Description: Typical texts develop students' knowledge while only minimally developing the general skills they will need for success in school and in life. The goal of our text is to assist students in acquiring the most important skills for facing the diverse challenges life presents. The book contains an overview of theories of intelligence, but itself is based in large part on a theory according to which individuals need creative skills to generate new ideas and a vision for the future, analytical skills to make sure that the vision is a good one, and practical skills to execute the ideas and to persuade other people of their value. The book considers key skills in problem solving, logical reasoning, analysis of arguments, knowledge acquisition, creative and practical thinking, automatizing information processing, and avoiding life traps that derail even the most intelligent among us.
Brief description: James C. Kaufman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the California State University at San Bernardino, where he is also the director of the Learning Research Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in Cognitive Psychology. He is the author/editor of 12 books and more than 110 papers, and has won the Daniel E. Berlyne Award (APA's Division 10) for outstanding research by a junior scholar. He is the co-editor of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts and the Associate Editor of Journal of Creative Behavior and Korean Journal of Thinking and Problem Solving.
Review Quotes: "If you are interested in advice on how to improve your intelligence from the world's leading expert on the psychology of intelligence and his distinguished colleagues, then this book should be on your bookshelf."
--Richard E. Mayer, PsycCritiques