By certain academic standards, I am not an intelligent person. My SAT and GRE scores were noticeably lower than average in all categories, which is why people from high school to my MA programs would often talk to me about alternatives to college or graduate school. It’s also no mistake that the colleges and graduate programs that accepted me were those that did not require standardized test scores or that told me they looked at other things more closely than those tests. I admit that this has made my imposter syndrome flare up periodically throughout the years. That began to change, though, once I discovered Howard Gardner’s theories of multiple intelligences, which I first read about in 1997 while reading Jordan Ayan’s A-ha!: Ten Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas. I can still remember reading this section of the book for the first time, sitting on the roof of a hotel in San Antonio, Texas, in June, lounging by the pool. I still have it marked (it starts on page twenty-five) because it has continued to resonate with me well over a decade later.
As Ayan presents Gardner’s theories, which may not be as in-depth or complete as others would prefer, there are seven areas in which we can find our intelligence, not one area measured by a sole IQ score or two areas–verbal and mathematical–measured by the standardized tests that define the early years of an academic life for many. These seven areas include:
- Verbal: the power to use words,
- Mathematical: the power to use numbers,
- Spatial: the power to work with patterns and design,
- Musical: the power to engage with harmony and rhythm,
- Bodily-Kinesthetic: the power to work with your own physical body,
- Intrapersonal: the power to understand one’s own feelings and reflect philosophically, and
- Interpersonal: the power to engage with other people.
Over the years, people have expanded on this list and delved more deeply into each category. For me, discovering this list was revelatory because I realized I do have gifts that just are not measured in standard ways. Ayan immediately asks readers of his book to rank these areas for themselves to uncover where their strengths are. For me, it’s spatial. Reading about that category sounded like me right away. I have always been someone with a strong sense of direction. This is not to say I do not get lost, but I do get out of being lost more easily than others. Friends and family have stories of being in a car with me as a child or an adult and listening to me say “I think it’s over there” when we couldn’t find a particular store or someone’s home; I was right way more often than not. I am also the one my friends call over when they move not to help them load up trucks or trek up stairs with boxes but to arrange things in their new place. When we moved to where we live now, my husband just stood to the side while I stood in the center of rooms, staring quietly for a few minutes and then asking him to help me push the couch here and pull that chair there. Similarly, I love teaching document design in our professional writing classes, as you might have seen in the comments to ProfHacker’s recent post on the subject. I love talking about format and pushing my students to think about their assignments in terms of what goes where on the page, slide, or screen.
My second area would be intrapersonal. When I applied to my first graduate program out of undergrad, one of my professors wrote in a reference letter that my sensitivity was my greatest gift and my greatest curse. In her literature classes, she was impressed by my ability to get into the minds of characters we were reading about but also worried that I would sometimes feel their pain almost too deeply, and that has been true my entire life. People often ask how I can spend so much of my career focusing on issues of pain and trauma, but I find it to be quite easy. Oh, I can get scared and depressed when I think about how certain things are or are not changing, but I have never wavered in my quest to deal with such issues in my teaching or scholarship. I think this is because of my ability to get into the philosophical, reflective state of mind that defines the intrapersonal category.
Since encountering these theories of multiple intelligences, I have felt a confidence about myself and my work that I never felt in high school, undergrad, or early graduate school. Oh, I still feel stupid at times and wondering what I’m doing here, defining “here” as academia in general to the individual classes I teach. Overall, though, I recognize what my gifts are and where I need help. What about you? Where do your greatest levels of intelligence appear? Let us know in the comments!
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39 Responses to Exploring Multiple Intelligences
knysna - December 9, 2010 at 12:22 pm
The concept of multiple intelligences has a lot of intuitive appeal. Unfortunately, not a lot of empirical research has supported it. We like to think we are smart in some ways and not so smart in others, but the research generally shows pretty strong correlations across these dimensions. For example, people who are highly intelligent in verbal areas also tend to be highly intelligent in math. This is represented by the so-called g-factor (a term for general mental ability).
