Stanovich has done extensive research on reading, language disabilities and the psychology of rational thought. His classic article on the Matthew effect in education has been cited over 1000 times in the scientific literature. He is the author of over 175 scientific articles, several of which have become Current Contents Citation Classics. Stanovich coined the term dysrationalia to refer to the tendency toward irrational thinking and action despite adequate intelligence. In several recent books he has explored the concept as well as the relation between rationality and intelligence. In his recent book The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking, Stanovich and colleagues follow through on the claim that a comprehensive test of rational thinking is scientifically possible, given current knowledge. In a three-year survey of citation rates during the mid-1990s, Stanovich was listed as one of the 50 most-cited developmental psychologists. Recently, he was named one of the 25 most productive educational psychologists. In a citation survey of the period 1982–1992, he was designated the most cited reading disability researcher in the world. Stanovich is also a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Awards
Stanovich is the only two-time winner of the Albert J. Harris Award from the International Reading Association for influential articles on reading. In 1995 he was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame as the youngest member of that honorary society. In 1996 he was given the Oscar Causey Award from the National Reading Conference for contributions to research, in 1997 he was given the Sylvia Scribner Award from the American Educational Research Association, and in 2000 he received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. He was awarded the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Education from the University of Louisville. He was selected as a 2010 Grawemeyer Award winner for his 2009 book, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought. Stanovich is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, and is a Charter Member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. He was a member of the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children of National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences. From 1986 to 2000 Stanovich was the Associate Editor of Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a leading journal of human development.
Collaborators
He has had two long-term collaborators in his career, Anne Cunningham and Richard West. Stanovich and West were graduate students at the University of Michigan together. These relationships had their roots in the 1970s and the three of them still work together. Another longstanding colleague is Maggie Toplak, of York University in Toronto.
