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Shouldn't these "intelligences" just be called aptitudes?
Intelligence means how fast you can learn and think to me, nothing more. And psychometrically it's g (general intelligence) and its correlates.
It probably depends whether you favor the nature or nurture basis for childhood development. Are we inherently born with these aptitudes, or are they something that were taught to us from a young age? Or maybe a little bit of both?
Interesting article! My strengths are bodily-kinesthetic, Logical-Mathematical, and Intrapersonal. I wish I was better with interpersonal (though I have improved greatly) and musical. I doubt I'll pursue musical, as right now I'm working on learning another language (Linguistic). We can't be good at everything. I love being around people with good interpersonal skills, musical/artistic, and Linguistic (charismatic, persuasive specifically), and think they tend to be happiest in life, though I can't prove that aside from experiences with specific friends I have with those skills.
It probably depends whether you favor the nature or nurture basis for childhood development. Are we inherently born with these aptitudes, or are they something that were taught to us from a young age? Or maybe a little bit of both?
I'm guessing it's some of both.
I think that there is probably a physiological component to it, like a part of the biology, the brain, that renders us more or less able to learn and succeed at these different things. But I'm not sure that calling it genetic, or something that one is "born with" is quite accurate.
More like, the human mind is known to be more able to adapt in early childhood, from everything I ever heard or read. Resources will be put into growing and refining the areas that are activated, used. Less resources (energy, calories, whatever) will be put into developing areas not often used. Genetics will play a role, but one can probably adapt from an early age to be able to grow or atrophy various areas, based on one's exposure to the need.
And at later ages, late childhood on, one's willingness to cope with frustration will come into play, along with one's social adaptations. If one feels very sensitive to rejection and criticism from others, then one might not attempt to brute force the learning and growth needed to become good at something that they didn't have the foundations for. Say for instance I wanted to try and learn to play guitar. I feel that I am severely lacking in musical aptitude. Even holding an instrument in front of other people will give me the physiological beginnings of stress. My brain and body are sounding alarms, "You are not good at this, you will appear foolish and the other humans may mock and reject you for it! Put it down, that would be much safer."
So I don't try. I am afraid of it. I am afraid of failure and deep down, despite any contrary logic, I am afraid of social consequences for attempting something that I suck at.
That bodily kinesthetic stuff is even more terrifying for me. Trying to coordinate my body to do things, to dance for instance, to obey my mind's attempted commands and do what I want it to do, often feels like trying to run through a swimming pool. The only space where I feel safe dancing is a big chaotic environment full of wildly flailing people, with no effort to do anything right or wrong, just lots of movement and also no feeling that anyone is watching me in particular. If someone tries to teach me particular moves, I suddenly cannot remember left from right, I feel awkward and terrified, and I just can't do it. What I suspect, is that this is due to my early childhood, where I was the only child in sole company mostly of my Great Grandmother. I was taught early on to be quiet and not run around wild. There was very little physical activity. But I could read a newspaper by age 5. Now look at my posts. A pattern was set that has continued throughout my life.
It really is interesting how people can be smart in different ways. I have a friend, for example, who got really good grades in school, is really good with numbers and math and musically inclined. However, she has the least common sense of anyone I've ever met in my life. It can be quite frustrating to deal with someone with no common sense at times lol.
It really is interesting how people can be smart in different ways. I have a friend, for example, who got really good grades in school, is really good with numbers and math and musically inclined. However, she has the least common sense of anyone I've ever met in my life. It can be quite frustrating to deal with someone with no common sense at times lol.
My husband went to school with someone like that. Total genius----made the best marks of anyone. He tried to teach her to drive and she just could not handle it. Some geniuses are like that.
My husband went to school with someone like that. Total genius----made the best marks of anyone. He tried to teach her to drive and she just could not handle it. Some geniuses are like that.
In my experience and observation, extremely bright people also tend to be more "complicated" for lack of a better word, and/or they have some gaps in their coping abilities as you mention here. The way I tend to think of it is that everyone has a finite amount of attention, energy, etc., and if you use it up in some genius pursuit then something else is likely going to suffer.
They can also have what I call "compartmentalized" intelligence -- they can be a galaxy brain with respect to one thing and a complete dolt with respect to another.
I am definitely attracted to intelligence in romantic partners. Wife #2 was extremely bright at least in certain areas. She was a software developer on mainframe computers in the days when the tooling wasn't that great and she could read hexadecimal memory dumps like most people read the newspaper, and had tested out above 150 in IQ. But she was obsessed with the concept of "respect". She felt disrespected by teachers, parents, friends, extended family, and even, at times, me. It probably had to do with how she responded to her father abruptly abandoning her and her mother when she was 11, and how before that, he was so emotionally unattainable; she saw this as "disrespect" rather than a lot of other things it might have been, like indifference or inability (it was most likely part of his postwar PTSD). Also, through most of her adult life she was saddled with one of those "invisible diseases" where people don't see a missing eye or limb and assume you're just malingering; this didn't help. Anyway, smart as she was, she could not seem to allow people the benefit of the doubt.
One day, I had to sit her down and patiently explain that her mother buying her "cheap" gifts reflected her low income, not her low esteem. When I explained it to her, a sort of light bulb went on and she was far less critical of her mother after that ... which turned out to be a Good Thing since she ended up preceding her mother in death. Why couldn't she figure that out for herself? Who knows. I'm probably lucky she could see it at all. All I know is her mother was a sweet enough woman and thought the world of her daughter. Anyone could see that, apparently, except her daughter.
I have my blind spots too. It is just that such spots seem more ... for lack of a better term, "clearly defined" in the intelligent. Maybe because we tend to imagine that great intelligence should be across-the-board.
It probably depends whether you favor the nature or nurture basis for childhood development. Are we inherently born with these aptitudes, or are they something that were taught to us from a young age? Or maybe a little bit of both?
My grandmother was very creative, so was my maternal uncle, my paternal cousins, my parents were artists, I’m an artist but my sister didn’t have a creative bone in her body. So nurture wasn’t going to change that.
My husband went to school with someone like that. Total genius----made the best marks of anyone. He tried to teach her to drive and she just could not handle it. Some geniuses are like that.
Haha.. that is quite strange. Now that you mention it, my friend isn't the best driver either..
Intelligence means how fast you can learn and think to me, nothing more. And psychometrically it's g (general intelligence) and its correlates.
But shouldn't the definition of intelligence also include how well you perceive and understand connections, and how well orient yourself to a particular type of situation? ISTM the aptitudes or types of intelligence in the article all seem to reflect different aspects of that same basic principle.
I think being particularly good in any of these eight aspects of intelligence would have been useful since the beginning of humanity, and must have made groups of people stronger than the sum of their individuals, if different people in the group had different strengths.
Spacial: How far away is that mammoth? Spacial intelligence also gives a tool maker the ability to visualize the finished piece before he or she starts knapping the flint.
Kinesthetic: Who among us are the best at throwing a spear, so we can take the mammoth down?
Musical: Not too sure about this one, except that being naturally attentive to sounds would certainly have practical value.
Linguistic: Who can not only make a Levallois point, but teach others to do it?
Logical/Math Abstraction gives the ability to plan for general rather than specific scenarios. What if we go out looking for mammoths, but if we find a rhinoceros instead? What's different about taking down a rhino versus a mammoth? What's the same?
It's probably true of the others, too, in some way.
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