22058726 - December 9, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Have to agree, knysna. There is a difference between an “intelligence” and an “aptitude” that you would think a Harvard scholar like Howard Gardner could have figured out by reading the educational psychology literature. The whole concept has created a world of trouble for both students and educators.
kathden - December 9, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I can concede that Gardner’s schema needs improving, but I think that simply rejecting it and offering the alternative of a “general mental ability” (a new general intelligence quotient?) is shortsighted. The correlations you mention, knysna, are not strong enough to sustain the alternative. (Otherwise, for example, I wouldn’t see such a range of combinations of verbal, analytic, and mathematical scores on GRE exams.) And Chomsky, for example, argues that there is not much to be gained by invoking a general problem-solving ability, to which your suggestion may be a cousin.
I’m not sure that Gardner’s big mistake is failing to distinguish between intelligence and aptitude, 22058726. I may look at this differently because late into undergraduate school I aimed to be a mathematician but began to realize that there were different styles of mathematical imagining. Good geometers might not be so good at algebra, good analysts of differential equations might be poor at topology. Aptitudes, I presume, can be developed, and in that sense I can say retrospectively that some have more aptitude for topology than differential equations, and vice versa. But all can improve in each approach, even if we are limited more in certain respects than others. Intelligence in these different areas is, however, also different—I don’t think it makes sense to talk about an undifferentiated “mathematical intelligence” (besides which, most mathematical tests I see tend more to the analytical side than to the spatial-topological). Moreover, these different intelligences can be improved: one develops a greater responsiveness and variety of solution techniques in the subfield of mathematics one studies, which does not always or simply translate to other subfields.
The questions, then, are open and important.
plackerman - December 9, 2010 at 6:13 pm
There isn’t much practical difference between “intelligence” and “aptitude” — when the aptitude measures are broad.
As for Gardner’s theory . . . check out Daniel Willingham’s article
in Education Next in 2004
http://educationnext.org/files/ednext20043_18.pdf
jungianscholar - December 9, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Au Contraire, mes scholars!
Gardner’s work is excellent in his understanding that what we called intelligence as measured by the positivistic work from Germany in 1912, from William Stern. He named his instrument IQ and based it on the work of Alfred Binet and Simon. All of these “social scientists” have always been in quest of the holy grail as shown in Brave New World. Let’s find those of superior intellect, create an utopian upper class and techno class, then use the rest of the beggars to serve our pedestrian, sexual and other needs. Most IQ tests try and evaluate the subject’s knowledge and abilities within the verbal reasoning area, and mathematical realm, BOTH left hemisphere functions in the brain. Now the interesting part for me, is that some of the IQ tests also try and measure for abstract reasoning, more of a right brain function. The right hemisphere is also responsible for symbolic, dreamlike, creative work, things that are not at all easy to test for.
While I suspect that due to genetics, there may be certain predilections or levels of intelligence in all families, due to genetics, there is always the issue of nurture. The Bell Curve created quite a controversy upon its publication; due to many readers inferences about the books implication for race. Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Professor of Indigenous Studies in New Zealand, and a native Maori, wrote a very thoughtful and provocative book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. In her book, she speaks to Western mans’ obsession to categorize and measure everything. Many of the indigenous cultures of the world seemed to be more right brained, and intuitive, both kinds of intelligence along with creativity and art, that cannot be measured with IQ tests, and yes, they are intelligences, too!
Look how Anthropology as a field has now announced they are no longer a science! For years, we have always tried to apply scientific research methodologies to social areas of inquiry, even psychology, and come up short – trying to legitimize something by making it “Scientific.” That mindset is a hold over from the days of positivism, and still has a strong hold over us today!
Nels Highberg knows what she is speaking about… Listen to her. Read Jose Arguelles, Carl Jung…
IQ… Schmmooo!
raymond_j_ritchie - December 10, 2010 at 3:39 am
Dear Prof Hacker & Nels Highberg,
Not only is there the problem of what IQ and other ability test measure but there are two other things that I feel are important but are often overlooked in an age when most westerners and americans in particular are programmed from birth to think that their society is more or less a meritocracy. Those with ability succeed, those without ability of course do not. That is dangerous bullshit and as socially damaging as being told you are the wrong sex, race, ethnicity or social class.
