Howard Gardner
Originally posted by dyslexic
In 1983 Dr. Howard Gardner wrote a fascinating book, "Frames of Mind", in which he discussed the Seven Intellingences.
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GARDNER'S SEVEN "FRAMES OF MIND" AND MENTAL MODULES
Howard Gardner has been perceived as a critic of g theory and of tests that mainly reflect
g, such as the IQ. I suspect that this is partly, if not largely, the basis of the popularity accorded Gardner's views, especially in educational circles, as many teachers feel desperate over the wide range of individual differences displayed in their classes. If a child has a low IQ and is doing poorly in school, there are, according to
Gardner's theory, ^{[32]} several other kinds of "intelligence" in one or more of which the child may excel. Two of the seven "intelligences" claimed by Gardner --
linguistic and
logical-mathematical -- would considerably overlap the conventional IQ. The remaining five "intelligences" are
spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and two kinds of personal "intelligences,"
intrapersonal, or the perception of one's own feelings, and
interpersonal, or the perception of others' feelings, motives, and the like (also called "social intelligence"). As exemplars of each of these "intelligences" Gardner mentions the following famous persons: T. S. Eliot (linguistic), Einstein (logical-mathematical), Picasso (spatial), Stravinsky (musical), Martha Graham (bodily-kinesthetic), Sigmund Freud (intrapersonal), and Mahatma Gandhi (interpersonal). In
an interesting book ^{[33]} Gardner gives biographical analyses of each of these famous creative geniuses to illustrate his theory of multiple "intelligences" and of the psychological and developmental aspects of socially recognized creativity. When I personally asked Gardner for his estimate of the lowest IQ one could possibly have and be included in a list of names such as this, he said, "About 120." This would of course exclude 90 percent of the general population, and it testifies to the threshold nature of
g. That is, a fairly high level of
g is a necessary but not sufficient condition for achievement of socially significant creativity.
Gardner's seven "intelligences" were not arrived at through the factor analysis of psychometric tests, but are identified in terms of several kinds of categorical criteria, such as the extent to which an ability can be impaired or preserved in isolation by brain damage, the existence of idiots savants and prodigies in the particular ability, a common set of information-processing operations, a distinct developmental history, evolutionary plausibility, type of encoding in a symbolic system, modular or domain-specific abilities revealed by laboratory tasks, and the finding that psychometric tests such as IQ have low correlations with at least three of Gardner's seven "intelligences."
The boundaries of these criteria seem vague or elastic and one can easily imagine other "intelligences" that could be admitted by such criteria. Why is there no "sexual intelligence" (Casanova) or "criminal intelligence" (Al Capone)?
Some of Gardner's seven "intelligences" clearly correspond to well-identified group factors, such as linguistic (or verbal), logical-mathematical (or quantitative reasoning), and spatial. Tests of these abilities are all highly
g loaded, and many elements of musical aptitude have been found to be moderately
g loaded (see Chapter 8, p. 223). Other of Gardner's "intelligences" are not yet quantified or measurable in a way that makes it possible at present to assess their
g loadings or their place in the factor analytic hierarchy. Some may not meet the criteria of mental abilities as set forth in Chapter 3, but are rather products of psychometrically identified abilities and certain personality traits (see Chapter 14, pp. 572-578). The completely nonquantitative nature of Gardner's theorizing about "intelligences" makes it impossible to assess their relative importance in terms of variance accounted for in the total range of human variation or in terms of their predictive validity in real-life situations.
As interesting as his theory of "multiple intelligences" may seem from the standpoint of literary psychology, in which Gardner has no betters, it is hard to see that it contributes anything substantively new to the taxonomy of abilities and personality discovered by factor analysis.
In fact, it is hard to justify calling all of the abilities in Gardner's system by the same term -- "intelligences." If Gardner claims that the various abilities he refers to as "intelligences" are unrelated to one another (which has not been empirically demonstrated), what does it add to our knowledge to label them all "intelligences"? All of them, of course, are abilities (as defined in Chapter 3), several qualify as group factors, and at least three of the seven are known to be substantially
g loaded. To assign to the remaining traits the label "intelligences" makes no more sense to me than regarding chess-playing ability an athletic skill. (After all, playing chess requires some little physical activity, and chess players are jokingly called "wood pushers"). Bobby Fisher, then, could be claimed as one of the world's greatest athletes, and many sedentary chess players might be made to feel good by being called athletes. But who would believe it? The skill involved in chess isn't the kind of thing that most people think of as athletic ability, nor would it have any communality if it were entered into a factor analysis of typical athletic skills. Gardner's analogous extension of the ordinary meaning of "intelligence" probably serves more to make people feel good than to advance the science of mental ability.
In summary, I find nothing in Gardner's writings that could be considered a technically meaningful or coherent criticism of g theory. Gardner is at his best in writing about persons with some unusual accomplishment to illustrate his theory of different kinds of "intelligences." Galton, in his
Hereditary Genius (1869), recognized that a high level of general ability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for outstanding achievement. Besides an above-average level of
g, an exceptionally synergistic combination of special abilities or talents and personality traits is always found in the kinds of outstanding exemplars of Gardner's several kinds of "intelligences," such as the famous persons mentioned above. Most psychomtricians would probably agree with the criticism of Gardner's theory of "multiple intelligences" in a recent textbook ^{[34]} on "intelligence": "I have argued that a consideration of several sources of evidence used by Gardner to establish the existence of independent intelligences may be used to support the existence of a superordinate general intelligence factor. Thus I find his taxonomy to be arbitrary and without empirical foundation. Neither his rejection of a superordinate general factor [
g] nor the specific subset of intelligences that he postulates appears to have a firm theoretical or empirical basis" (p. 40).[/color]
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http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874. pp128-130.
32.
Gardner, 1983. This is the main exposition of Gardner's theory of "multiple intelligences."
33.
Gardner, 1993.
34.
Brody, 1992.[/color]
dyslexic wrote
Dr. Gardner's study ... can be very helpful as he focuses ... on ... that all persons posses strengths
Then he is what is known as a
motivational speaker.
All you can do is apply your own talents and do your best. Hapiness is what matters I think. :)
