Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined

by Scott Crabtree

What are intelligence, creativity, and talent? How can we measure them? Are they innate, or learned? And how can we each uncover our own?

Scott Barry Kaufman tackles all of these important questions and many more in Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined.

I found the book compelling, well-researched, and powerful, especially because Kaufman speaks both from his professional expertise as a cognitive psychologist and his own life experience. Growing up, he went from ‘special’ classes to becoming a NYU professor and author.

Let me give you a short summary and a few suggestions for actions:

IQ is not everything.

Even before the first chapter, Kaufman makes a paradigm-shifting point when he writes that intelligence is not zero sum game.

“[…] just because someone is talented (whatever that means) by the standards set by society doesn’t mean that the person who isn’t doesn’t have dynamic potential for intellectual functioning. There are so many different paths to success.”

IQ – society’s current standard for measuring intelligence – then is only one part of a rich and dynamic picture in which heritable traits, behavior, mindset, opportunity, perseverance, and motivation all play together.

I was delighted to find Kaufman addressing passion as well, a factor not often considered by academic researchers. For example, he shares:

“One study found that the state of inspiration predicted the creativity of writing above and beyond sheer effort and SAT verbal scores.”

Success and the Growth Mindset

Through much of the first 6 chapters, I kept thinking of Carol Dweck’s work on the “growth mindset” and Kaufman turns his attention here in chapter 7.

He sheds light on what others including Dweck and Heidi Grant Halvorson have found in their research: When we set goals focused on improving we are more resilient to setbacks than when we have goals focused on demonstrating ability. When we are focused on learning and the journey, we tend to stay more engaged. We pay more attention to feedback, learn more from it, and perform better in the long run.

Suggested actions:

  • Set a goal for yourself to learn something new and/or become better at a skill. Focus on and enjoy your progress, and don’t get attached to the idea of completely mastering the skill.
  • If you manage a team make it a point to praise effort at least as much as accomplishments to foster a growth mindset.

Does self-control trump IQ?

On the flipside, social comparison and status threats almost always negatively impact confidence, brain function, and performance.

So, how can we regulate these negative factors to perform better?

One study Kaufman shares found participants who wrote about their emotions about an upcoming challenge performed better on the task. It may be that the writing helped them reinterpret their negative emotions and prepare for action.

Self-regulation may even be one of the more important factors in academic success, a field in which society most often refers to IQ. Kaufman argues:

“There is suggestive evidence that when analyzed independently of IQ, self-discipline predicts academic achievement better than IQ.”

Suggested actions:

  • Write down how you feel about your next upcoming challenge. How does that change your perspective on those emotions?
  • Abundant research suggests that, as I’ve written about previously, meditation is one great way to boost self-control. There are many ways to meditate, and even a few minutes each day can be effective.

Happiness at Work and Creativity

In the context of talent, Kaufman’s thoughts about creativity are particularly important to me, and I found this statement fascinating:

“Openness is a stronger predictor of creative achievement across the board compared to Intellect.”

Kaufman also suggests that people who are the most creative love their work. They have a sense of mission. They think deeply, tolerate mistakes, and are comfortable holding minority opinions. They have a passion that drives persistence.

As you can imagine, this resonated strongly with me.

Suggested actions:

  • Create your own action plan for becoming happier at work.
  • Define how your work supports a bigger mission that is aligned with your own values and goals. If you are a manager, have this conversation with your team members.

So, what is intelligence?

Kaufman sums it up with this redefinition:

“Intelligence is the dynamic interplay of engagement and abilities in pursuit of personal goals….engagement and ability are inseparable throughout human development, dynamically feeding off each other as we engage in the world.”

Who should read this book?

I recommend the book as a place to start for anyone who wants to work smarter, be more creative, and achieve more. If you are a bit of a geek like me, you’ll enjoy it more – it’s fairly academic and often describes studies in detail, perhaps too much for some. Overall it is an excellent and fascinating book.

If anyone would like a book summary I wrote that’s somewhat longer than this post, please contact us to receive it.