(1) Suppose we had an objective test of intelligence. What would we to use it for? Select out the few and discard or disregard the rest? Our track record on the uses made of the known to be flawed tests we have is hardly inspiring.
(2) There is what I call the cat and dog problem. Dogs display their intelligence and so it is possible to overestimate how bright they are. Conversely cats do not and are probably brighter than most think they are. So it is with humans. For whatever reason some choose not to display their intellect.
I personally always hated performing like a trained seal. For various reasons, including stubbornness and being contrarian, I deliberately threw every IQ test that was thrown at me at 10, 12, 14 & 16 years old. I freaked out my last IQ tester. I told her I had drawn aeroplanes and submarines on the paper and ticked the multiple choice at random because I did not wish to be known to have a high IQ. She simply did not understand. After this 4th test they lost interest. Bonus – I was never ever accused of being lazy in school.
I have become quite proud of my 70 IQ even though it horrified american PhD students when I joked about it when I was a post-doc at Cornell. I was a bit crest-fallen a few years ago to learn that a colleague of mine has an official IQ of 56. He has a PhD in chemistry.
Perhaps I am lucky that in Australia IQ scores are not used as a barrier to higher education.
what4 - December 10, 2010 at 7:16 am
Gardner’s theory has been valuable to people who do not score high on the usual measures of IQ, but who have outstanding abilities, such as musicians and dancers.
But in schools, I fear it has been used to support one of the bad trends of recent decades — demanding that teachers adapt to students, that each student be taught differently.
The result of that approach is burdensome to teachers, and it probably does not produce good results.
A better approach is to use insights like Gardner’s to teach students how to expand their repertoires for learning, how to get beyond the form of learning that comes most easily to them — to teach students how to adapt to teachers.
You may find these useful: Writing and Multiple Intelligences and The Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers.
ksledge - December 10, 2010 at 8:21 am
In my mind, the proof is in the pudding. Who cares if you are intelligent or not intelligent, as long as you’re excellent at your chosen profession?
revbookdoctor - December 10, 2010 at 9:32 am
I think ksledge has it exactly right. Who cares about intelligence if you excel in your profession? Clearly some are better than others at what they choose to do with their lives. Motivation, creativity, and ability to learn & improve are all a part of this excellence. I forget where I read it, but there is the idea that with steady improvement one can excel at anything in about 10 years. The keys to this are motivation and steady improvement – not necessarily any measure of intelligence.
cmcclain - December 10, 2010 at 10:04 am
Assuming that Gardner’s ideas have merit (and I don’t have enough background in the subject to claim otherwise), it is still quite problematic how they have been used by both schools and individuals to pigeonhole people into categories. The author is no exception, listing his/her areas of intelligence. A more constructive use of the theory is for one to make use of one’s strengths in order to improve areas of weakness. Instead of regarding oneself as a primarily spatial and intrapersonal person, one should actively develop the verbal, quantitative, etc areas. I have little use for “right brained” or “left brained” people. The right and left should converse with each other.
mottgreene - December 10, 2010 at 10:12 am
I have always liked the idea of Gardner’s theory, and thus lament the verdict: there is just no empirical scientific evidence to support the idea that music, dance, math, which manifest early in life as distinct capacities, have some additional separate neurological life as “intelligences.” Moreover, in application of G’s ideas to teaching, with or without his consent and approval, recent work has shown that students preferred “ways of learning” are preferences that do not confer any increment of learning (Chronicle reported this fall that both verbal learners and tactile learners learned more chemistry in lab than by reading, though the verbal learners [sic] liked it less.)
That being said, I still dream of a college entrance exam in which you have to perform a dance, sing a song, play a tune, tell a joke and only then write an essay and solve a few math problems…
ldoll - December 10, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Thank you for the thoughtful article…
I have often felt that although I attended grad school, I was from another planet. The differences, both simple and profound, were highlighted on almost a daily basis.
