How Smart Are You? Choose From These 8 Examples!

In recent years, a very popular thought has been demystified and we no longer consider that intelligence is unique, but we recognize different types of intelligence.

This means that, for example, a person may be extremely intelligent from a theoretical point of view but unable to apply that intelligence to solve problems of a practical type (or vice versa).

The field of educational or evolutionary psychology has shown us that there are multiple intelligences.

It was author Howard Gardner who, in 1983, introduced the concept of multiple intelligences as so many sub-parts that make up personal intelligence, squandering the unitary concept of the term.

Far from linking intelligence to purely intellectual academic results, Gardner has established that intelligence is rooted in personal skills, which are modifiable and changeable.

What determines which intelligence predominates over others is the interaction between biological heredity and the living environment.

Therefore, intelligence is used as an instrument that adapts to the environment, through our capacities to solve or generate new problems, according to different cultures.

The different types of intelligence

Intelligence can be divided into eight types:

1. Linguistic-verbal: Predominant among people who express themselves adequately, both at the written and oral levels.

2. Logical-mathematical: It involves solving problems very quickly, through the manipulation of multiple variables and using deductive and inductive methods.

3. Spatial: Great skills in drawing, perceiving and visualizing details.

4. Musical: Predominant among people who know how to listen, reproduce and create music.

5. Bodily-cenesthetic: A great capacity for bodily control, expression and coordination.

6. Intra-personal: It is this intelligence which is based on the knowledge and the management of the emotions and the own thoughts, with the aim of drawing conclusions from them.

7. Inter-personal: It allows you to read and understand the desires, motivations and emotions of others, independently of language.

8. Naturalist: If it does not appear in the original list of types of intelligence, the author added it in 1995. “Naturalistic intelligence” is that which is based on the recognition of the relationships between animals and other elements of the natural world.

It is important to say that in the past, only intelligences 1 and 2 were used as the basis for the Intellectual Daily exams.

In addition, each type of intelligence defines the type of social, cultural, professional environment that we could develop in the most efficient way.

The importance of education systems

We all have different types of intelligence that are on the list, but not to the same extent because there is always one that outshines the rest.

Despite advances in these theoretical fields, the current educational system still benefits people today who have high levels of verbal and mathematical intelligence, minimizing the capabilities of other intelligences.

This poses the problem of changing the educational system, because all classes of intelligence should be of equal importance.

The key would be to generate diverse and personalized education systems, which would take into account the particular characteristics, thus stimulating the strengths of each student.

It is fundamental to recognize (and to be guided to discover it, when it is necessary) in what type of intelligence we are, in order to thus benefit from our competences to the maximum, because this will define the type of learning that we will use. and which path we will take in our life.