Table Of ContentThinking Styles
Thinking Styles
Robert J. Sternberg
Yale University
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1997
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First published 1997
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To my children, Seth and Sara, who have taught me more useful
things about styles than has anyone else, and to whom I hope I
have taught some useful things as well.
Contents
Preface page ix
Part I. The Nature of Thinking Styles
1 What Are Thinking Styles and Why Do We Need
Them? 3
2 Functions of Thinking Styles: The Legislative,
Executive, and Judicial Styles 27
3 Forms of Thinking Styles: The Monarchic,
Hierarchic, Oligarchic, and Anarchic Styles 44
4 Levels, Scope, and Leanings of Thinking Styles: The
Global, Local, Internal, External, Liberal, and
Conservative Styles 60
Part II. The Principles and Development of Thinking Styles
5 The Principles of Thinking Styles 79
6 The Development of Thinking Styles 99
Part HI. Thinking Styles in School and in Research and Theory
7 Thinking Styles in the Classroom: What Have We
Learned? 115
viii Contents
8 A Capsule History of Theory and Research on Styles 133
9 Why a Theory of Mental Self-government? 148
Notes 161
Index 173
Preface
I've attended and been graduated from five schools: Tuscan Ele-
mentary, Maplewood Junior High School, Columbia High School, Yale
College, and Stanford University. I performed better in each new school
than I did in the old one - sometimes a little better, other times a lot
better, but always better. At the same time, I've observed other people
go through their own sequence of schools, and do a little worse in each
new school. We were not unusual: Some students do a bit worse each
time around, others a bit better, and still others no different from the
last time around. Is it random? No. Is it more (or less) effort each new
time around? No. What is it?
In our society, the first explanation that would come to anyone's
mind would probably be abilities. Here, we see the educational system
as a huge funnel; but this is a peculiar funnel, because it has a series of
filters inside that allow fewer people to pass through each successive
stage. Each filter, representing a school, has a different fineness of
mesh. Highly selective schools are very fine-mesh filters that will let
only the prime students through; slightly less selective schools are
medium-mesh filters that will allow the choice students through as
well; and even less selective schools are coarse filters that will allow
successively less able students to get through.
Abilities do not explain the phenomenon I'm talking about. If we
thought in terms of funnels with filters, then we would expect almost
every student to do a bit worse at each next stage of career than at the
last stage of career, as the funnel becomes narrower or the filter finer.
x Preface
Such an explanation would not account for improved performance as
the funnel narrows or the filter becomes finer. But many students do
improve.
There is another explanation, and it has to do with thinking styles -
how we prefer to use the abilities we have. People will do better or
worse at successive stages of schooling and career as the environment
provides a better or worse match to people's styles of thought. In this
book, I will argue that thinking styles are as important as, and arguably
more important than, abilities, no matter how broadly abilities are
defined. Thus, constructs of social, practical, and emotional intelli-
gence, or of multiple intelligences, expand our notions of what people
can do - but the construct of style expands our notion of what people
prefer to do - how they capitalize on the abilities they have. When your
profile of thinking styles is a good match to an environment, you
thrive. When it is a bad match, you suffer. Different levels of schooling
and different subject areas reward different styles, with the result that
you can do better or worse as you go through school (or jobs or
relationships, for that matter), depending on how your profile of styles
matches up with what the environment expects and on how the en-
vironment evaluates you. Similarly, different careers and levels of
careers reward different styles differently. This book will be about
styles and how they match up to different environments.
The book is divided into three main parts. Part I is about the pro-
posed theory of styles and identifies and describes 13 important think-
ing styles. Part II presents the major principles of thinking styles and
suggests how they originate and develop in people. Part III deals with
styles of thinking and learning in the classroom, alternative theories,
and what I perceive to be the advantages of the proposed theory.
The collaboration of a number of people has been indispensable in the
development of this book. My first collaborator on styles, Marie Mar-
tin, worked with me to develop the first version of a Thinking Styles
Inventory. Richard Wagner helped refine this instrument and collected
some of the normative data for the refinement. I rely heavily on this
refined instrument in describing the styles throughout the book, and in
providing readers with self-assessments they can use. Elena Grigorenko
further refined existing measures and also developed new measures.
Description:In our society, the recognition of talent depends largely on idealized and entrenched perceptions of academic achievement and job performance. In Thinking Styles, psychologist Robert Sternberg argues that ability often goes unappreciated and uncultivated not because of lack of talent, but because of