I am surrounded by specialists; I am a generalist, and my gift is dancing in the gaps between defined areas. This is also where most new knowledge is generated…
I am good enough in math, astoundingly verbal, but have my issues trying to find balance in my life between my studies and other demands on my time. I am surrounded by people who have accentuated the mental at the cost of everything else in their lives. It’s important to be smart or intelligent if you prefer, but to be a well-rounded person seems something that is given lip service only. It’s very much like spending all your time living with people raised by wolves. Except that I feel that that would be a profound insult to most wolves, who understand group dynamics and their place in the pack. The competition and lack of compassion occasionally takes my breath away…and then I rememeber where I am and who I am dealing with…
Most recently, the department has decided to contemplate changing how they present material and perhaps how they grade. They are so far from being able to see their shortcomings, it is laughable. They will go through the motions, pat themselves on the back for having made the effort, and go forth with the same damn program they had before…newly approved. One could weep, but they would only mistake my tears for weakness.
What is wrong with academia?…what is right?
dxfoundation - December 10, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I look at many activities from the perspective of: Where am I? Where do I want to be? and How do I get there?
I apply this same formula to intelligence and every other biological function. If I want to have a pain free shoulder, it does not help me much to have a Shoulder Quotient of ‘B73′ to tell me that my shoulder is in the lower fifth compared to all other shoulders regarding overall health. A number like that may be helpful to a Public Health administrator.
It does however help me quite a bit to know about all the bones, ligaments, nerves and arteries that supply my shoulder. It helps me to know that all of my muscles around the shoulder are balanced with each other and the national average except for my deltoid which is in the lower 10%. Then I have the ability to diagnose the cause of the weakness and take steps to improve it.
The same with intelligence. As resolution of intelligence is refined to each component, there will be increased detail of each possible anatomical part of the brain, each pathway, functional unit or other non-biological components. Each of these components should at some point be measurable. This will lead to an increased ability to target modifications to the exact tissues, chemicals or pathways you want in order to achieve whatever outcome you desire.
Depending on the application of intelligence metrics, one number may be what you need. At other times, the largest number of data points you can get your hands on will be what is necessary to achieve your goal.
The ability to have maximal intelligence metrics resolution and the wisdom to know when to apply which set of metrics appropriately for your application is a goal I would like to see achieved.
dank48 - December 10, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Interesting discussion.
It would be interesting to know whether there’s significant correlation between IQ and how one fares in the real world. Considering the state of the real world, which seems to be run mainly by ignorant, incompetent idiots, I tend to doubt it.
Still, there’s no denying that Intelligence Quotient, as measured by IQ tests, is an excellent predictor of how well one will do on IQ tests.
sesamest - December 10, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I was introduced to Gardiner’s intelligences by my 8th and 9th grade English teacher (who also gave us the Kolb Learning Styles inventory but pooh-poohed Meyers-Briggs). She presented these “tests” as ways for us to realize more about ourselves and to inform our cognizance of how we relate to each other and how we function in the world.
In contrast to Nels, I was “high” in all of the categories _except_ spacial abilities. But I was very excited to learn this because it helped explain why geometry was such a challenge (though I am good at “math”), why I can’t figure out which container will fit the leftovers, why I’m lucky I can find my way home some days, and why other people are surprised that I have trouble with these things because “you’re so smart”.
I never took the “scores” on the Gardner test as an indication of whether I was “intelligent” or not, but rather used it as an opportunity to identify types of tasks that come easily to me and those at which I could learn to do with more focused effort. (I was really excited after college when I learned how pack groceries into my backpack and I could fit a half-gallon each of milk and OJ, a box of cereal, a few cans, some packages of ramen, and some fruit and not have to carry any bags in my hands. And then I got a new pack…)
ivanacg - December 11, 2010 at 2:59 am
What4, thank you for the additional resources.
