Change by Expanding the Mind

How will you adapt to this new social reality?

Many routes are open to you, from buying a more powerful computer to studying economics. For most people, one clear starting place is to concentrate on your own mind and to develop the capacities that new circumstances will reward. In other words, develop and expand your own intelligence. Is it actually possible to increase your own intelligence? Many people still see intelligence as a fixed resource measured by IQ tests. Interestingly, psychologists have increasingly come to reject this view. In 1995 psychologist David Perkins, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, published Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence. In this book, Perkins spoke for a growing number of psychologists who reject the notion that intelligence cannot change.



What has caused this revolution in thinking among psychologists?

Perkins and other psychologists came to realize that intellectual abilities are in essence no different from other kinds of know-how. Acquiring the knowledge that IQ tests measure is essentially no different from developing any other ability, such as drawing or swimming.
Virtually everybody can draw, at least to some extent, except for people who suffer from a severe handicap. Give children crayons or pencils and they will draw. Even crippled or disturbed children usually enjoy drawing. Nevertheless, except for a gifted minority, most people do not draw especially well. They can learn to draw well, of course, but only by study and practice. They can improve their skill even further by reading books or taking courses that present advanced drawing techniques and art theory. Drawing is a learnable skill. The proof lies in the number of people who have learned to draw. Swimming is another learnable skill. If you want to swim well, you need considerable practice and almost certainly at least some instruction.



Now here is the crucial question: aren’t intelligence and thinking just as learnable as drawing and swimming?

Like drawing and swimming, exercising your mind is something that you do naturally. Nevertheless, without practice, your skill as a thinker can remain rudimentary. Howcan you strengthen your mind? The purpose of this book is to offer methods, tools, and information that can help you to use your mind more successfully. What your mind can achieve is indeed amazing. That is why I call this ability mind magic.