Revising the Intel on Intelligence

Cognitive scientist Scott Barry Kaufman has a new take on potential and creativity

What if everything we have traditionally thought about human intelligence and potential is wrong?

That's the simple, but profound idea, that drives Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, a Carnegie Mellon alumnus on a multi-decade journey to redefine what genius means and vastly expand the factors we value when it comes to human potential.

Scott is internationally known as one of the leading cognitive scientists in the field. While at Carnegie Mellon, Scott studied under CMU leaders including Anne Fay and Herb Simon, exploring ideas around talent, creativity and the many paths to greatness. Those ideas earned him a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and a doctorate from Yale University. He's published 11 books on topics related to human potential. He's also a professor of psychology at Columbia University and director of the Center for Human Potential.

These accolades are just what you’d expect from a distinguished leader in an academic field and detail what Scott lovingly refers to as his "nerdy side."

But his recognitions do not explain why his "The Psychology Podcast" has received over 30 million downloads or why he's among the top 1% of most cited scientists in the world for his research on intelligence and creativity.

Impressive credentials alone are not what caught Oprah's attention and inspired her to bring him on as a co-facilitator for one of her classes. 

Traditional academic approaches didn't inform the path to one of his early projects: Analyzing the idea of talent after he was personally rejected from "American Idol" twice.

"I'm trying to redefine potential," he says. "But a lot of that comes down to thinking differently about how to foretell someone's potential in their life and changing what we value about a human, going beyond standardized test scores. Instead, I want people to be looking at their unique sacred journey, and valuing that."

Scott's Unique Journey

Qualities such as academic success and mathematical prowess are highly valued and are part of the stereotypical factors that inform many people's impressions of a typical Carnegie Mellon student. And yet, CMU is where Scott came to prove that the definition of intelligence needs a rewrite.

He exemplifies his own theory. As a child he was a lackluster student who was thought of as a "slow learner" in school. In high school, he discovered books by psychologists like Daniel Goleman, who explored the idea of emotional intelligence with his book, "EQ." That inspired his interest in studying cognitive science and motivated him to apply to Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

"I put in my personal statement how I want to redefine our standard metrics of achievement," Scott says. "I got rejected because I don't think my SAT scores were high enough for the cognitive science program, which is so ironic."

He had another card to play at CMU's School of Music where he enrolled and declared a major in opera. The pivot to psychology happened through an intro psychology class followed by a minor.

"I filed the paperwork with the department secretary," he says. "She'd never seen anyone this excited to be a minor in psychology, she didn't know how much I fought just for that one moment. I was skipping back in my tights from dance class, and I had the paper in my hand. It was one of the greatest feelings of my life that I was now granted entry into the world of psychology at Carnegie Mellon. By the end of the following semester, I made the change completely."

Reimagining Imagination

After successfully running the academic gauntlet, Scott is going beyond passing fads to prove new ideas about potential. In his 2013 book, "Ungifted," he drew from research in genetics, neuroscience, and many other fields of psychology to challenge what predicts adult success in children.

Inquiries into the creative mind produced more publications detailing what innovators do differently. The same ideas came into play in childhood education, with consideration of children who learn differently and develop exceptional talent while being labeled with “special needs.”

"We often have this false dichotomy: That there are the gifted kids and then there are the learning disabled kids over there, and never the twain should meet,” Scott says. “I’m trying to break down this harmful dichotomy and show that profound gifts can co-exist with profound challenges — in the same human! This opens up new ways of thinking about intelligence and potential that actually incorporate challenges and overcoming struggles as part of the potential of a human in their quest for creativity and purpose."

His more recent research can be described with buzzwords like “self-actualization.” Still, it offers a fresh take on psychology's seminal theories around human needs while providing evidence-based tools for individuals to apply to their individual journeys. This research fueled his creation of “self-actualization coaching,” where he uses the latest science of human potential to help all individuals recognize and reach their full potential.

His forthcoming book, "Rise Above," explores the idea of a “victim mindset” contrasted with an “empowerment mindset,” incorporating his research as well as new lines of inquiry and ideas from his popular undergraduate class on "The Science of Living Well" at Columbia.

"Young people are desperate right now for meaning and sense of their belonging in this world, with so much that's unpredictable. The book values the extent to which your own psychology plays a role in your own well-being and self-actualization, " he says. "It's showing that we shouldn't be measuring everyone with the same measuring stick. That's why the work that I do is so relevant."