Piaget's Theory Of Human Intelligence

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Dictionary.com defines intelligence as the capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc (intelligence, 2016). What does this mean and how does it apply to the average person? For the purpose of this paper I will be using theories from Piaget (Concrete-operational and Formal-operational periods), Gardner (Multiple intelligences) and Sternberg (Triarch) in an attempt to gain better insight into human intelligence.
The Concrete-operational period encompasses middle school and late elementary school years approximately age’s seven to eleven. “The realization that your perspective is not the only one happens in this period. The thinking of …show more content…

“By around seven years the majority of children can conserve liquid, because they understand that when water is poured into a different shaped glass, the quantity of liquid remains the same, even though its appearance has changed. Five-year-old children would think that there was a different amount because the appearance has changed. Conservation of number develops soon after this. Piaget (1954b) set out a row of counters in front of the child and asked her/him to make another row the same as the first one. Piaget spread out his row of counters and asked the child if there were still the same number of counters. Most children aged seven could answer this correctly, and Piaget concluded that this showed that by seven years of age children were able to conserve number” (McLeod, …show more content…

The multiple Intelligences are rooted firmly in the fact that by breaking free of the limits of logical and linguistic intelligence we are able to express our different talents, abilities, and preferences. Given the chance I would add existential to the list of Gardner’s multiple intelligences. To me existential intelligence is the ability to conceptualize deeper or larger questions about human existence. I believe that those of us who have existential intelligence are not afraid to think and talk about issues such as the meaning of life. Furthermore I believe there to be a willingness to contemplate taboo questions like why are we born, why do we die, What happens when we die, or how did we get

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