Thinking Styles

by Robert J. Sternberg

In our society, the recognition of talent depends largely on idealized and entrenched perceptions of academic achievement and job performance. In Thinking Styles, psychologist Robert Sternberg argues that ability often goes unappreciated and uncultivated not because of lack of talent, but because of conflicting styles of thinking and learning. Using a variety of examples that range from scientific studies to personal anecdotes, Dr. Sternberg presents a theory of thinking styles that aims to explain why aptitude tests, school grades, and classroom performance often fail to identify real ability. He believes that criteria for intelligence in both school and the workplace are unfortunately based on the ability to conform rather than to learn. He takes this theory a step farther by stating that "achievement" can be a result of the compatability of personal and institutional thinking styles, and "failure" is too often a result of a conflict of thinking styles, rather than a lack of intelligence or aptitude. Dr. Sternberg presents his revolutionary ideas in a way that is accessible to any educated reader. This provocative book suggests a real change in how we measure achievement and will inspire educators, employers, and parents alike.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Robert J. Sternberg's spectacular research career in psychology had a rather inauspicious beginning. In elementary school he performed poorly on IQ tests, and his teachers' actions conveyed their low expectations for his future progress. Everything changed when his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Alexa, saw that he had potential and challenged him to do better. With her encouragement, he became a high-achieving student, eventually graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University. In a gesture of gratitude, Dr. Sternberg dedicated his book, Successful Intelligence to Mrs. Alexa.

Dr. Sternberg's personal experiences with intelligence testing in elementary school lead him to create his own intelligence test for a 7 th grade science project. He happened to find the Stanford-Binet scales in the local library, and with unintentional impertinence, began administering the test to his classmates; his own test, the Sternberg Test of Mental Abilities (STOMA) appeared shortly thereafter. In subsequent years he distinguished himself in many domains of psychology, having published influential theories relating to intelligence, creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, love and hate.

Dr. Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of (Successful) Intelligence contends that intelligent behavior arises from a balance between analytical, creative and practical abilities, and that these abilities function collectively to allow individuals to achieve success within particular sociocultural contexts. Analytical abilities enable the individual to evaluate, analyze, compare and contrast information. Creative abilities generate invention, discovery, and other creative endeavors. Practical abilities tie everything together by allowing individuals to apply what they have learned in the appropriate setting. To be successful in life the individual must make the best use of his or her analytical, creative and practical strengths, while at the same time compensating for weaknesses in any of these areas. This might involve working on improving weak areas to become better adapted to the needs of a particular environment, or choosing to work in an environment that values the individual's particular strengths. For example, a person with highly developed analytical and practical abilities, but with less well-developed creative abilities, might choose to work in a field that values technical expertise but does not require a great deal of imaginative thinking. Conversely, if the chosen career does value creative abilities, the individual can use his or her analytical strengths to come up with strategies for improving this weakness. Thus, a central feature of the triarchic theory of successful intelligence is adaptability-both within the individual and within the individual's sociocultural context.

Reviews

[Mark Reece · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book, Sternberg sets out a schema to categorize styles- ways of thinking, which he distinguishes from abilities. Sternberg's main argument is that people are often wrongly judged as lacking ability, when in fact, their thinking styles are mismatched with the activities they are undertaking.

That is a reasonable observation, although a banal one. It is repeated throughout, making this short book feel like a long one. Given that Sternberg does not profess to know in any detail what causes a person to develop a thinking style, I'm not sure why he needed to write a book, rather than a short article, on this topic.

The schema Sternberg sets out contains several strands that are not mutually exclusive. For example, he states that some people are 'legislative'- creative, others 'executive'- rule following, still others 'judicial'- critical. However, he conceeds that many people share several of these traits, further weakening his argument. I would also suggest that activities cannot be neatly categorized in this way. For example, Sternberg suggests that creative writing is 'legislative'. Of course, poems require creativity, but they also require editing, an understanding of form, and so on. In other words, many poets are also analytical and disciplined, at least to some extent.

Sternberg makes reference on a few occasions throughout the book to a person's 'real self', or similar formulations. It isn't clear what this means- I wonder whether he is suggesting that self-hood comprises something beyond what a person does and thinks. This somewhat mysterious suggestion goes unexplained.

In short, the book is useful as a reminder that teaching should be flexible enough to accommodate children who learn in a variety of different ways, but I didn't take much else from it.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has some familiarity with the author's work [1], it is not surprising that the author fancies himself to be a creative person who is liberal in thinking and loves new ideas.  Or at least he loves what he thinks to be new ideas, and this book is an attempt on the part of the author to find a place for thinking styles that sits on the uncomfortable boundary between issues of personality and issues of ability.  While I do not know how original the author is in thinking of styles and approaches, I think that this uncomfortable boundary space is very productive of creative ideas that appear to fall between the cracks.  A sure way to find a niche for oneself is to find boundaries that exist between fields and approaches and to mine that space for all it's worth.  The author does that here and correspondingly it works very well.  This is a solid book that is thought provoking in the best ways and that demonstrates at least some of the issues that plague societies and institutions when it comes to what sort of talent they recognize and what sort of people have a hard time finding a good place for themselves because their approaches are not recognized.

Coming in at 140 pages, this book is pretty short as far as works in its field go.  The book is divided into three parts and nine chapters.  The author begins with a preface and then discusses in four chapters the nature of thinking styles (I), with a discussion of what they are and why we need a concept of them (1), a comparison between legislative, executive, and judicial thinking function styles (2), a comparison of monarchic, hierarchic, oligarchic, and anarchic form styles (3), as well as a comparison between global and local level styles, internal and external scope styles, and liberal and conservative leaning styles (4).   After that the author looks at the principles (5) and development (6) of thinking styles (II).  This leads into further discussions about thinking styles as they relate to the school as well as research and theory (III), including a discussion of what we have learned about thinking styles in the classroom (7), a history of the theory and research that has been undertaken on the subject (8), and the author's preferences for looking at a theory of mental self-government rather than computing (9), after which there are notes and an index.

Appreciating this book requires at least a few things.  For one, it requires an appreciation of brevity, because this is by no means a long book.  Another thing this book has going for it (at least in the eyes of some readers) is that the author spends a great deal of time seeking to provide diagnostic questions to the reader to help them identify where they sit on the various approaches that the author recognizes.  And though this book has a lot to offer those who are fans of the personality theory world in general, the book even manages to have some nuance within its rather small size, discussing the way that people have different styles in different areas of their lives and sometimes different styles at different times of their life.  Indeed, further research along this line could seek to discuss how it is that styles develop in particular areas of life and how it is that they develop and sometimes harden into rigid approaches to dealing with aspects of life and how some people are able to be flexible enough to know which styles are of best use in different areas of life.  There's a lot to like here, and plenty that one hopes are followed up in future works.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

READ MAR 2023

Sternberg does a nice job of differentiating the difference between style (preferences) and abilities. The analogy of government as a way to think about thinking styles was helpful at times and distracting at other times. Overall his point about the limitations of intelligence tests and the importance impact teaching styles has on learner success, especially when there is a mismatch is crucial.

[Vanessa Sarmiento · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written.