The Role Of Intelligence In American Culture

The very concept of intelligence has been shown to vary across cultures, as seen in the works by Sternberg (2002) and Mpofu, Ntinda, and Oakland (2012). The conclusions drawn in these two articles could be very useful in our American society, especially in schools across the nation. They also give important insight on just how perceptions can differ between cultures, therefore giving us a basis to use when trying to explain or avoid ethnocentricity. Sternberg (2002) focused on characterizing ‘successful intelligence’, and later came up with his theory of successful intelligence. He described it as a person’s capability to succeed within one’s own cultural standards. He also determined that intelligence requires one to consider their abilities,

This belief of intelligence suggests one standard definition of intelligence that everyone should live up to, with no room for variability regarding other ways of life or situations that could impact someone’s performance. We tend to use standardized tests to test intellect, which, with evidence from this article, may not accurately measure intelligence. Intelligence in this article has a broad definition, to account for the variabilities that the common assessment of intellect does not. These variabilities include both culture and context. Here in the United States there is a large amount of diversity regarding cultures. Since notions of intelligence differ between these cultures, and other cultures around the world, our standard definition of intelligence and our methods of testing this definition of intelligence could use some improvements. Many students receive unsatisfactory scores on standardized tests, and it may not be related to their intelligence using the common definition. Context definitely plays a role in these situations. Students may be able to perform well in class or even apply the same knowledge being tested in their life outside of school, but the context of having one potentially life-altering test in front of them causes them to not live up to their potential. Sternberg (2002) believes this is evidence for a functional intelligence, refuting the standard perception of intelligence that intelligence is more of a mental practice. There are ways we could adjust to help resolve this issue. We could replace standardized tests with more applicable methods of measuring intelligence that are adaptive for various cultures, such as the dynamic approach in the article, or we could focus on teaching students how different concepts apply to them in everyday life instead of solely preparing them to take an exam.