Gardner has multiple intelligences, not just two,
not just two factors, or two types. He says there's actually eight
independent types. There's some overlap: linguistic,
logical-mathematical,
those are what are typically measured by intelligence tests.
When we say we're measuring intelligence, what we're usually saying is that we're
measuring
one's linguistic abilities, one's logical
thinking abilities, one's analytical or mathematical abilities,
and that tends to translate well to
academic pursuits. The higher you're able
to score on these tests, the better you're able to take in new information,
abstract from that information, utilize that information,
maybe even remember that information, but memory is a separate issue,
right? So that's being able to remember something is not necessarily indicative of
intelligence although it could be, depending on how you look at it.
But then he's got these other ones. Spatial,
musical, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal,
interpersonal, naturalist.
He thinks these are different kinds of intelligences, right, and I'll give you some
examples. Now you'll see
three of them bolded. Two of them are bolded
because that's what people usually think when they think of intelligence,
like that's it. Like that's what intelligence is.
But that's debatable. The third one is bolded because if you happen to see it
on your test and there was a question that said,
of the following four types, which is not one of Gardner's
eight types? I'm just saying. Thank you for coming. I appreciate you being here.
Cause eight types is a lot to remember but you know one
mnemonic you could use is he's got a veritable garden
of intelligence types, right? Using mnemonics,
elaborating, he's got a bunch of them. He's got a bunch of them.
Spatial is what it sounds like; ability to visualize things in space.
That kind of ability would be really good for people who like to
model things, people who might be able to
do sculpture for example, people who are architects,
people who could visualize something in their mind as though it were in 3d space,
three-dimensional space,
and then be able to manipulate that information in their mind. Musical
intelligence.
He's saying music is a type of intelligence. That you have a person
who seems to be able to do that. You've seen people who seem like prodigies in
music, right?
They seem born to make music. At a very early age, they
seem to understand it. They understand the notes and relationships. They understand
scales. They understand
musical instruments and they're able to do it better.
I'm a musician of sorts, but I worked really, really hard to get up to this
mediocre level of talent that I have,
and I love what I do but I am not a virtuoso.
My musical intelligence is middling.
I can use that to maximize my ability.
If I were to practice more, I would be better at it, but I don't seem to have this
natural musical intelligence.
I had to work hard. I don't read music. I can't pick things out by notes. I can't
harmonize when I hear other people sing.
But I love music and I play music nonetheless but you see what I'm saying is there's a higher
and lower ability level. That's what he's positing.
Intrapersonal; understanding yourself.
Some people have high levels of self-understanding. They know what their
weaknesses are. They know what their strengths are.
They work on their weaknesses. They play to their strengths.They're pretty honest about
who they are and their own issues.
And you see other people who have the same issues over and over and over and over,
doing the same thing again and again and again expecting a different result.
Well Gardner said they don't really introspect well. They don't really understand themselves that
well
and thus, they're not able to use the insight because they don't have it,
to change themselves where somebody with a high level of intrapersonal intelligence
would be able to use that information to change themselves or
not need so much changing because they would already be there. Interpersonal is
social intelligence.
Some people talk of it as like an emotional intelligence that's that's
fine
but the idea is that you know some people work better with others than some
people, right? If you're an employer
and you've got a customer service job, you know some people are going to be much
better at that job than other people.
Some people you won't never want working in customer service
cause they don't really relate to other people in a smooth format,
right, and if you think about it as an ability to get along with other people,
some people are really easy going with other people, they accept other people's
differences,
they understand what people seem to need from interactions, they're able to provide
it without feeling like they're
selling themselves out. They just respond well to other people's needs.
They're empathetic,
right? They really do seem to have an ability to connect with other people.
That doesn't mean they're good or bad necessarily. It depends on what you do with
these powers, right? I just look at these
as powers. You could use music to glorify the divine or glorify heinous crime,
right? You could do whatever you want to with that. You could use your
interpersonal intelligence to really help people out or to calm them out of
their stuff,
right? You could use your intellectual intelligence to solve problems or create
problems for people.
These are just abilities. They don't make you good or bad people. That's a different
thing
and then this naturalist idea. There are some cultures that seem to be more in
tune
with natural processes, nature itself,
and some people seem to be very inclined in their lives to become
very attuned to the natural world. Maybe they like to hunt or fish,
maybe they want to save the environment. Maybe they want to
reduce pollution. But some people seem to have higher levels of sensitivity to
those kinds of things and other people lower levels of sensitivity to those kinds of things.
So he's positing these as independent kinds of intelligence.
You could be high in multiple of these. You can be high in one and low in another. You can be
low in multiple of these.
But what it does say is that there's no final word on what
intelligence is, and there's no final word from any intelligence on what your value
as a human being should be.
