Question

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner. It states that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes 8 different intelligence to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. This intelligence is:

Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”)
Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smart”)
Spatial intelligence (“picture smart”)
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (“body smart”)
Musical intelligence (“music smart”)
Interpersonal intelligence (“people smart”)
Intrapersonal intelligence (“self smart”)
Naturalist intelligence (“nature smart”)
Please address the following questions in your post:

How do you view intelligence? What do you think has influenced your way of understanding an individual’s capabilities?
Which of the above intelligence do you resonate with most and why? Provide instances and examples from your life.
List at least 2 other people that encompass a different type of intelligence than yourself and give examples of how they demonstrate this type of intelligence in their everyday life (work, relationships, school, etc.)

Answer 1

Human intelligence is the intellectual prowess of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness.

Through intelligence, humans possess the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, understand, apply logic, and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns, comprehend ideas, plan, solve problems, make decisions, retain information, and use language to communicate.

Students’ beliefs and goals can powerfully influence their learning success. Those who believe intelligence is a fixed entity (entity theorists) tend to emphasize ‘performance goals,’ leaving them vulnerable to negative feedback and likely to disengage from challenging learning opportunities. In contrast, students who believe intelligence is malleable (incremental theorists) tend to emphasize ‘learning goals’ and rebound better from occasional failures. Guided by cognitive neuroscience models of top–down, goal-directed behavior, we use event-related potentials (ERPs) to understand how these beliefs influence attention to information associated with successful error correction. Focusing on waveforms associated with conflict detection and error correction in a test of general knowledge, we found evidence indicating that entity theorists oriented differently toward negative performance feedback, as indicated by an enhanced anterior frontal P3 that was also positively correlated with concerns about proving ability relative to others. Yet, following negative feedback, entity theorists demonstrated less sustained memory-related activity (left temporal negativity) to corrective information, suggesting reduced effortful conceptual encoding of this material–a strategic approach that may have contributed to their reduced error correction on a subsequent surprise retest. These results suggest that beliefs can influence learning success through top–down biasing of attention and conceptual processing toward goal-congruent information.

Intelligence is a complex characteristic of cognition. Many theories have been developed to explain what intelligence is and how it works. Sternberg generated his triarchic theory of intelligence, whereas Gardner posits that intelligence is comprised of many factors. Still others focus on the importance of emotional intelligence. Finally, creativity seems to be a facet of intelligence, but it is extremely difficult to measure objectively.