Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life [Paperback]

Robert Sternberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

Award-winning professor Robert J. Sternberg offers a new definition of intelligence which includes the willingness to take risks and overcome obstacles. His definition predicts how students will fare in problem-solving in both their personal and professional lives. With the keys on how to achieve life's more important goals, Successful Intelligence will change the way we regard aptitude and intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If Sternberg is right, IQ tests measure only "inert intelligence," academic knowledge that does not necessarily lead to goal-directed action or real-world problem-solving. Professor of psychology and education at Yale, he argues that a different type of brain power, "successful intelligence," determines one's ability to cope in career and in life. "Successfully intelligent" people capitalize on their strengths and correct or compensate for their weaknesses; self-motivating and flexible in their work style, they create their own opportunities, actively seek out role models, recognize and accurately define problems and know when to persevere. Of particular interest is Sternberg's contention that successful intelligence can be nurtured and developed in our schools by providing students with curricula that will challenge their creative and practical capabilities, not just their analytical skills. Although successful intelligence, as defined here, eventually comes to sound like a catch-all category for positive mental habits, this insightful, savvy guide will help readers avoid self-sabotage and translate thought into action. BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

When the subject is human intelligence, our society, argues Yale psychology professor Sternberg, is far too fixated on IQ. Such tests--and most other academic measures of achievement--typically gauge one's ability to memorize material, what the author terms "inert intelligence." Unfortunately, memorization does not equal success in life. According to Sternberg, people need to develop and nurture three types of intelligence for personal and professional success: analytical, creative, and practical. He defines each and provides commonsense ways for people to foster them. Another key is mental flexibility: being able to adapt to situations and to rethink that which we thought we already knew. Writing simply and without a bit of jargon, Sternberg successfully challenges the common notions of what intelligence is and isn't Brian McCombie --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Plume (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452279062
• ISBN-13: 978-0452279063
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Insights and Padding, June 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life (Paperback)

This book is a strange hybrid: part informal discussion of flaws in intelligence testing, part autobiography, part self-help manual. Many of Professor Sternberg's criticisms of IQ testing are right on target, but his argument is diffuse and interlarded with the same personal anecdotes told over and over. We hear a great deal about his own poor IQ scores in elementary school, how his son Seth exhibits creative intelligence, how his talented grad students' careers were hobbled by poor test scores. It concludes with his definition of true intelligence (what he calls "successful intelligence"), which is basically a catch-all category for common sense or street smarts (what Howard Gardner calls "interpersonal intelligence") and self-discipline. The traits of successful intelligence turn out to be rather obvious: Successfully intelligent people know when to perservere; successfully intelligent people seek to surmount personal difficulties; successfully intelligent people are self-confident but not cocky and can delay gratification in order to achieve long-term goals; etc., etc. All very true, and all very old.

Still, the book has enough interesting remarks on the history and errors of intelligence testing to make it worth reading. If Professor Sternberg had organized the book a little better and eliminated some of the redundancies, I would have given it four or five stars. As it is, I give it three.

38 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IQ isn't everything...but you knew that already, didn't you?, July 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determines Success in Life (Paperback)

Much more informed and lucid than "other success" books on the market. Sternberg balances his own experiences with concise research into the field of human achievement. Much of what he says comes across as familiar, i.e. the "academically average " grad student who amazes her professors with an abundance of job offers (apparently, the author implies, due to her "practical intelligence" skills). Nevertheless, in an age where analytical IQ is deemed more important than creative and practical skills, Sternberg's book serves as an inspiring reminder

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Only fair, not as good as Sternberg's "The Triarchic Mind", October 29, 2006

By 

T. Faranda "Tom Faranda" (Croton, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life (Paperback)

Quite a few years ago - at least ten - I read another book by Yale pyschologist 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 another reviewer 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.