The Psychology of Intelligence by Jean Piaget

His father, Arthur Piaget, was a professor of medieval literature with an interest in local history. The paper will show that “the Incapable person is more dangerous than the Stupid one”.Jean Piaget was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, on August 9, 1896. These eight types can be represented in a circular model that I have termed the Social Wheel, which increases the educational power of Cipolla’s idea. This study seeks to demonstrate that when a third parameter is introduced-The volition or lack thereof of the actor to cause advantages to others-four other types of individual can be added to Cipolla’s original typology:1) the Able or Capable person,2) the Hero,3) the Incapable person, and4) the Egoist. Therefore, Cipolla’s book is used in schools, universities and training courses for managers to send an educational message: behave intelligently and avoid stupidity, because “the Stupid person is more dangerous than the Bandit”.

This general outline is so simple that it represents a powerful and effective educational tool to make people aware of how they can be guided when they interact with other individuals. The combination of these parameters produces the four individual types: 1) Intelligent people, 2) Helpless/Naive people, 3) the Bandit and 4) the Stupid person. According to the author, all group individual behavior can be qualified according to two parameters: 1)advantages or disadvantages to the actor, and 2)advantages or disadvantages for “others”. More generally, Cipolla put forth a simple framework that classified the behavior of the man/actor in a social or organized group based on the advantages and disadvantages such behavior brought to the actor and the group of which he is a part. Cipolla did not intend to explore intelligence but to focus primarily in his analysis on stupidity, two characteristics of the social behavior that man, as an individual or group agent, can reveal when he interacts in social groups and organizations of all types and sizes.

Intelligence, Turing’s Test, Stupidity, Cipolla’s Test, Social Wheel, Bandit, Incapable PersonĪBSTRACT: This paper will present the model Carlo Cipolla developed in his worldwide best-selling essay on “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” along with the framework of social behaviors it contains.

Intelligence and Stupidity -The Educational Power of Cipolla’s Test and of the “Social Wheel”

The Psychology of Intelligence by Jean Piaget