The theory of successful intelligence also emphasizes the importance of the processes rather than just the products of intellectual functioning. This emphasis has been implicit in many psychometric theories. For example, although Spearman is most well-known for his structural theory of general ability, he published an entire book on the processes he proposed might underlie G (Spearman, 1923). His book detailed three of the so-called "qualitative" processes—apprehension of experience (what is called "encoding" in the theory of successful intelligence), eduction of relations (what is called "inference" in the theory of successful intelligence), and eduction of correlates (what is called "application" in the theory of successful intelligence). Thurstone's (1938) theory, although not as process oriented, was seen by its originator as a step along the way toward a process theory (Thurstone, 1947). And Guilford's (1967) theory had processes as one of the three dimensions of the cube that Guilford proposed to represent the structure of intellect.

The degree to which these three abilities are distinct from those proposed by psychometric models—and therefore require treatment as discrete components—can be seen in how well they are measured by conventional psychometric assessments. Analytical abilities, with their close relation to reasoning abilities (fluid abilities), are measured fairly well by conventional assessments. Creative abilities tend to be measured less well by such tests, although the extent to which conventional tests measure creative abilities seems to be proportional to the novelty of the test material. Thus, fluid ability tests that are relatively novel, such as the Raven Progressive Matrices, probably tap into creative abilities, at least more so than do other tests (Sternberg and Lubart, 1995). (In this case, however, it is important to emphasize that what captures creative abilities is not the fact that these are fluid ability tests—which would imply similarities to fluid ability—but their unfamiliar nature.) Practical abilities are measured least well by conventional tests (Sternberg, et al 1995), as evidenced by accounts of people whose ability to develop fairly complex procedures for executing tasks related to their jobs cannot be predicted by their IQs (Sternberg and Kaufman, 1998).