Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid
by Robert J. Sternberg
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Description
One need not look far to find breathtaking acts of stupidity committed by people who are smart, or even brilliant. The behavior of smart individuals-from presidents to prosecutors to professors-is at times so amazingly stupid as to seem inexplicable. Why do otherwise intelligent people think and behave in ways so stupid that they sometimes destroy their livelihoods or even their lives? This book is the first devoted to investigating what the most current psychological research can tell us show more about stupidity in everyday life. The contributors to the volume, renowned scholars in various areas of human intelligence, present fascinating examples of people messing up their lives, and they offer insights into the reasons for such behavior. From a variety of perspectives, the contributors discuss: ?Ø The nature and theory of stupidity ?Ø How stupidity contributes to stupid behavior ?Ø Whether stupidity is measurable. While many millions of dollars are spent each year on intelligence research and testing to determine who has the ability to succeed, next to nothing is spent to determine who will make use of their intelligence and not squander it by behaving stupidly. Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid focuses on the neglected side of this discussion, reviewing the full range of theory and research on stupid behavior and analyzing what it tells us about how people can avoid stupidity and its devastating consequences. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
The two stars are for substance
The subject matter was right up my alley, and in the end, the content didn’t let me down, but I found the writing unnecessarily complex, and the inclusion of the statistical deductions and process with references as a part of the text was a burden on the reader. It would have been a great book had it been boiled down to the point with the nitty gritty detail in an appendix for the few people who want to peruse the cracks and split hairs. This being said...if it’s a subject of interest to you, don’t let my review stop you from reading it; you can skip parts to get to his points, which were interesting and thought provoking.
The subject matter was right up my alley, and in the end, the content didn’t let me down, but I found the writing unnecessarily complex, and the inclusion of the statistical deductions and process with references as a part of the text was a burden on the reader. It would have been a great book had it been boiled down to the point with the nitty gritty detail in an appendix for the few people who want to peruse the cracks and split hairs. This being said...if it’s a subject of interest to you, don’t let my review stop you from reading it; you can skip parts to get to his points, which were interesting and thought provoking.
The two stars are for substance
The subject matter was right up my alley, and in the end, the content didn’t let me down, but I found the writing unnecessarily complex, and the inclusion of the statistical deductions and process with references as a part of the text was a burden on the reader. It would have been a great book had it been boiled down to the point with the nitty gritty detail in an appendix for the few people who want to peruse the cracks and split hairs. This being said...if it’s a subject of interest to you, don’t let my review stop you from reading it; you can skip parts to get to his points, which were interesting and thought provoking.
The subject matter was right up my alley, and in the end, the content didn’t let me down, but I found the writing unnecessarily complex, and the inclusion of the statistical deductions and process with references as a part of the text was a burden on the reader. It would have been a great book had it been boiled down to the point with the nitty gritty detail in an appendix for the few people who want to peruse the cracks and split hairs. This being said...if it’s a subject of interest to you, don’t let my review stop you from reading it; you can skip parts to get to his points, which were interesting and thought provoking.
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Author Information
152+ Works 2,395 Members
Robert J. Sternberg is IBM Professor of Psychology and Education and director of PACE, the Center for the Psychology of Abilities, Competencies, and Expertise at Yale University. He is a widely known expert on intelligence testing and the author or editor of some sixty books
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- Reviews
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- Languages
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- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
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