Intelligence is the ability to understand what is happening, use the available means and effectively solve life’s problems.
Sometimes intellect also includes intuition (the ability to find a solution without conscious reasoning), sometimes only conscious processes. Intelligence together with knowledge and personal components (beliefs, positions) is the mind.
As a rule, when speaking of intelligence, they mean mental intelligence. “Is he smart?”, “How is his head?” and “How is his intelligence?” — the same question. However, it is wrong to reduce intellectual potential to mental intelligence: there are different types of intelligence, or different situations require their own kind of intelligence. First of all, it is worldly intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence. Sometimes, in addition to this, verbal, musical, spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence are distinguished. See →
Intelligence tests measure intelligence only partially, since a well-thinking person may not know some things that are completely natural for the authors of such tests. On the other hand, practicing on IQ tests does help you get better scores—but hardly improves intelligence much. See →
Are intelligence and creativity related? They are connected, but the relationship between them is not obvious and not linear. Increasing the level of intelligence increases creativity, but only up to a certain limit … See →
What determines the level and development of intelligence? In many ways, this is an innate characteristic, children are born both intellectually gifted and downs; on the other hand, intellectual development strongly depends on the conditions of his development in the family and on the intellectual level of his environment. Many children (and adults too) turn off their intellect in certain situations and live thoughtlessly. Learned stupidity, like thoughtless existence, is an interesting phenomenon that one has to deal with quite often. From childhood, develop fine motor skills in children, tell him more, awakening the child’s interest in the questions “Why is this happening? What does it depend on? ”, Make the child think, do not allow him to play Durik, send him to a good school — and your child’s intelligence will be in order.
Uri Bronfenbrenner’s book The Two Worlds of Childhood. Children in the USA and the USSR” (M.: Progress, 1976) the author talks about a project that later became known as a thirty-year experiment. It was about how to bring mentally retarded children who are kept in a special shelter into people, to ensure that they can live independently. The experiment consisted of many stages, but the most important and curious was the very first of them. Each child was attached to some kind of surrogate mother; such mothers were mentally retarded women kept in the same shelter. Two years later, special measurements showed that the level of intelligence in children increased by an average of 20-30 points; at the same time, the level of intelligence in the children of the control group decreased. These mothers obviously could not conduct any kind of developmental activities with their children: no mathematical circles, no puzzles, no intellectual games. All they could do was hug children, kiss them, swaddle them, and in general make out with them in every possible way. And so, it turns out that, at least at a certain age, emotional warmth, parental affection is much more important for the development of the child, including for the development of his intellect, than any other form of activity and education! From A.K. Zvonkin. “Kids and Mathematics, download the book (pdf) You can read about the book here, a fragment of the book here.
At the same time, it is hardly true to say confidently that without parental love a child cannot grow up healthy and developed.
How to develop and maintain your intelligence?
The intellect can fall asleep, or it can be kept awake. Facial gymnastics is a simple and effective way to increase intellectual vigor, recommended before important meetings, exams and public speaking. Admiration is an element of natural gymnastics for the face. Check out the article How to improve the speed of thinking, there are a lot of useful tips.