Abstract
It is no longer fashionable to talk of primitive tribes. Yet we can, and do, talk about whole groups of people as being disadvantaged, deprived, and with restricted word codes, ad nauseum. This review of cross-cultural studies of infant intelligence starts from a specific developmental bias: “People are different in important ways around the world; different societies need different types of children and adults; societies differ from each other.... We are impoverished, as human beings, even within our own culture, when we call differences in development ‘worse’ ” (Rebelsky, 1972, p. 130). This chapter first elaborates on this bias and then discusses the concept of intelligence in general and its application to cross-cultural research. Then we explore some specific issues and speculations in the field of cross-cultural infant intelligence.
John Thomas and Gail Gutman reviewed the literature and made helpful comments in preparation for this chapter.
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Rebelsky, F., Daniel, P.A. (1976). Cross-Cultural Studies of Infant Intelligence. In: Lewis, M. (eds) Origins of Intelligence. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6961-5_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6961-5_10
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