Multiple Intelligences - by Gonçalo Rodrigues

Multiple Intelligences - by Gonçalo Rodrigues 

There exist multiple types of intelligence: naturalistic, musical, linguistic, logical, kinesthetic, spatial, spiritual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. In this blog post, I am going to talk about all of them and their specific traits.

Naturalist intelligence is the human ability to single out living things (plants, animals), and to be sensitive to the natural environment (clouds, rocks). This skill was of great importance in the homo sapiens past history as gatherers, hunters, and farmers. It can be tracked to some jobs; society exploits nature for our well-being, like chefs or botanists. Unfortunately, as time goes by, we seem to take into less consideration this type of intelligence, as seen in the mass pollution that we are continually making, the giant cities we are building. We are not taking into account the well-being of the world around us.

Musical intelligence is the ability to distinguish different types of rhythmic patterns, timbre, tone, and pitch. As the name suggests, the capacity to create, reflect, and emulate music; which is shown by musicians and instrument players like violinists or drummers. Music and emotions have had always been apart of each other. Being that we are very emotional beings and that certain music theorists believe we are made of music (because in some way we are all made of vibrations and music is vibrations), it would only make sense that music rattles our emotions. Most music is made from feeling a particular emotion, which will be again felt when someone hears that same music. Scientists believe that the same region of the brain that makes music is the same as the one that solves mathematical problems, therefore sharing a common thinking process (Barrientos-Fernández et al., 2019). With this information, many schools teach music in a way to evolve the students logical thinking. People with musical intelligence are very aware of the noises around them, picking up sound other would most probably miss.

Logical-mathematical intelligence is the one most used by famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes or The Mentalist. It is the capacity to consider every possible situation and to quantify and calculate each one of them. As the name says, it is used mainly for mathematical operations, but it can lead us to perceive relationships and human connections logically; to enable abstract ways of thinking; reasoning finesse; inductive and deductive thinking patterns. People with this type of intelligence are very keen on puzzles, experiments, challenging problems and enigmas, patterns, relationships, etc. It is commonly developed, as mentioned, in detectives, scientists, and mathematicians. 

Existential intelligence is commonly found in philosophers, people interested in metaphysics. Trying to reason deep and complex questions such as “the meaning of life”, “the existence of a god”, is what a person with a very refined existential intelligence is all about. Even though these seem very abstract trains of thought, they help a person to tackle ethical debates that can appear to them in their daily lives.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is the ability to be in control of your body, the more developed someone is in this type of intelligence; the more he is capable of physically manipulating objects to their advantage. It is a complete union of the mind with the body. More commonly known to have this type of skill are athletes, but surgeons, dancers and instrument players also have a very matured bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.

Linguistic intelligence is the capability to express your thoughts with well-crafted words, turning complex ideas simple to understand and to be on the other hand and be able to fathom convoluted concepts. In a more fundamental level, it allows us to understand the order the words are being applied, and what is their meaning in that specific situation. This is the most widely shared type of intelligence by human beings, and it is demonstrated by writers, poets, and active public speakers. People with advanced linguistic intelligence enjoy talking with others about their beliefs or telling stories and reading books or journal articles. 

Intrapersonal intelligence is the ability to reflect on one’s ideas and beliefs. To think about their feelings and plan their life path with the knowledge they have about themselves. It may seem selfish to think about one’s ego so much, but in a refined way, it can be healthy, and lead a person to appreciate the human condition itself, creating an altruistic individual. Philosophers and psychologists usually represent this type of intelligence; they are self-motivated and are connected to their own feelings.

Interpersonal intelligence is the capacity to interact and understand other human beings. It has vital characteristics like nonverbal and verbal communication, the ability to detect certain anomalies in another person’s behaviour. Most importantly, it uses empathy in a manner to better understand what an induvial could be feeling, to make the best decisions on a particular social topic. People with developed interpersonal intelligence are leaders, exampler listeners and communicators, such as good teachers and politicians.

Spatial intelligence is usually exhibited in painters, sculptors and pilots; they have an active imagination and the ability to think outside their own eye-sight perspective, in three dimensions. Mental imagery and image manipulation are the core capacities of this type of intelligence.

 The idea of multiple intelligence changes completely how we should perceive education. We should take advantage of each person's personality and strengths to the maximum extent, focusing on what we do well and applying it to real-world problems.    

Bibliography

Barrientos-Fernández, A., Sánchez-Cabrero, R., Arigita-García, A., Mañoso-Pacheco, L., Pericacho-Gómez, F. J., & Novillo-López, M. Á. (2019). Measurement of different types of intelligence (general, verbal vs. non-verbal, multiple), academic performance and study habits of secondary students at a Music Integrated Centre. Data in Brief. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2019.104124


Gonçalo Rodrigues (8702)