A Cross-Cultural Study of Implicit Theories of an Intelligent Person

This contribution is based on the assumption that implicit theories influence the subjective action space and hence the learning behavior of students. The implicit theory that an individual holds of an intelligent person is of particular importance in this context. For this cross-cultural study,we asked 200 students from Kenya and Germany to draw an intelligent person and then to rate the typicality of the drawing with respect to a number of attributes. The data indicated considerable differences among the students’ implicit theories of intelligence. Implicit theories of an intelligent person correlated with the nationality and the gender of the students who made the drawings. German girls, in particular, frequently ascribed a gender to their prototypically intelligent person which differed from their own. Our data offer evidence that implicit theories of an intelligent person reflect a multifaceted picture. The most meaningful single attribute identified by participants for the figures they had drawn was that of being hardworking. We conclude that future studies should further examine the influence of implicit theories on the learning behavior of gifted students.