RESUMEN
This study provides an empirical test of a previously proposed assertion that intelligence as adaptation has an attitudinal as well as an ability component. The ability component deals with what the basic knowledge and skills are that underlie intelligence, and how much of each one an individual has. The attitudinal component deals with how an individual chooses to deploy the abilities they have. In other words, to what use are the abilities put? It is argued that it is impossible fully to separate the measurement of the ability component from the attitudinal one. In a diverse population, even taking an intelligence test will show itself to involve an attitude toward the test, which may enhance or detract from performance, as when one sees the test as irrelevant or harmful to one's life, or as a sociocultural misfit to one's life experience. To succeed, people need not only to have abilities, but attitudes that put those abilities to effective use to accomplish individuals' life goals. In the study, we found that intelligent attitudes are related, but non-identical, to germane constructs, such as wisdom, the need for cognition, creativity, and openness to experience. Scores on the attitudinal measure were not related to scores on tests of fluid intelligence and academic abilities/achievement. Thus, the range of attitudes regarding how to deploy intelligence can vary over ability levels.
RESUMEN
Cultural intelligence is one's ability to adapt when confronted with problems arising in interactions with people or artifacts of cultures other than one's own. In this study, we explored two maximum-performance tests of cultural intelligence. One, used in previous research, measured cultural intelligence in the context of an individual conducting a business trip in another culture. The second, new to this research, measured cultural intelligence in the context of meeting someone from another culture while one is in the context of one's own culture. So, the difference between the two tests was whether one was in one's own culture or another and whether the individual who most had to adapt was oneself or someone else. We found that cultural intelligence in the two contexts was essentially the same construct. Cultural intelligence as measured by a typical-performance test is a different construct from cultural intelligence as measured by a maximum-performance test. In this research, general intelligence showed some limited correlation with cultural intelligence as measured by a maximum-performance, but not a typical-performance test. Cultural intelligence as an ability and as a disposition are not the same but rather complement each other.