Multiple Intelligences: An Interpersonal Adventure

According to Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor of cognition at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, there are eight different types of intelligence that determine how successful you are in life.  Not successful in the sense that you get one score which determines how likely you are to be more successful than others, but successful in the sense that intelligence is subjective and people who are smarter than others at different things will be more successful at them.  For example, a mathematical genius doesn’t have the same type of genius that a motivational speaker has because they are completely different types of genius.  Typical IQ tests only explore the regions of intelligence dealing with logic, spatial manipulation, and language.  Gardner’s intelligence expands on IQ and integrates five other types with the ones already associated with IQ.  The ones that are already associated with IQ are the spatial, logical, and verbal domains.  The other five types are the musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, and naturalistic domains. 

    I used this test to discover my own scores of the eight different intelligences, to find which ones I am strong at and which ones I am poor at.  I’ve always scored well on traditional IQ tests and I’ve taken a lot of them.  IQ only explores three of the eight domains of multiple intelligence (I would argue that there are actually more than eight: emotional & creative intelligences are not considered by Gardner).  On the test, a score above 3 is a strong one; a perfect score is a 5.  My results below prove the bias of a general IQ test: the top two scores I got are in IQ domains, and even in the other IQ domain, language, I scored well above 3. The average of these three scores is about 4, which would probably translate to a 130 IQ. 

 

Logic/math: 4.43. People with logical intelligence are driven by logic and reasoning.  They are the businesspeople and engineers of the world. 

 

Spatial: 4.14.  People with visual intelligence are good at remembering images and are aware of their surroundings.  They are the best at playing games, navigating, and drawing.  

 

Body movement/Kinesthetic: 4.00. People with kinesthetic intelligence love movement, have good motor skills, and are more aware of their bodies.  These are the athletes and physical laborers among us.  

 

Musical: 3.86.  People with musical intelligence are musically gifted and can detect rhythm easily.  They’ve always got a song stuck in their head.  Variety of taste, remembers a melody easily, likes to sing.  Very large library of music.  Always have a song stuck in my head. 

 

Self (intrapersonal): 3.86.  These people are more in tune with themselves as opposed to others (contrast with interpersonal below).  They know why they do the things they do and they are constantly making reflections on daily events in their lives.  They make these reflections to help better understand themselves, so they don’t make the same mistakes in the future.  This type of person usually makes the best philosopher or religious figure, but narcissism can be a negative manifestation.

 

Nature: 3.86. People with naturalist intelligence have a sensitivity to and appreciation for nature.  Park rangers, photographers, and environmentalists come to mind. 

 

Language: 3.57. People who have linguistic intelligence are naturally good at writing and speaking.  They are the best writers, teachers, and orators. 

 

Social (interpersonal): 2.43.  People with interpersonal intelligence are good with people and thrive in social interactions.  They are the best leaders, group counselors, organizers, activists, and entrepreneurs. 

 

    To expand on this, I’d like to include my estimated scores for the two domains that I think should be included among Gardner’s eight: emotional and creative intelligence. 

 

Emotional: Approx 3.50.  People with emotional intelligence can read people extremely well.  They know which people they should trust and which ones they shouldn’t.  They know how to feel empathy, care for others, and often put themselves ahead of others.  They also know how to protect themselves from the pain of loss, are good at strengthening relationships, and are effective at communicating their problems to help themselves and others feel better.  They are also the best advice givers.

 

Creative: Approx 4.10.  One word comes to mind in this domain: artist.  These people are intelligent at finding new ways to improve their lives and expand on the living experience.  Creativity at its worst can be abused by cruel, power-hungry types that are master manipulators. 

 

    There are several more types to consider, like street smarts, health smarts, and humor.  I wonder if a person’s true IQ should be a summation of the scores on all these different intelligences.  And if so, would anyone score “genius” on every single one of them?  Throughout history there have been people who were intelligent in most of these.  Albert Einstein most obviously comes to mind, although I have doubts that he was a social genius.  David Foster Wallace was another, but he committed suicide, so clearly he wasn’t an emotional genius.  I bet there have been, I just can’t think of any.