Recommended Reading

There is no shortage of books trying to elucidate the concept of intelligence, providing the reader with a comprehensive introduction to the field. These are my favorite books about intelligence:  

1.  Deary, I. J. (2000). Looking down on human intelligence: From psychometrics to the brain (Vol. 34). Oxford University Press

I like it because of Deary’s witty writing style and mordant sense of humor. The book received the British Psychological Society’s Book Award in 2002. Paul Barrett in a review (Journal of Psychophysiology 16 (2002) 187–189) finds the book “somewhat dull” and “relatively uninspiring”, although he suggests that “anyone working in individual differences research at a postgraduate level and beyond must read this book.” The main problem Barrett refers to is a lack of a coherent and agreed-upon definition of what intelligence is and what authors researching it are so earnestly trying to understand.

2.       Deary, I. J. (2001). Intelligence: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford.

A great book for those who dislike long reads.

3.       Hunt, E. (2010). Human intelligence. Cambridge University Press.

For those keen on detail and in-depth reflection the best option is Earl Hunt’s Human Intelligence. The publisher describes the book as "[...] a comprehensive survey of our scientific knowledge about human intelligence, written by a researcher who has spent more than thirty years studying the field.”

4.     Sternberg, R. J., & Pretz, J. E. (2005). Cognition and intelligence: identifying the mechanisms of the mind. Cambridge University Press.

Sheds light on the diversity of viewpoints in this field of research.