This article explores the advantages of viewing intelligence not as a fixed trait residing within an individual, but rather as a person × task × situation interaction. The emphasis in the article is on the role of persons solving tasks embedded in situations involving learning, intellectual abilities, and competencies. The article opens with a…

Grades often decline during the high school transition, creating stress. The present research integrates the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat with the implicit theories model to understand who shows maladaptive stress responses. A diary study measured declines in grades in the first few months of high school: salivary cortisol…

Results of the Need for Cognition Scale for 40 older adults indicated that their levels of need were related to their performance on Piagetian tasks. Intelligence thus appears determined by attitudes as well as ability. Motivation, need, and intellectual preferences, rather than aging, may contribute to perceived decline in intellectual skills.…

Presents review of recent work by W.D. Gribbons, P.R. Lohnes, J. Vriend, J.O. Crites, B.W. Westbrook, and ties it in with that of D.E. Super. (CJ)

Skill theory attempts to provide tools for the prediction of developmental sequences in any domain at any point in development. The theory suggests a common framework for integrating developmental analyses of cognitive, social, perceptual/motor skills, and behavioral changes in learning and problem solving. (Author/GK)

Results of administering Piagetian tests of concrete and formal operations to 6- to 11-year-olds whose IQ's were in excess of 160 support the reality of Piaget's stage structures but suggest that the speed with which tasks within a stage are mastered is a function of intelligence in the psychometric sense. (Author/SDH)

Compares the performances on psychometric and Piagetian measures of intelligence at school entry of children of different ethnic groups living within a dominant Western-type culture. In general, few significant differences between the ethnic groups are found. (Author/AM)

The question of how to integrate developmental (Piagetian) and psychometric conceptions and assessments of intelligence is considered. A solution which incorporates the contributions of each position--intelligence as forms and as traits--is offered. Premises and objectives of each tradition are reviewed and compared. Overlaps make synthesis…

Administered five Piagetian tests to 180 adolescents for comparison to similar samples from 1967 and 1972. Found that today's adolescents exhibited higher levels of cognitive development than did previous cohorts. Gain varied across tasks, being very large for combinatory thought but mixed for conservation. This acceleration of cognitive…

In a preliminary ethnographic study, the developmental tasks of 23 first-year and 20 fourth-year medical students were assessed with reference to practical problem solving. Findings provide direct support for a relationship between practical intellectual development and life course contexts. (SLD)

This study examined the transition from concrete to formal operations in very bright children in an effort to determine whether high ability in concrete operations would carry over into formal operational ability, and also to investigate precocity in regard to formal operations. Subjects were 38 white middle-class children ranging in age from…

Previous research on intelligence and aging has relied on tests developed for younger adults, which often incorporate many factors that could impede optimal performance in elderly populations. To investigate short-term longitudinal changes in memory, intelligence, and perceived competence in everyday situations among older adults, 227 adults were…

This paper examines the possibility of accelerating the development of intelligence when applying stringent Piagetian standards to evaluate the effects of short- and long-term intervention or instruction programs. The paper reviews previous Genevan and American research that shows that development can be accelerated by means of only a few…

This article presents three studies that were designed to map the dimensions involved in "g," with an emphasis of the place of self-awareness in it. The first study involved preschoolers from 3 to 7 years of age. These were examined in three domains (spatial, quantitative and categorical reasoning) with both actual tasks and tasks addressed to the…