APA PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES Culture and Intelligence Robert J Sternberg Yale University Intelligence cannot be fully or even meaningfully understood outside its cultural context Work that seeks to study intelligence acontextually risks the imposition of an investigator s view of the world on the rest of the world Moreover work on intelligence within a single culture may fail to do justice to the range of skills and knowledge that may constitute intelligence broadly defined and risks drawing false and hasty generalizations This article considers the relevance of culture to intelligence as well as its investigation assessment and development Studies that show the importance of understanding intelligence in its cultural context are described the author concludes that intelligence must be understood in such context B ehavior that in one cultural context is smart may be in another cultural context stupid Cole Gay Glick Sharp 1971 Stating one s political views honestly and openly for example may win one the top political job such as the presidency in one culture and the gallows in another The conceptualization assessment and development of intelligence cannot be fully or even meaningfully understood outside their cultural context Work that seeks to study intelligence acontextually may impose an often Western investigator s view of the world on the rest of the world frequently attempting to show that individuals who are more similar to the investigator are smarter than individuals who are less similar For example a test of intelligence developed and validated in one culture may or may not be equally valid or even valid at all in another culture This article is divided into five parts First I define the main concepts of the article culture and intelligence Second I specify models of the relationship between culture and intelligence Third I introduce the article and its main ideas including a description of how my colleagues and I came to do the work we do Fourth I discuss cultural studies relevant to these ideas Fifth and finally I draw some conclusions What Is Culture and What Is Intelligence Because the topic of this article is culture and intelligence it is necessary to define these constructs There have been many definitions of culture e g Brislin Lonner Thorndike 1973 Kroeber Kluckhohn 1952 I define July August 2004 American Psychologist Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association 0003 066X 04 12 00 Vol 59 No 5 325 338 DOI 10 1037 0003 066X 59 5 325 culture here as the set of attitudes values beliefs and behaviors shared by a group of people communicated from one generation to the next via language or some other means of communication Barnouw as cited in Matsumoto 1994 p 4 The term culture can be used in many ways and has a long history Benedict 1946 Boas 1911 Mead 1928 see also Matsumoto 1996 Berry Poortinga Segall and Dasen 1992 described six uses of the term descriptively to characterize a culture historically to describe the traditions of a group normatively to express rules and norms of a group psychologically to emphasize how a group learns and solves problems structurally to emphasize the organizational elements of a culture and genetically to describe cultural origins How is intelligence defined The theory motivating much of the culturally based work that my colleagues and I have done is the theory of successful intelligence see Sternberg 1985 1997 1999b for more details which proposes its own definition of intelligence I use the term Editor s note Robert J Sternberg was president of APA in 2003 This article is based on his presidential address delivered in Toronto Canada at APA s 111th Annual Convention on August 8 2003 Award addresses and other archival materials including presidential addresses are peer reviewed but have a higher chance of publication than do unsolicited submissions Presidential addresses are expected to be expressions of the authors reflections on the field and on their terms as president Both this address and that of Philip G Zimbardo the 2002 APA president were presented at this convention to catch up on the year lag that had developed in the last decade of giving presidential addresses Author s note I am grateful to my many collaborators at and affiliates of the PACE Center for their collaborations My principal collaborator in this work has been Elena L Grigorenko who has made invaluable contributions both to our research and to the preparation of the figures for this article The work in Kenya and Jamaica was supported primarily by the Partnership for Child Development centered at Imperial College University of London The work in Tanzania was supported by the James S McDonnell Foundation The work in Alaska was supported by the Institute of Educational Sciences formerly the Office of Educational Research and Improvement U S Department of Education The work in Zambia was supported by the U S Agency for International Development The work in Russia was supported by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Studies The work in Taiwan was supported by the U S Office of Educational Research and Improvement The work in San Jose California was supported by the Spencer Foundation Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert J Sternberg PACE Center Yale University 340 Edwards Street P O Box 208358 New Haven CT 06520 8358 E mail robert sternberg yale edu 325 I find the theory of successful intelligence particularly useful however because of its specification of a universal set of information processing components complemented by culturally defined contexts in which these components are enacted Models of the Relationship of Culture to Intelligence Robert J Sternberg successful intelligence to underscore the importance of understanding intelligence not just as a predictor of academic performance in the tradition of Binet and Simon 1916 but also as a predictor of success in life This theory defines successful intelligence as the skills and knowledge needed for success in life according to one s own definition of success within one s sociocultural context One acquires and utilizes these skills and this knowledge by capitalizing on strengths and by correcting or compensating for weaknesses by adapting to shaping or selecting environments and through a balance of analytical creative and practical abilities In solving problems and making decisions metacomponents or higher order processes decide what to do Performance