Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences – Intelligence can take many different forms

Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences

In 1983, developmental psychologist Howard Gardner published the book “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences“, building on significant prior work in this area.

In this book he challenged the widely held belief that intelligence is one thing, broadly measurable by standard IQ tests. Gardener instead argued that people have a collection of distinct cognitive abilities. While someone could be great at one, they might not be so great at another.

This reframed way of considering how people may be intelligent has shaken up how we teach and think about learning, leading to an increased focus on more personalised learning to correspond to the different intelligence blends of learners. Gardener proposed eight types of intelligence. They are as follow:

The Eight Intelligences

1 – Linguistic Intelligence:

As its name suggests, this is all about language. It is focused on the ability to learn and use language well, both spoken and written. sensitivity to spoken and written. Writers, poets, lawyers, and speakers are thought to exhibit high linguistic intelligence. Which perhaps isn’t that surprising…

2 – Logical-Mathematical Intelligence:

Again, no surprises here. This is all about the ability to analyse problems logically or think about them in a very rational way. Mathematical reasoning is a key part of this. Again, unsurprisingly, it is most commonly associated with scientists, mathematicians, and logicians. And probably anyone else in a logical function.

3 – Spatial Intelligence:

You guessed it. This is about perceiving and manipulating visual-spatial relationships. It is (at least it was in the early 1980s) crucial for professions such as architecture, graphic design, and art. People with high spatial intelligence are said to have a keen eye for detail and the ability to visualise objects from different angles.

4 – Bodily-Kinaesthetic Intelligence:

This one is all about our bodies and movement. It’s presented as relating to using one’s body to solve problems or create products. Some examples of people who are thought to have this intelligence are dancers and athletes. It’s also considered relevant for people like surgeons and craftspeople who require fine motor skills and physical dexterity.

5 – Musical Intelligence: This one is all about you taste buds. Of course it isn’t. This one is all about your musical intelligence. Can you recognise, create, reproduce, and reflect on music? People who are thought to have this / use this intelligence are people who work in the musical world such as musicians, composers and conductors. This intelligence involves sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, timbre, and the emotional aspects of music.

6 – Interpersonal Intelligence:

This one is about the ability to understand and interact effectively with others. It’s the type of area we actually focus on a lot in the work that we do which explores how we understand and connect well with others. It includes skills in communication, empathy, and cooperation, and is thought to be essential for teachers, social workers, actors, and leaders.

7 – Intrapersonal Intelligence:

This is all to do with self-awareness and the capacity to understand oneself. Other things considered here include emotions, motivations, inner states, and self-reflection. We like to think about meta-emotion and meta-cognition in here too. It is held up as key for psychologists, philosophers, and anyone involved in self-improvement and introspective practices.

8 – Naturalistic Intelligence:

Guess what? It’s nature. Yup. It involves things like recognising and categorising plants, animals, and other aspects of nature. It is deemed to be evident in biologists, conservationists, and farmers, who exhibit a deep understanding and appreciation for the natural world.

How does this help us in ?

Thinking about intelligences in these different ways may help us reframe our approach connecting with others in the workplace, managing and leading and training and developing.

The majority of our existing education and work systems focus on honing, investing in and capitalising on logic and language skills. These are great things, but on their own they might not be enough to generate true high performance.

We are very much of the view that to create really great workplaces and high levels of performance and engagement, as well as wellbeing, we also need to focus on and improve the skills that individuals have in the inter and intra personal domains.

Of these types of things, we’re most interested in the intra and interpersonal side really. Given how important it is in the world of work, nearly everyone can benefit from spending time developing emotional intelligence. Learning about Metamood, Metacognition, social pain and other factors can also really help inform our self-awareness and improve our wellbeing and our working and life experiences.

Of course, these factors affect others as well, not just us. They can affect the psychological safety of our teams and the prevalence of social threats.

We’re pretty sure that the mind and body are fairly strongly connected as well, though it might be worth checking out a bit about Cartesian Dualism to consider why that might always seem logical.

To learn more about emotional intelligence, you might enjoy an early podcast of ours on the subject. Thinking continues to move on in relation to this topic, but what’s covered here is a helpful framing:

Hmmm… We’re not so sure really. These areas are clearly different domains that people can be good in. And it’s clear that some people can be good in some without being good in others. I, for example, cannot do anything musical and am a bit clumsy, while still being ok at logic. But, are these eight areas really different types of intelligence? Or are the just different areas of ability or talent? Is it perhaps more important that I realise and can understand my own lack of musical ability, than that I am musically unable? Also, what about things like creativity?

We think that intelligence is a bit of a strange subject and one that feels a bit taboo and judgy, like we’re not really allowed to talk about the fact that some people are more intelligent than other people. Are we able to find the salient in what’s around us? Can we determine what is relevant? Can we think quickly and find good solutions to the challenges we face? If so, we tend to be able to navigate life well. In fact, “traditional” intelligence is positively correlated with a range of great life outcomes including educational attainment (obviously), financial outcomes (including better financial management), civic engagement, relational and social outcomes and health outcome.

That’s not to say that these other factors don’t matter. We should think about and use these different factors in our approach to education and interaction with each other, and should celebrate when people are good in these domains.

Perhaps our disputes with the potential classification of these areas as intelligences is one for those with higher levels of linguistic-verbal intelligence than we have to pick up and debate!

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Basic Books

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