Multiple Intelligences


Such intelligence hath seldom failed.

—Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, 1602

The Seven Intelligences

The Greeks cultivated the seven lively arts, the Middle Ages the seven deadly sins, and the twenty-first century enjoys the seven lively intelligences. In a book that appeared in 1983 called Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner, an ex-Harvard pupil of cognitive psychologist Joseph Bruner, went up against the psychological establishment and proposed that there were more intelligences "on heaven and earth" than the standard verbal-and-math scores were telling us. Gardner's definition of an intelligence is the ability to solve a problem or create a product that is valued by a particular organization. Each of us possesses a unique blend of "intelligences" (a cognitive or mental profile) that we develop and draw upon throughout our lives.

Seven Windows of the Mind

Gardner, going up against cognitive psychologists such as Piaget, is a pluralist. He believes we possess more than one or two intellectual competences (mental abilities) and what's more, he names them. There are seven, and through these seven windows the mind processes its information from the outside world. These seven are:

  • Bodily-Kinesthetic: Physical intelligence as exhibited by athletes and sports leaders.

  • Interpersonal: Social intelligence as exhibited by therapists, politicians, and great leaders.

  • Intrapersonal: Self-awareness as in the ability of a Freud or a Jung to analyze themselves, or of writers to write about their own inner lives. This includes a fuller knowledge and awareness of one's own feelings and emotions.

  • Linguistic: Traditional academic verbal skills.

  • Logical-Mathematical: Traditional academic math skills.

  • Musical: Shared by composers and performers from Mozart to Stravinsky.

  • Spatial: Shared by architects, painters, and similar professions.

Is There an Eighth Intelligence?

In 1990 Peter Salovey and John Mayer, inspired by Gardner, suggested an eighth intelligence, namely "emotional intelligence." Daniel Goleman has since followed this up with several books on the topic. And in 1999 Gardner proposed his own eighth intelligence, namely classificatory intelligence. Such an intelligence is demonstrated by information theorists, database designers, and even botanists and zoologists (Charles Darwin, Audubon, Linnaeus, and Aristotle). At the heart of this intelligence lies the ability to identify and classify vast fields of knowledge, information, and data.

How Do Intelligences Relate to Learning Styles and Competencies?

Because of the newness of the discipline of multiple intelligences (MI), certain overlaps exist between these and more traditional performance descriptors, such as learning styles and competencies. At this time it is probably best to consider multiple intelligences close cousins of learning styles as well as of competencies. Visual and auditory "learning styles," for instance, are obviously the basis, respectively, for spatial and musical intelligences.

Outlook

The study of multiple intelligences is a new discipline, still in the exploratory phase. It shares with learning styles and competencies the fact that it is still largely descriptive, classificatory, and theoretical rather than applied. One of the great benefits of Gardner's breakthrough, however, is that he has cleansed the doors of perception to what real intelligences are involved in the different types of performance. He has opened our eyes and it is up to the performance improvers to follow through with designing real-world solutions based on the theory.

Fastpaths

1883

Francis Galton: Inquiries into Human Faculty. Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, pioneers the study of the varieties of human intelligence.

1912

Alfred Binet and T. Simon: The Development of Intelligence in Children. Two French psychologists set the agenda for the classic view of intelligence that will hold through most of the twentieth century—namely that aptitude can be measured by scores on an IQ test with verbal and math components.

1960

L. Thurstone: The Nature of Intelligence. A mental pluralist, Thurstone posits seven "vectors of the mind."

1967

J. Guilford: The Nature of Human Intelligence. Posits multiple "factors" of the intellect.

1983

J. Fodor: The Modularity of Mind. Investigates different domains or modules of the mind beyond the standard verbal and mathematical domains.

1983

Howard Gardner: Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Sets forth the theory of the seven intelligences. Difficult to read at times, but provides a refreshingly new angle on the world of performance and work.

1993

Howard Gardner: Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. Gardner illustrates several of the seven intelligences through biographies of famous practitioners.

1993

Howard Gardner: Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. Follow-up reader on the multiple intelligences, put together by Gardner and his students at Harvard.

1995

Howard Gardner et al.: Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. Anthology of views on "leadership" intelligence.

1995

Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Suggests an eighth intelligence. (See Emotional Intelligence.)

1996

Howard Gardner and others: Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives.

1999

Howard Gardner: Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the Twenty-first Century. Gardner adds his own eighth intelligence: "naturalist" or classificatory intelligence.

See also Competencies Emotional Intelligence Learning Style




The 30-Second Encyclopedia of Learning and Performance. A Trainer's Guide to Theory, Terminology, and Practice
The 30-Second Encyclopedia of Learning and Performance: A Trainers Guide to Theory, Terminology, and Practice
ISBN: 0814471781
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 110

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