INVITATION TO CYBERSECURITY 126 areas are: the analytical, the creative, and the practical. The analytical area captures the popular notion of intelligence and corresponds with IQ. It includes mathematical ability and logical reasoning. It is book smarts. The creative area of the intellect includes the ability to make unique connections and to see the world in original ways. Artists, authors, and musicians excel in this aspect of the intellect. It is imaginative and creative thinking. Practical intelligence includes the ability to plan, strategize, and accomplish goals. CEOs and military leaders have high degrees of practical intelligence. It is street smarts (see Table 6.3). Table 6.3 Sternberg’s triarchic theory. To help illustrate how these areas of the intellect are distinct, here is a quick exercise to isolate each way of thinking in your own mind. First, for analytical thinking, consider the question: how many months old are you? If you take this question seriously and try to work it out, and then step back and review your thought process, you will isolate the analytical portion of your intellect. First, you likely multiplied your age by twelve, the number of months in a year. The mental math of multiplying the numbers in your head may have involved several substeps and adding. Having calculated that number and set it aside, you may have then counted the number of months since your most recent birthday. Lastly, you recalled the first number and added it to the second to determine the answer. This is analytical thinking in practice, and it comes more naturally to some than to others! Next, for an exercise in creative thinking, consider the question: what do Santa Claus and Abraham Lincoln have in common? Again, if you work it out, and then step back and analyze how your thoughts proceeded, you will get a sense for how creative thinking works. You likely created two compartments, first thinking about Santa Claus and his attributes, then Abraham Lincoln and his, and then you started trying to link the two. Maybe you quickly found a general commonality like they are both men, but not satisfied with such a boring connection, you dove back in to try and find something more interesting. After several false steps maybe you realized they both have iconic facial hair or something even more creative. The aha! moment when you know you have identified a unique link is a fun payoff to creative thinking. Creative thinking is the process of making unique connections.
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