Robert Sternberg's secrets to success

Failure can be the secret to success. One of psychology's most prolific researchers, Tufts University's Robert J. Sternberg, PhD, shared how he's turned some of his life's most discouraging experiences into research projects.

Being pegged as dumb after flubbing an IQ test in elementary school eventually inspired his intelligence research, he said, while a string of bad romantic relationships fueled his research on love and intimacy. His research on wisdom started after he advised a colleague who loved teaching to take a job at a more prestigious research-focused university that turned out to be a bad fit for her.

When he ran out of research ideas altogether, he started studying creativity.

"You have better insights into the things you're bad at," said Sternberg, speaking at a session on his career at APA's 2008 Annual Convention. "The great thing about psychology is that you can take your failures and turn them into something."

Sternberg also advised colleagues and students to be persistent when seeking to publish their work.

"I've had more turn-downs, probably, than anyone I know," Sternberg said, describing how he once received three rejections for a paper. Ten years later, he dusted it off, submitted it to a fourth journal and got an acceptance letter.

"The only big criticism they had was that the references were 10 years out of date," he quipped.