Culture and Intelligence

Culture and Intelligence

• Culture is a collective system of customs, beliefs, attitudes and achievements in art and literature.
• The cultural environment provides a context for intelligence to develop. 
• Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, has argued that culture provides a social context in which people live, grow and understand the world around them.

For example, in less technologically developed societies, social and emotional skills in relating to people are valued, while in technologically advanced societies, personal achievement founded on abilities of reasoning and judgment is considered to represent intelligence.

• Vygotsky also believed that cultures, like individuals, have a life of their own; they grow and change, and in the process specify what will be the end-product of successful intellectual development.
• According to him, while elementary mental functions (e.g., crying, attending to mother’s voice, sensitivity to smells, walking, and running) are universal, the manner in which higher mental functions such as problem solving and thinking operate are largely culture-produced.
• Sternberg's notion of contextual or practical intelligence implies that intelligence is a product of culture.

Technological Intelligence

• In technologically advanced societies, personal achievement founded on abilities of reasoning and judgement is considered to represent intelligence.
• Focus on individualistic orientation. 
• Technologically advanced societies adopt child rearing practices that foster skills of:

1. Generalisation and abstraction
2. Speed
3. Minimal moves
4. Mental manipulation, among children.

• In these societies, people are well-versed in skills of: 

1. Attention 
2. Observation
3. Analysis
4. Performance
5. Speed
6. Achievement orientation

Intelligence tests developed in western cultures look precisely for these skills in an individual.