February 5, 2004
Psychologist lectures on culture and intelligence
Author and psychologist Robert J. Sternberg has spent 30 years proving you might not be as smart as you think you are. Sternberg brings his new approach to understanding book smarts, horse sense and their cultural impact to the UW tonight for a 7:30 p.m. lecture, Culture and Intelligence.
Since proposing his own version of the I.Q. test as a seventh-grader, Sternberg has taken a critical view of how we determine what makes a person smart. As a Yale professor, Sternberg proved commonly accepted I.Q. tests and college entrance exams undervalue practical knowledge, or “street smarts”, and called for their overhaul. Revamped college boards soon followed.
Now Sternberg has turned his attention to how different cultures value intelligence and what leads intelligent people to make easily avoided mistakes. His latest book Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, studies the physiological and cultural forces resulting in self-inflicted wounds such as the corporate scandals on Wall Street and the Clinton-Lewinsky imbroglio.
Sternberg’s lecture is in 130 Kane.