Right? Using your abilities
is a different thing than having those abilities.
Now we have Sternberg. Behind that little thing over there is an "S."
Sternberg's tri-archic theory of intelligence.
Sternberg's got 3 types.
How are you going to remember this one, well,
if you can remember Spearman's OG, the original
general intelligence guy, and you can say Catell and Horn, there's two of them and two types of
intelligence,
and you've got Gardner who's got a garden of intellectual types or
ability types that he would call different kinds of intelligences.
Well, the only one left is Sternberg. So he'll be your three types of intelligence and as
you've seen what we skipped,
there are other types of intelligence posited,
right? So, you're looking at this in a sense, analytical intelligence.
In other words, what we see is there's an agreement
across all of these types, all of these theories,
that there is a thing called analytical intelligence. This was typically measured
by intelligence tests,
right? Spearman thinks this is part of your general intelligence with specific
abilities,
right? Catell and Horn would say, yeah, you're able to use your
crystallized and fluid intelligence to analyze information and
solve problems. Gardner says there's linguistic and logical-mathematical so
there seems to be an analytical type of intelligence. Now, you can subdivide it or
divide it up how you will
but essentially this is what you're measuring with a standard IQ test.
Logical, mathematical, analytical, linguistic,
being able to work with symbols, symbols include language,
right, to be able to think in that kind of way,
and analyze information and apply it. These are the skills that are really necessary for
a fluid academic performance, right? Being able to
analyze information because you're getting information all the time
in the academic environment, right? You're being bombarded with information
and you've got to be able to take it in, process it, figure out what's important,
what's not important, what do I need to remember,
how do I apply this information? That's analytical intelligence. Then he says, you
know what?
There's a practical intelligence.
Common sense; what most people call street smarts.
Now that's interesting because most of you have heard
people say, well they're book smart but they don't got a lick of common sense.
Right? That's what they're speaking to. In other words, what do you see
in the analytical realm. Things that academia hones on and improves upon.
But aren't there a lot a successful people that have never gone to school beyond a certain
level?
Certainly there are. And he would say they have a lot of practical intelligence.
Their ability to understand situations
seems to be kind of inherent to their common sense
of looking at various kinds of aspects and being able to capitalize on those.
So you could be a CEO of a legitimate corporation, let's just assume
all corporations are legitimate. Well, maybe that's not the greatest assumption.
But you could also be the kingpin or theoretically the queenpin
of a cocaine dealing empire. Now
to my way of thinking, there's not a lot of universities that deal in
how to deal cocaine, right? But think about it for a minute.
There are people who become very rich and very powerful
and very influential because they understand
that business, right? There's people who do that business that never made money, they
go to jail, they get shot, they get killed.
The people who succeeded are the ones who are able to understand all levels of it.
They understand supply, they understand demand, they understand legalistic
issues,
they understand personnel issues, they understand their market, and how to
market to their people,
and they succeed not because they got a good education necessarily but because they
get it.
They have practical common sense. Doesn't make it legitimate what they're doing
but then again some of what
other CEO's do in more legitimate businesses is not always
above-board. It just means they're able to work with information.
Practical intelligence: do you know how to, you know,
be a farmer? Well, there's a lot... you need to know seasons, you need to know
fields, and turn over crops, right, when to plant and when not to plant, when to
let it lay fallow,
you know, how to irrigate, all kinds of things that you could learn in school
because most of our land grant
institutions are really developed to what? Improve agricultural sciences,
but people have been farming for long before we had land-grant institutions to help them
learn how to do it,
and it would take a practical intelligence to be able to do that.
Then he says there is a creative intelligence. This is a little different. So now we
have the ability to look at things in a novel way, use information in a new way,
or use old information in a new way to create solutions.
This might include artistic abilities, so we look at people who are artists and we
generally say,
well you're an artist cause you do things that are unusual. You make unusually good music or
unusually expressive music or
you take unusually good photos or you're very good with three-dimensional arts,
or maybe you're in dance and you choreograph.
You have these abilities that other people don't have that are creative,
right, that we consider kind of standard creativity
but then creativity goes beyond that.
Being able to be a real problem solver is not just
understanding information, but really thinking of new ways to use information.
So we used our thinking outside of the box, right, demonstration
and we found out that we were all able to analyze the
instructions, right? The instructions: make three dots
in three rows in three columns so that you have nine dots.
Make four lines. Everybody understood that. They analyzed that. They were able
to apply it.
But it took took something else to solve the problem,
right? It took a creative outside the box
approach to solve that problem, that most of us, myself
certainly included, just didn't bring to bear on the situation at that
moment.
So that's the three for the tri-archic theory of intelligence.