I’d love to hear what you think and how you apply these insights.

(The link to the book is an affiliate link and will take you to its listing on Amazon.)

Scott Crabtree

As the Founder and Chief Happiness Officer at Happy Brain Science, Scott Crabtree empowers individuals and organizations to apply findings from cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology to boost productivity and happiness at work.


2 thoughts on “Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined”

  1. I would love a copy of the longer book summary of ungifted. I teach a undergraduate course on Psychology of creativity and I am always looking for new resources for students.

    Reply

    1. Thanks Maggie! Here’s the longer summary! I’ll email it to you as well for better formatting!

      What are intelligence, creativity, and talent? How can we measure them? Are they innate, or learned? How can we each find our own path to greatness? Scott Barry Kaufman tackles all of these important questions and many more in his impressive, helpful, and well-researched book Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined. I strongly recommend the book for anyone interested in how we can develop our intelligence, talent, and creativity.
      Kaufman is not only a well-respected cognitive psychologist and researcher in the field, but he’s also lived what he writes about. He went from ‘special’ classes as a youth to becoming an NYU professor and author. He cleverly and carefully balances his research-based thoughts with sharing powerful personal stories to make the book even more compelling.
      Ungifted is well organized; the heart of the book is:
      Origins
      Chapter 1: Development
      Chapter 2: IQ
      Labels
      Chapter 3: Who Is Learning Disabled?
      Chapter 4: Who Is Gifted?
      Chapter 5: Gifted Souls
      Chapter 6: Passion
      Chapter 7: Mindset
      Chapter 8: Self-Regulation
      Ability
      Chapter 9: Deliberate Practice
      Chapter 10: g
      Chapter 11: Talent
      Chapter 12: Creativity
      Chapter 13: Redefining Intelligence
      Kaufman makes valuable, paradigm-shifting points even before the first chapter. In the prologue he points out that intelligence is not a zero sum game. “I firmly believe we can recognize and value every kind of mind without diminishing the value of others. I don’t see intelligence as a zero-sum game: just because someone is talented (whatever that means) by the standards set by society doesn’t mean that the person who isn’t doesn’t have dynamic potential for intellectual functioning. There are so many different paths to success.”
      The author sets the stage early (in chapter 1: Development) for what Stanford Professor Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset”—a topic he explores in greater depth later in the book. “Just because a trait is heritable (and virtually all of our psychological traits are heritable) doesn’t necessarily mean that the trait is fixed or can’t be developed….What really matters is not whether genes influence behavior or not, but how we take what we’ve got and steer the course of our lives. For that, we need a developmental perspective.”
      Kaufman makes the point strongly that IQ is only one part of a rich picture. “We can see how a less than stellar IQ score can be offset by other factors. The higher the level of other factors—such as opportunity, perseverance, or motivation—the higher the total product.” He concludes his first chapter with a great line: “Greatness is not born, but takes time to develop, and there are many paths to greatness.”
      In chapter two Kaufman shares interesting thoughts about judgment from Alfred Binet, who pioneered one of the first IQ tests: “Benet argues that there were three distinct aspects of judgment: direction, adaptation, and criticism. Direction involved the ability to concentrate on the task and figure out what needs to be done to solve a problem. Adaptation involved selecting appropriate strategies and monitoring the usefulness of the strategy. Finally, criticism referred to the ability to criticize one’s own thoughts and behaviors, and to make changes based on this criticism that increase task performance.”
      I was delighted to find Kaufman addressing passion, something not often tackled by academic researchers. I was especially intrigued by: “Inspired people were also more open to new experiences and reported more absorption and flow in their activities.” Those who have attended my workshops know how important I think flow is for happiness and productivity at work. So get inspired to achieve more flow at work.
      He later adds “Inspiration is also important for making progress toward goals.” The brilliant research led by Teresa Amabile shows how key progress toward clear and meaningful goals is for happiness and engagement at work. The good news is that according to research led by Marina Milyavskaya, it’s a virtuous cycle; “This suggests that goal progress and goal inspiration build on each other to form a cycle of greater goal inspiration and greater goal pursuit.” Not surprisingly, Kaufman shares “One study found that the state of inspiration predicted the creativity of writing above and beyond sheer effort and SAT verbal scores.”
