Description
The nature of intelligence has been debated by philosophers for millennia. More recently intelligence has been equated with our cognitive abilities of logic, reasoning and memory. Other psychologists however, see personality and motivation as an integral part of intelligence and optimal functioning. There is a growing consensus that the ultimate purpose of intelligence is to enable us to navigate, manoeuvre and adapt to an often unpredictable and surprising world in order to remain effective and achieve our goals.
This talk will focus on four key psychological capacities that enable us to do this;
Cognitive intelligence is about finding out and understanding how the world works. Knowing how the ‘world works’ comes from our ability to reason and evaluate the evidence that is offered to support an assumption, a conclusion or a specific course of action.
Emotional intelligence is about understanding the sources and the role of emotions in our lives. Understanding emotions are central to our ability to adapt to unpredictable world around us and give us a sense of fulfillment achievement and success through the meaning we assign to our emotional experiences.
Cultural ‘intelligence’ is a form of social intelligence that enables us to understand how people think, feel and behave in relation to the values and beliefs they have been taught (and learn) about the nature of good and bad, right and wrong. This form of intelligence is the basis of leadership.
Motivation is about why people initiate behaviour as well as what determines the direction, the character and the intensity of that behaviour even before they experience a specific outcome. People are motivated to achieve certain goals if they agree with the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of those goals. The next webinar in this series will describe how our beliefs about the nature of our abilities predict whether we are likely to remain motivated and confident in the face of a challenge.