Ananya, a first-year student from Assam, joined a college hostel in Pune. The mess served dinner at fixed hours that clashed with her laboratory classes, and many students were missing their meals. Ananya did not just change her own timetable or carry snacks. She collected the lab schedules of all first-year students, worked out new meal timings, and took the plan to the warden with the signatures of sixty residents. Within a month the hostel changed its mess hours, and the problem was solved for everyone.
Ananya's way of dealing with the problem fits best with the view of intelligence given by:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Gardner and Sternberg
Option (1) Binet — Incorrect. Binet, one of the first psychologists to work on intelligence, defined it as the ability to judge well, understand well and reason well. His view says nothing about <strong>changing one's surroundings</strong>, the main feature of Ananya's action.
Option (2) Wechsler — Incorrect. Wechsler saw intelligence by its <strong>value for adaptation to the environment</strong>: thinking rationally, acting purposefully and dealing effectively with it. Ananya went past fitting herself in; she changed the hostel's own rules.
Option (3) Gardner and Sternberg — Correct. Gardner and Sternberg held that an intelligent person <strong>not only adapts to the environment, but also actively modifies or shapes it</strong>. Ananya did not just adjust her routine; she got the hostel to change its mess hours for everyone.
Option (4) the Oxford Dictionary — Incorrect. The Oxford Dictionary explains intelligence as the power of perceiving, learning, understanding and knowing. These are general mental powers and do not point to <strong>reshaping one's surroundings</strong>.
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