Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Gardner introduces the works of Sigmund Freud and William James, psychoanalysts at the turn of the 20th century who embodied different approaches to human psychology. Freud emphasized knowledge of the internal self, while James “stressed the importance of relationships with other individuals” (252). These two forms of psychological study encompass the two personal intelligences—intrapersonal and interpersonal—and though Freud and James focused on different aspects of human consciousness, they both believed in the importance of the individual self and its capacity to grow and change. 

Intrapersonal intelligence involves understanding one’s own feelings and emotions and using them in fundamental ways to influence behavior. Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to observe and analyze other individuals’ behavior and come to conclusions that, again, influence one’s own behavior. Gardner points to skilled political and religious leaders like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. to indicate people with highly developed interpersonal intelligences.

Gardner admits that the personal intelligences are the most intensely variable along cultural lines since every human’s unique consciousness is shaped to a certain degree by their language and cultural practice while still existing individually. Additionally, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences are so profoundly intermingled with one another that separating them into discrete intelligences seems disingenuous, yet lumping them into the same category also seems incorrect. Despite these conceptual difficulties, Gardner feels that the personal intelligences “are of tremendous importance in many, if not all, societies in the world” and that ignoring them does a disservice to the study of intelligence (255).

During child development, infants learn to recognize faces and expressions early on, and their initial language attempts usually involve an intrapersonal expression of emotion or desire. The caregiver must in turn draw on their interpersonal intelligence to care for the infant, who cannot express their needs as successfully as an older child or adult. Later, children form attachments to characters that they identify with in fairy tales, books, or movies, interpreting aspects of themselves through these representations. Adolescence often features fraught explorations of the self as distinguished from friends or family. Later, culture shapes the individual’s understanding of the self and its relationship to the wider community, with social constructs like marriage, warfare, and work forming facets of identity. However, every culture seems to acknowledge that being human involves an outward self defined by actions and an inward self dictated by thoughts and emotions.

Though animals have been shown to experience emotions and even self-knowledge, with elephants famously able to recognize themselves in a mirror, humans are uniquely able to reflect on and analyze their own consciousness. Instances of brain damage and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s creating drastic personality changes have shown that personality is a neurological phenomenon that external factors affect. Chemical imbalance issues like depression or anxiety can cause a person to dramatically change their understanding of their own identity and their relationships, often based solely on a change within their own brain.

At the same time, interpersonal relationships are often crucial to the development of the self. In communities like the Maori of New Zealand, identity is seen as formed almost entirely from external forces like the opinion of the larger community and the inherited status of the family line. This is also true in some Western spaces, but philosophical thought in the midcentury modern world focused on the individual identity in ways that profoundly influenced Western understanding of the self. Nevertheless, many great thinkers, like Shakespeare or Keats, displayed a powerful facility with interpersonal knowledge that has influenced Western society as well.

Gardner concludes by reflecting on the complicated nature of these final two intelligences. He acknowledges that his description of them is vaguer than his descriptions of the last five, which he attributes to the fact that the personal intelligences are so changeable and culturally dependent. He also considers as a whole the “family of seven intelligences” (291). He groups them as logical-mathematical, spatial, and bodily-kinesthetic (object-related forms of intelligence), linguistic and musical (“object-free forms”), and the personal intelligences as, at this moment, uncategorized.

Gardner anticipates critique of his multiple intelligences theory because of its novel nature as well as his less-rigorous examination of their potential limitations, which he admits have been “glossed over or ignored altogether” in his introductions (293).

He starts by acknowledging that neurological research does not robustly support his idea that each type of intelligence is, to some degree, located physically in the brain and controlled by a discrete mechanism. He states that this understanding should be considered somewhat metaphorical, intended to showcase that every human being possesses every intelligence simply because they are human.

Next, he points out that the idea of multiple intelligences is not new and has in fact existed in different forms since Ancient Greece. His version is meant to counteract the tunnel-vision approach of more modern intelligence research, which focuses on logical and linguistic intelligences. It is also meant to showcase how different human competencies can qualify as intelligence alongside more traditional Western interpretations of intelligence. He also anticipates criticism based on the parts of human cognition that were apparently left out. For instance, motivation, morality, and even “common sense” are all vital parts of human competence yet don’t seem to have a place in his system. He argues that these factors represent different spheres of human consciousness than intelligence, though they interact with the intelligences in very crucial ways. Gardner also explores traits like originality and metaphorical capacity, noting that human ingenuity and the ability to link and signify ideas are strongly correlated with intelligence, yet ignored by this model. The “general synthesizing power” often referred to as wisdom (309), or the ability to make sound judgments based on a variety of factors, is also skimmed over.

Gardner excuses these omissions by clarifying his definition of intelligence, which is significantly different from other definitions. In his model, intelligence is most aptly defined as “raw intellectual capacities” present in every stage of human development and in every culture (314). This is a profoundly different definition of intelligence than those given by other psychologists or researchers, but it allows for intelligence to be considered somewhat apart from its effect on the individual and on the world. Intelligences are a group of vital human tools for making meaning in the world, but they are separate from the achievements that depend on them.

Gardner now places the symbol as central to his framework; they are the bridge that allows his model, “rooted in the psychology of intelligences, [to] be effectively linked with the concerns of culture” (316). He proposes that symbols create the bridge between the internal, individual nature of intelligences and their cultural effect. He defines a symbol as “any entity (material or abstract) that can denote or refer to any other entity” (316). A line in a drawing can be as much a symbol as a stone found in a backyard. Symbols convey not only information but also emotion, allowing for effective communication of internal modes of being.

Gardner covers symbol engagement in childhood development, including the basic symbols created by sound and language in infancy, as well as the stringing together of symbols as a toddler speaks, draws, and pretends or as a young child creates syntactic meaning through language and learns the basics of human existence through symbolic play. A baby can pick up a block: A four-year-old can understand that placing blocks in a certain arrangement signifies a “house” like the house they live in. This indicates the growing sophistication of symbol use in early childhood.

Gardner states that children engage in several “streams” of symbol learning at the same time. They learn the symbolic nature of language, art, dance, and logic and math simultaneously, and they use the different streams to create diverse meanings. However, Gardner also proposes that “waves” of symbolism create bursts of understanding in children. Children seem to grasp different complex aspects of symbolism out of nowhere, suddenly understanding that events require predictable sets of symbols (i.e., sleep requires a bed and a blanket, so putting a doll to sleep requires symbolizing those things). Later, they learn to approximate shapes with symbols—for instance, with a stick person representing a human being. Then, finally, they learn the importance of numerical quantity, taking care to draw enough toes and fingers on feet and hands to signify properly.

In this way, symbolization interacts with all of the intelligences and creates a feedback system between the individual’s internal experience and the culture surrounding them. Mastery of various symbol systems, like writing and mathematical language, becomes a focus of education, entrenching skilled symbol use as an accepted end-state of the intelligences.

Gardner outlines the positions of other fields of intelligence research on symbols and how their use predicts intelligence. Though he acknowledges the value of their contributions, he believes that Piaget and others engaged in flawed thinking that centered the individual’s capacity for thought without considering the profound effect of culture on intelligence. Gardner posits that a true and useful definition of intelligence would take into account inherent intellectual advantages, the relatively uniform stages of childhood development, and the ways in which individuals “are shaped and transformed by the particular practices and values of culture” (342). This is the goal of Gardner’s work, and he acknowledges that it is flawed and evolving as a theory. However, he emphasizes that understanding intelligence as multifaceted, hard to grasp, and continually evolving in its functions is crucial to creating models that accurately reflect human intelligence and its interaction with cultural symbols.