Multiple Intelligences

In Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons, Howard Gardner presents his theory of multiple intelligences (MI), its educational applications, and its expanding global influence. Gardner opens by contrasting MI theory with the traditional, singular view of intelligence that took root after French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence test in 1900 Paris to predict which children would struggle in primary school. The test gave rise to the concept of the intelligence quotient (IQ), which became deeply entrenched in the United States after it was used to assess over one million military recruits during World War I. Gardner critiques the "uniform view" of schooling that accompanies this framework: a core curriculum taught the same way to all students and assessed through standardized tests, an approach that privileges what he calls the "IQ or SAT mind." He argues this system is fundamentally unfair despite appearing equitable, and proposes a pluralistic view of the mind that recognizes many discrete cognitive faculties. He defines an intelligence as a biopsychological computational capacity to process certain kinds of information, one that enables a person to solve problems or create products valued in a particular cultural setting. To identify candidate intelligences, he reviews evidence from fields including brain damage studies, cross-cultural cognition, and research on exceptional populations such as prodigies and savants.

Gardner presents the original set of seven intelligences, each illustrated with a biographical vignette: musical intelligence (violinist Yehudi Menuhin's powerful response to music before any training), bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (baseball player Babe Ruth's instant recognition of his affinity for pitching), logical-mathematical intelligence (Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock's rapid problem-solving in microbiology), linguistic intelligence (poet T. S. Eliot's literary production at age 10), spatial intelligence (Caroline Islands sailors who navigate using stars and mental mapping without instruments), interpersonal intelligence (educator Anne Sullivan's sensitivity to her student Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind), and intrapersonal intelligence (writer Virginia Woolf's reflective analysis of her emotional life). For each intelligence, Gardner marshals supporting evidence from neuroscience, developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, and cross-cultural research.

He then describes one intelligence added after the original seven and one that remains a candidate. Naturalist intelligence, the capacity to recognize and distinguish among species and other features of the natural world, was prompted by evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr's challenge that Charles Darwin's abilities could not be explained by the original set. Existential intelligence, the proclivity to ponder fundamental questions about existence, death, and love, performs well on most criteria but lacks sufficient evidence of dedicated brain regions; Gardner refers humorously to "8½ intelligences." He also explains why humor and morality do not qualify as separate intelligences, stressing that intelligences are descriptive rather than normative. Poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels both possessed strong linguistic intelligence but applied it toward very different ends.

Gardner summarizes MI theory's key conclusions: All humans possess the full range of intelligences; no two individuals, not even identical twins, share the same intellectual profile; and possessing a strong intelligence does not guarantee using it well. He identifies three societal biases: "Westist" (privileging Western logical values), "Testist" (valuing only what can be tested), and "Bestist" (believing all answers lie in a single approach).

Reflecting on 25 years of developments, Gardner clarifies several refinements. He distinguishes between an intelligence (a biopsychological construct) and a domain (any organized activity within a society, such as a craft or discipline), noting that confusing the two leads to errors like declaring a student cannot learn geometry for lacking spatial intelligence, when geometry can be mastered through various intelligence combinations. He delineates three meanings of the term "intelligence": as a species characteristic, as an individual difference, and as a quality of performance judged against specific goals and values. He introduces two contrasting profile types: the "laser" profile, featuring pronounced strength in one or two intelligences, and the "searchlight" profile, balancing several intelligences without a dominant spike.

Gardner also examines how intelligence relates to other valued capacities. He proposes that giftedness is precocious potential in a cultural domain, expertise requires roughly a decade of sustained work, creativity involves producing novel products accepted by knowledgeable judges, and genius entails creative work of universal significance that redefines a domain.

Gardner traces how MI theory unexpectedly became an educational framework. Though his earlier book Frames of Mind contained only a few paragraphs on education, teachers immediately adopted its ideas, sometimes in ways he had neither described nor endorsed. His attitude shifted after an Australian state paired ethnic groups with purported intelligence strengths and deficits. He appeared on Australian television to denounce the program as "pseudoscience," and the state canceled it.

He identifies three central educational implications. First, individual-centered education: Schools should learn about each student's strengths and craft instruction accordingly, using roles such as an assessment specialist, a student-curriculum broker who matches students with appropriate curricula and teaching methods, and a school-community broker who connects students with vocational and avocational options in the wider community. Second, educators must articulate clear goals before applying MI theory, since the theory is a hypothesis about cognition, not an educational prescription. Third, genuine understanding is best achieved when students encounter key concepts through multiple entry points drawing on different intelligences, including narrational, logical, quantitative, aesthetic, experiential, and collaborative approaches.

Several chapters detail educational experiments. Project Spectrum, developed for preschoolers by Gardner and his colleagues, immerses children in materials that evoke a range of intelligences through activities like a naturalist's corner and a storytelling area. Research at Tufts University found that most children displayed at least one domain strength and one weakness, and that the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale did not predict performance across Spectrum activities. The approach was extended to Somerville, Massachusetts, a working-class community, where it revealed hidden talents: a six-year-old boy named Donnie, at high risk of school failure, excelled at assembly tasks beyond most adults' abilities, and his school performance improved after his teacher found new ways to engage him. At the elementary level, the Key Learning Community in Indianapolis, founded by teacher Patricia Bolanos and colleagues as the first school dedicated to MI ideas, features apprenticeship-like "pods," theme-related projects videotaped into evolving portfolios, and visits from community specialists. At the secondary level, Arts PROPEL, a collaboration with the Educational Testing Service and the Pittsburgh Public Schools, addresses arts education through domain projects and processfolios (collections of drafts, sketches, self-critiques, and finished works documenting artistic process), emphasizing production, perception, and reflection.

Gardner presents a critique of standardized testing, arguing that American society has veered too far toward decontextualized assessment. He proposes features of a better approach, including ecological validity (assessment in contexts resembling real-world performance), intelligence-fair instruments (measures that do not privilege linguistic or logical-mathematical skills), and assessment embedded naturally within learning environments.

In coauthored chapters, Gardner examines how societal contexts shape definitions of intelligence. In traditional societies, intelligence was associated with maintaining social bonds; in industrial societies, it centered on literacy and scholastic performance. Gardner and his coauthors propose that intelligence is best understood as the engagement between individual competences and the opportunities, institutions, and values a society provides. A chapter on the workplace, coauthored with Seana Moran, argues that the notion of a single, all-purpose intelligence is outdated in a fast-changing economy. The authors describe how intelligences interact through bottlenecks (one constraining others), compensation (one making up for another), and catalysts (one enhancing another), applying these dynamics to career planning, team composition, and leadership.

Gardner concludes by tracing eight phases in the study of intelligence, from lay conceptions before 1900 through what he calls "the humanization of intelligence," which involves yoking intellectual capacities to ethical responsibility. He describes the theory's expanding global influence, citing examples such as MI-based schools worldwide, a conference in Beijing attended by over 2,500 educators, awards in the Philippines honoring citizens who exemplify particular intelligences, and the Explorama at Danfoss Universe in Denmark, an exhibit facility designed to activate specific intelligences. He anticipates that neuroscience and genetics will further refine the theory, and invokes economist John Maynard Keynes's observation that escaping old ideas is harder than developing new ones.