Standardized tests in general can be intimidating, more so if loaded with cultural and linguistic meaning and if they are high stakes. As several commenters have already indicated, Gardner’s multiple intelligences are categories that should allow one to identify strengths and weaknesses. They are a guidance in teaching as well but like with every test, the society (school, teacher, etc) can decide whether to make them high stakes tests.
If one takes a careers choice test in high school, does that mean that one should only follow that result?
m_ryall - May 21, 2012 at 6:10 am
Typical or not, Spitzer’s apology doesn’t right the wrongs. His “research” helped to naturalize the idea that homosexuality is an aberration, and has prolonged the injustices that gay people have to endure. That Spitzer now wants to rid himself of guilt over his part in it is really revolting. I for one am not applauding him for suddenly seeing the light. It’s way too easy and way too late.
vanandel - May 21, 2012 at 7:22 am
And what would you prefer that he do now? Should he remain silent and let the work stand?
woodstock - May 21, 2012 at 7:31 am
Baloney Dr. Spitzer, no “scientific” research. The gay community forced the APA brass to drop the Homosexuality diagnosis. The occasion was the 1973 APA convention in San Francisco: the gay community got control of the convention site infrastructure and and demanded the APA drop the homosexual diagnosis or else no convention. The APA brass complied immediately. Nothing “scientific”, but political force.
More to be done with the rest of the APA 300 plus ”scientific” diagnosis!!!
anon1972 - May 21, 2012 at 7:39 am
No, but he needs to understand — and probably does — that his ‘mea culpa’ will not automatically allow people to forgive and forget the damage his work caused.
big_giant_head - May 21, 2012 at 9:48 am
Huh. I had no idea the “gay community” had such power. I wonder when I’ll get my secret decoder ring?
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salchaktoka - May 21, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Even more scandalous than Spitzer’s “research” is the fact that a professional journal published it. Yet more proof of the utter intellectual and moral bankruptcy of psychiatry.
11182967 - May 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Bad research–whether careless or poorly designed or intentionally misrepresented or faked–cannot be totally prevented. But it can be kept from publication by knowledgeable and careful peer review. From the description of the research here–no comparison group, no replication, no control for veracity–it seems remarkable that the “research” was published at all. Good for Spitzer that he now apologizes, but what about the journal’s role? And has there also been a history–as there should be–of direct challenge to the original article? This seems to be primarily a failure of a research community to appropriately vet and challenge bad research.
panacea - May 21, 2012 at 12:51 pm
The retraction will cut the legs out from under the “cure homosexuality” quacks. That, at least, is a good thing.
panacea - May 21, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Please prove that statement.
borso - May 21, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 32, Number 5, October 2003 , pp. 419-468 has an extensive range of peer responses to the paper in the same issue, followed by a response. Peer review in public?
m_ryall - May 21, 2012 at 2:10 pm
I agree with anon1972. The apology is accepted, It’s fitting, appropriate, and overdue. But Spitzer should not expect us to hold a parade for him. His work speaks for itself and the apology is a footnote.
woodstock - May 21, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Here are few references, plenty more in the Internet.
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/HRC/exhibition/stage/stage_21.htmlhttp://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/homosexual-activists-intimidate-american-psychiatric-association-into-removing-homosexuality-from-list-of-disorders/http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-wordshttp://www.glreview.com/article.php?articleid=1220
woodstock - May 21, 2012 at 3:18 pm
http://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/homosexual-activists-intimidate-american-psychiatric-association-into-removing-homosexuality-from-list-of-disorders/
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-words
http://www.glreview.com/article.php?articleid=1220
lross1 - May 21, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Woodstock, I’ve read the sources you cite, and they don’t support your statements. You seem to be confusing the disruptions that took place at the 1970 APA convention in San Francisco and the non-disruptive events that took place at the 1973 APA convention in Honolulu. There is no reference in any of your sources to any attempt to shut down or otherwise interfere with the 1973 convention. The segment from “This American Life” seemed to be the most detailed and even-handed account of the 1973 events.
rt_firefly - May 21, 2012 at 6:24 pm
What emerges as really disturbing to me is that the collection of peer commentaries does a fairly decent job of dismissing the study (to that extent the journal did some due diligence), but this was obviously ignored by the usual suspects, including (I assume) the pop press.
