, such as that it is differentially distributed by gender or among ethnic groups.

Numerous theorists and studies reviewed earlier recommend a viewpoint quite contrary to this notion of intelligence. Gardner and Sternberg promote views of intelligence as multifaceted. Binet held that an individual's intelligence is not fixed but can improve. Varying profiles on intelligence test scores achieved by different ethnic groups can be attributed to differences in culture and socioeconomic variables rather than differing amounts of something called innate intelligence. Longitudinal studies have found little if any correlation between results on intelligence tests taken in childhood or youth and occupational success later in life. And yet the conventional notion of intelligence persists. In its name, rewards and opportunities are extended to some, while others are dismissed as having too little potential to justify investments to develop it. Because intelligence is generally accepted as a preeminently important capacity, those who are con-

sidered to be deficient in it are viewed both by others and themselves as inferior, while those who are thought to richly endowed with it receive social adulation and develop a bloated sense of self-worth (often accompanied by neurotic fragility born of anxiety that perhaps they are not really as intelligent as everyone thinks they are). In sum, the notion of intelligence that abides in America is both erroneous and detrimental, and it should be changed.

The burden of my argument has been that the conventional concept of intelligence has its source in the abundance of intelligence tests that are routinely given in today's society. If this is true, then a useful way of undoing the popular concept of intelligence would be to do away with intelligence tests. This would be a step of considerable magnitude. It would mean terminating one-on-one tests that style themselves as intelligence or IQ tests, such as the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. But much more important, also slated for extinction would be the myriad standardized so-called aptitude tests given at all levels in elementary and secondary school, the SAT, ACT, and ASVAB for high school seniors, the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, and GMAT for applicants to graduate or professional schools, and the GATB for applicants who seek jobs through the U.S. Employment Service.

Massive as the prospect may be, such a development is not inconceivable. It may already have begun. Although the trend is still toward increasing emphasis on admissions tests, in recent years, a reaction against them has sprouted. Antioch, Bard, Hampshire, and Union colleges, together with some two dozen others, no longer require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, and Harvard Business School has dropped the GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test) as an application requirement.^[18] These institutions make their selections on the basis of academic records, written statements by applicants, and letters of recommendation, and they manage to operate their admissions programs effectively without intelligence tests.

If intelligence tests were abolished, it would not be long before the conventional notion of intelligence as a single, quantifiable entity would change. People would distinguish more clearly among a variety of abilities, and these might be demonstrated, as

Howard Gardner suggests, by evidence of an individual's accomplishments in linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and personal intelligences.^[19] This would not signal the end of all qualifying tests. In addition to other evidence of accomplishments, tests would continue to play a role in decisions about school promotions and graduation as well as competition among aspirants for scholarships, admission to selective colleges and training programs, or employment in desirable jobs. The tests, however, would be strictly past oriented. They would be concerned to measure how well individuals had succeeded in mastering knowledge or skills that had been presented to them in academic courses or technical or artistic training programs. Different individuals would, of course, perform at different levels on these tests, and this would be taken into account along with other accomplishments in deciding who will receive scarce rewards and opportunities.

To develop these practices and attitudes is not unthinkable. They are already well established in some sectors. Consider how evaluation works in a typical American college course. Depending on the discipline, students are usually graded on the basis of some combination of the following: problems or questions to be completed and handed in at regular intervals, laboratory reports, term papers, performance in discussion groups, and tests. Far from being future-oriented intelligence tests, the tests are strictly based on material covered in the course. (To include anything else, as every professor knows, is sure to provoke students to rise up in rebellion.) The notion of general intelligence plays almost no role in the process. When students do not perform adequately and one wishes to understand why, the first questions have to do with how much interest they have in the subject matter and how much effort they put into it. If it is clear that they are interested and are trying hard, investigation turns next to their preparation. Have they developed good study habits? Do they have the requisite background for this course? Have they learned the particular modes of thinking and analysis that are used in this discipline? Academic advisers account for the great majority of cases of unsuccessful course performance in terms of one or another of these lines of investigation. Only for the few cases that remain does the

question of sheer ability or "intelligence" come up. And even then, the matter is posed in terms of the particular abilities appropriate for a specific subject matter (ability to do mathematics, to draw, to interpret poetry, etc.) rather than general intelligence.^[20]

If the attitudes represented in this process were to become commonplace, it is likely that we would lose the habit of thinking of intelligence as an all-important, single thing that is distributed unequally among the population. Instead, we would evaluate quality of performance in terms of a variety of factors, only one of which is native ability in that particular area. Such a change in thinking would drastically curtail the destructive view that some people are irredeemably inferior to others by birth, perhaps even by race. It would place primary responsibility for achievement squarely on the individual's effort and hold out the promise that if given a fair opportunity, the degree of one's own determination is the major factor in achieving one's goals.

The most important discontinuity in applying the model of procedures in a college classroom to larger evaluation programs has to do with equal opportunity. It is a given that all of the students enrolled in a single course have the opportunity to receive the same instruction, but this, of course, does not hold if large numbers from different localities and backgrounds are being assessed. The applicants will have been exposed to a variety of different experiences and curricula in schools that are anything but uniform in the quality of education they provide. The question is how to achieve a fair evaluation of how well people have acquired academic, technical, artistic, or other skills when some of them have had much richer opportunities to acquire them than others. This is no new problem. It also plagues the present system, for, as we have seen, a direct correlation exists between intelligence test scores and family income. Sad to say, the present proposal offers no magic bullet for solving this most intransigent dilemma in our system of education and mass evaluation. Probably no simple solution exists. In the short range, admissions committees and other evaluators will need to continue, as they do now, to factor variables of previous opportunity into their decisions. But this is a difficult process at best, and some decision makers are less adept at it or take it less seriously than others. The

only satisfactory long-range solution is the obvious one of making a massive commitment to provide all primary and secondary school children with equal educational opportunities. And that, of course, will require much more than just fixing the schools. It also involves fostering supportive home environments, and that will be realized only when the larger social problems of poverty and discrimination are successfully resolved.