Culture and Intelligence

The Core Idea: Intelligence is Shaped by Culture

Intelligence is not a fixed, universal quality that looks the same everywhere. Its most important feature is that it helps individuals adapt to their environment. Since the cultural environment provides the context for development, what counts as "intelligent" behaviour changes from one society to another.

Vygotsky argued that culture is the social context in which people live, grow, and understand the world. In less technologically developed societies, social and emotional skills — the ability to relate well to others — are highly valued. In technologically advanced societies, personal achievement based on reasoning and judgment is considered the mark of intelligence. A person’s intelligence is tuned by the customs, beliefs, attitudes, and achievements of their culture.

Culture-Produced Higher Mental Functions

Many early theorists treated intelligence as a purely personal attribute, independent of cultural background. Modern theories now recognise the unique features of culture. Sternberg’s concept of contextual or practical intelligence directly implies that intelligence is a product of culture. Vygotsky believed that cultures, like individuals, have a life of their own — they grow and change, and in doing so, they specify what the end-product of successful intellectual development should be.

According to Vygotsky, elementary mental functions (crying, attending to a mother’s voice, sensitivity to smells, walking, running) are universal across all humans. However, higher mental functions such as problem-solving and thinking operate in ways that are largely culture-produced.

Technological Intelligence

Technologically advanced societies adopt child-rearing practices that foster:

• Skills of generalisation and abstraction
• Speed and minimal moves in problem-solving
• Mental manipulation of ideas

These societies promote a type of behaviour called technological intelligence. People in these societies are well-versed in skills of attention, observation, analysis, performance, speed, and achievement orientation. Intelligence tests developed in Western cultures look precisely for these skills.

In addition to individual cognitive competence, non-Western cultures look for skills to relate to others in society. Some non-Western societies value self-reflection and a collectivistic orientation, as opposed to personal achievement and individualistic orientation.

Intelligence in the Indian Tradition: Integral Intelligence

Contrary to technological intelligence, intelligence in the Indian tradition can be termed integral intelligence. It emphasises connectivity with the social and world environment. Indian thinkers view intelligence from a holistic perspective, paying equal attention to cognitive and non-cognitive processes and their integration.

The Sanskrit word buddhi, often used to represent intelligence, is far more pervasive in scope than the Western concept of intelligence. According to J.P. Das, buddhi includes:

• Mental effort
• Determined action
• Feelings and opinions
• Cognitive competence such as knowledge, discrimination, and understanding

Among other things, buddhi is the knowledge of one’s own self, based on conscience, will, and desire. Thus, the notion of buddhi has affective and motivational components alongside a strong cognitive component.

Facets of Intelligence in the Indian Tradition

Unlike Western views that primarily focus on cognitive parameters, the Indian tradition identifies the following competencies as facets of intelligence:

| Competence | Key Features |

|------------|--------------| …