Article on Intelligence Ignores MI Theory

While MI Theory is well known in educational circles, and has become part of the common culture in some places, it has never had much of a home in standard psychology circles.  This point is illustrated beautifully in this article published in a major journal of psychology (Current Directions in Psychological Science), click here for link.  Entitled “Life beyond ‘general intelligence,’” researchers Kovacs and Conway contend that “IQ should be interpreted as an index of specific cognitive abilities rather than the reflection of an underlying general cognitive ability.”  Terming their approach “POT” (Process Overlap Theory) the authors propose that intelligence is determined by multiple components, both domain-general and domain-specific.”  Moreover, they add that they do not equate “g” or general intelligence with some kind of central executive function.  Rather, executive functioning appears to be a “cluster of largely autonomous control processes—an executive committee,” so to speak.

You might well conclude that I am pleased with this article and its conclusions.  And yet, what strikes me more is that neither my work nor that of other critics of a single-intelligence position is cited — not Robert Sternberg, not Steven Ceci, not David Olson, just to mention three scholars known to me.  Apparently, standard intelligence theory and standard proponents of “g” are the only individuals who merit citation in such an article.  You may think that I am annoyed, or even angry,  and yet I am simply bemused.

Howard Gardner