For example, it didn’t take long to find a methodological critique by Helena Carlson that pointed out that: “… this is a population of highly religious, White, Protestant, middle aged, and middle class men and women. There is little evidence that they are representative of a diverse gay community.”This is a pretty basic demonstration of what happens when people don’t do their homework – either willfully or negligently, or just flat out distort the facts. And it happens all the time.
mawickline - May 21, 2012 at 6:32 pm
Time marches on. I, for one, am grateful that Dr. Spitzer had the grace to do this.
Robert Oscar Lopez - May 21, 2012 at 6:33 pm
I’m bisexual and don’t feel like I need to apologize to anyone. Straights need to accept that I’ll always find men attractive. Homosexuals need to accept that I have a choice and they can’t cure me of women by saying I’m in denial. It’s shocking how crude the level of discussion is especially from my gay supposed allies.
panacea - May 22, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I agree; the sources don’t support your claim. Your “This American Life” source claims a secret conspiracy, but that’s not the same thing as what you claimed happened.
And I don’t believe the “American Life” claims. The membership would not have gone along with the changes if the literature at the time didn’t support it.
panacea - May 22, 2012 at 1:00 pm
What’s your point?
pianiste - May 22, 2012 at 4:08 pm
“Homosexuals need to accept that I have a choice and they can’t cure me of women by saying I’m in denial.”
Professor Lopez has, on CHE blogs, a longstanding and severe tic about gay activists who believe that one’s sexual orientation (and not, mind you, “preference”) is innate being somehow the cause of a lot of the misery of gays. The overturning, under their pressure, if DADT in the military is an example he gives. He seems to think that one has a “choice” not only in one’s sexual deeds, but in one’s sexual attractions; he apparently chooses to be sexually attracted to women as well as to men.
The civil rights of gays can be, and often are, truncated by the “choice” argument, i.e., if they “choose” to be gay, then they–perhaps with the help of psychiatric and/or religious counseling–could become able to choose not to be gay, and thereby not commit the sins (often said to be crimes) that get them in trouble.
I think that with most people, this kind of alleged “choice” is a lot of
poppycock, and I’d like to see if Professor Lopez, or anybody who
agrees with him, would care to explore the logic of his apparently
choosing his sexual orientation. For instance, a good many of Professor Lopez’s politically conservative and Christian cohort, believe that bisexuality is as bad, if not worse (especially if one is a married parent) than simple homosexuality, so I’m curious how Professor Lopez would square his “choosing” to be bisexual (he says, “I have a choice”) with others who share his political and religious, um, preferences.
jefischman - May 23, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Thank you for your comments on the role of scientific apologies and journal retractions in correcting science. I left out another important example of a mea culpa: James M. Wilson, the U. of Pennsylvania gene therapy researcher whose experiment led to the death of a patient, Jesse Gelsinger. Wilson– after Federal investigators found a raft of problems with the experiment in 2005–admitted responsibility in 2009 for ignoring guidelines that would have prevented Gelsinger from participating in the trial. But he continued to insist that Gelsinger’s reaction could not have been predicted. Still, he published long cautionary notes in science journals warning other researchers about making these errors. Here’s a newspaper summary: http://articles.philly.com/2009-05-08/news/25273873_1_paul-gelsinger-gene-therapy-jesse-gelsinger
And here’s his general caution not to rush ahead without good oversight: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5928/727.full
And his full explanation of where he thinks he went wrong, in a science journal that you have to pay to read: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19211285?dopt=Abstract
And a comment from Paul Gelsinger, Jesse’s father, on the slowness and apparent reluctance of Wilson and the scientific/legal system to try and right the wrong: http://www.bioethics.net/2008/01/a-comment-from-paul-gelsinger-on-gene-therapy-and/