This is excerpted from an article by Martha Hume in Cooking Light, September 2002.

Different Kinds in Different People

Recognizing the shortcomings of the century-old Stanford-Benet test, researchers have come to acknowledge that this IQ test reveals next to nothing about a host of other human qualities, including creativity, practical problem-solving skills (the kind it takes to start a small business, for example), or a person’s emotional readiness to constructively deal with the freedom and the burdens of the adult world.

Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner is the author of a theory called “multiple intelligences,” which maintains that all people have varying degrees of as many as eight different intelligences (see below).

Gardner and many other contemporary researchers say that using paper-and-pencil tests of math and language skills to define ourselves and predict our futures is misleading. Gardner, who introduced his concept in the 1993 book Frames of Mind, believes that equating IQ with intelligence doesn’t work and fails to account for what we see all around us.

For example, let’s say that as a child, you loved to play with Legos, and perhaps had an interest in drawing or photography. In fact, you preferred drawing to reading. Later on, you may have aced geometry but struggled with English composition and algebra. If so, your scores on IQ tests - which measure linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities - may have been rather average, and people might have advised you to aim for a mid-level university.

Gardner would say that your IQ test probably missed your real abilities - namely spatial intelligence - completely. If this hada been identified when you were young, your teachers could have adapted their methods to capitalize on this capacity. Word problems in math could have been presented as diagrams. History lessons could have been presented visually, using photographs and works of art. Chemistry and physics might have been more understandable if you had learned to build models of molecules and atoms. As a result, you probably would have had less difficulty with subjects that were not immediately accessible and more success with the talent you already possessed. So check up on where you have strong areas of intelligence….

Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner believes we all have varying degrees of as many as eight different kinds of intelligence. Here’s how he defines them:

• Linguistic: Ability to learn and use language to accomplish certain goals. Lawyers, speakers, writers, and poets are likely to have high linguistic intelligence.
• Logical-mathematical: Capacity to analyze problems logically, to carry out mathematical operations, and to explore issues scientifically. Think of mathematicians and scientists.
• Musical: Skill in the performance, appreciation, and composition of music. Gardner thinks this skill is comparable to linguistic intelligence but uses a different set of symbols.
• Bodily-kinesthetic: Being able to use your body or parts of your body to solve problems or make products. This is important not only for dancers and athletes, but also for surgeons, mechanics, and others who use their hands in their work.
• Spatial: Ability to recognize and manipulate space, whether it be wide (navigators and pilots) or confined (graphic artists, architects, sculptors).
• Interpersonal: Capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, and desires of other people, which allows one to work successfully with others. Salespeople, teachers, doctors, religious leaders, politicians, and actors need interpersonal intelligence.
• Intrapersonal: Capacity to understand oneself - or to know oneself - and to use the information to live life successfully. Gardner construes religious leaders like Gandhi and Buddha as being intrapersonally intelligent.
• Naturalist: Having extensive knowledge of the living world. Gardner cites Darwin, Audubon, and ecologist Rachael Carson as examples of people with this form of intelligence.