synthesis of the literature). This represents a reductionistic route to the nature
of intelligence. In contrast, nonreductionistic approaches consider the role of
noncognitive factors such as motivation and personality (Deary, 1999), and
experience and context (e.g., the experiential and contextual subtheories of
the triarchic theory: Sternberg, 1985). Integration efforts obviously belong to
the latter.
Performance Versus Competence
Ackerman and Kanfer (chap. 5) make a critical distinction between maximal
performance and typical engagement. Essentially, this proposition echoes the
distinction made between competence and performance in the developmental
and cognitive psychology literatures (see Chierchia, 1999). The only differ-
ence is that here competence means putative individual differences in what
levels of performance one can potentially attain, given optimal conditions.
Ackerman and Kanfer (chap. 5) argue that ability testing often elicits maxi-
mal performance due to its high-stakes nature (a condition of sufficient moti-
vation; see Simon, 1994 for a similar view for experimental conditions). In
daily life, however, people have their own characteristic ways of engaging in
intellectual activities based on their inclinations, knowledge, and positive or
negative experience, among other factors.
Disposition Versus Capacity
The notion of typical performance opens the door for dispositional factors to
intervene in otherwise purely cognitive processes (assuming maximal motiva-
tion in testing conditions). It is an important step toward integration because
the distinction between maximal and typical performance bridges the gap be-
tween traditional, purely structural views of intellectual functioning and
more contextual, process-oriented views, between two branches of psycho-
metric research: intelligence and personality. New neuroscientific evidence
seems to support the typical engagement argument. For example, Davidson
(2001) consistently found two distinct responses to the same stimuli: positive,
approach-related affect and negative withdrawal-related affect. He labels this
individual difference affective style. These approach and avoidance tenden-
cies seem to reflect quite stable temperamental differences with neurobio-
logical underpinnings, and mediate how individuals respond emotionally to
environmental events. This is where Ackerman and Kanfer (chap. 5) started
their inquiry about typical engagement as more of a dispositional than capac-
ity issue.
Perkins and Ritchhart (chap. 13) ask when is good thinking, thus placing
intellectual functioning squarely at the interface of a person and a situation.
Their argument is that task-on-demand testing conditions rarely tap into
16 DAI AND STERNBERG