Intelligence is a construct for which there have been plenty of definitions; these usually refer to a person’s ability to perceive information, process it, keep it in the form of knowledge, and use it for a variety of purposes. It can be described as “the ability to acquire and utilize knowledge” (Christensen, 2013, para. 1). On the other hand, creativity is the ability to connect various experiences and concepts to form new ideas. On the whole, some minimum level of intelligence is required for being creative, but creativity (connecting the existing concepts) does not require very high levels of intelligence (Christensen, 2013).
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) can be an example of a creative person. Despite having had no college/university education, he had extensive expertise in the field of creating new designs and in the field of advertising (since becoming one of the co-founders of Apple). He was very imaginative when creating the concepts of new products and when advertising them (Dan, 2011). He also was venturesome, which is evident even from the fact of the inception of Apple in 1976. He was very intrinsically motivated (Dan, 2011), and lived in the creative environment of the Apple company.
On the whole, it might be possible to state that the example of Steve Jobs supports the theory of multiple intelligences; although Steve Jobs was very creative in the field of advertising, production of ideas about new products, and so on, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak states that Jobs did not participate in the creation of computers, for he “did not know technology” (Barba, 2015, para. 2). Thus, it is possible that, while being productive and skilled in certain areas (e.g., advertising), he exhibited considerable deficits in others (technology). Nevertheless, it should be taken into account that Jobs only graduated from high school and never received college/university education, and it is difficult to assess whether he would exhibit any deficits in technology if he had received some systematic training.
References
Barba, R. (2015). Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs ‘did not know technology.’ Web.
Christensen, T. (2013). The relationship between creativity and intelligence. Web.
Dan, A. (2011). The 3 things that Steve Jobs taught us about creative leadership. Web.