      Through much of the first 6 chapters I kept thinking of Carol Dweck’s work on a “growth mindset”, and Kaufman turns his attention here in chapter 7. He shares what others including Dweck and Heidi Grant Halvorson have found in their research: goals focused on improving are more resilient to setbacks than goals focused on demonstrating ability. When we are focused on learning and the journey, we tend to stay more engaged. We pay more attention to feedback, learn more from it, and perform better in the long run. “Importantly, mindset impacts on achievement in both the short term and the long term.” Try creating a goal for yourself that’s about learning and growth to experience these benefits. If you manage others (or are raising children), praise effort instead of ability to nourish a growth mindset.
      Kaufman’s book goes beyond mindset basics, to address how social comparison and status threats and impact confidence, brain function, and performance: “Taken together, these intriguing results suggest that when people are faced with threatening situations, their confidence can drastically drop, lowering the working memory resources then can bring to the task at hand.” Threatening people to improve their performance will likely backfire. But there’s an important exception: “Schmader and colleagues found that anxious arousal predicted higher levels of working memory under stereotype threat when people were primed with confidence or already had a general tendency to reappraise negative emotions in a more positive way.”
      So how can we all regulate our negative emotions to achieve higher performance? Kaufman describes a study where those who wrote expressively about their emotions about an upcoming challenge performed better on the task. Expressive writing can help us reinterpret our negative emotions and prepare for action.
      The author continues to discuss self-regulation and describes what many of us first heard about through the famous marshmallow studies: “There is suggestive evidence that when analyzed independently of IQ, self-discipline predicts academic achievement better than IQ.” Improvements in self-control, Kaufman argues effectively, result in improvements in performance. Abundant research suggests that, as I’ve written about previously, meditation is one great way to boost self-control.
      The book continues with a chapter on Deliberate Practice. While the notion of 10,000 hours to master something is part of the public consciousness thanks to Malcom Gladwell, Kaufman adds important points including “Positive emotions propel engagement, whereas negative emotions impede engagement.” To achieve your goals, you need passion, positive emotions, a growth mindset, and the perseverance to stick with deliberate practice.
      Kaufman doesn’t just redefine intelligence, he also redefines talent: “I think talent is more accurately defined as a predisposition and passion to master the rules of a domain.”
      Kaufman’s thoughts about creativity are particularly important to me, and I suggest should be read by the many videogame and movie companies I work with. Gems include this one: “Participants imagining themselves as children came up with more original responses on a test of divergent thinking, and the effect was particularly pronounced among introverted participants.” Kaufman goes on to say that when people were solving problems that required creative insight, “people directed their attention in ward, preparing themselves to detect unconscious solutions.” He points out that we need to be both mentally flexible and also persistent to achieve spontaneous creativity. He shares that “Openness is a stronger predictor of creative achievement across the board compared to Intellect.”
      Kaufmann finds that people who are the most creative love their work. They have a sense of mission. They think deeply, tolerate mistakes, and are comfortable holding minority opinions. They have a passion that drives persistence.
      The author finally follows through on the book’s subtitle with this redefinition: “Intelligence is the dynamic interplay of engagement and abilities in pursuit of personal goals….engagement and ability are inseparable throughout human development, dynamically feeding off each other as we engage in the world.”
      Of course this book isn’t perfect and won’t be for everyone. It’s fairly academic—awesome for my fellow geeks who want to know about studies in detail, but perhaps too much for some. Kaufman’s writing isn’t always as economical as it can be; some sentences and paragraphs could benefit from more editing. But these are minor quibbles with a book that is, overall, excellent.
      For anyone who wants to develop, work smarter, be more creative, and achieve more greatness, reading Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined is a great place to start. I’d love to hear what you think and how you apply it.

      Reply

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