I finished this book about a month ago, but haven't had time to write it up.
Quite a few years ago – at least ten – I read another book by Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg on intelligence, entitled "The Triarchic Mind". It was excellent, as he criticized standard IQ testing and put forth his own broader definition of intelligence, which he defined as "mental self-management."
So I was looking forward to this follow-up book, "Successful Intelligence." Unfortunately it was not near as good as his first book.
The book is too long – it's almost as if his publisher told him to flesh it out with discussion of the defects of intelligence tests and personal anecdotes from his own life and that of his children. There are too many of these analyses and anecdotes. He could have cut the book by at least a third. And at times the book is more of a self-help manual – focus on goals, be persistent, identify problems. As one of the reviewers on Amazon said, perhaps he should have titled the book "Successful Abilities."
Certainly his theory that there are three components of intelligence – the analytic, the creative, and the practical makes lots of sense. And too much emphasis may be put on the analytic element, because it is most easily tested in so-called intelligence tests. Sternberg makes a good case for that, showing that there is not much correlation between the ability to score highly on these types of tests, and ultimate success in business and professional areas (some correlation, but it's pretty underwhelming).
All in all, if you are interested in a good book on intelligence, I recommend Sternberg's first book "The Triarchic Mind" and give this one a miss.
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