A Harvard psychologist Howard Gardener proposes existence of eight basic intelligences in his theory of multiple intelligences (MI). Gardener suggests that intelligence has more to do with the capacity for solving problems and fashioning products in a context-rich naturalistic setting.

Eight Intelligences

  1. Linguistic Intelligence – the capacity to use words effectively, weather orally or in writing
  2. Logical – Mathematical Intelligence – the capacity to use numbers effectively
  3. Spatial Intelligence – the ability to perceive the visual – spatial world accurately and perform transformations on those perceptions
  4. Bodily – Kinesthetic Intelligence – Expertise in using one’s whole body to express ideas and feelings and facility in using one’s hands to produce or transform things.
  5. Musical Intelligence – the capacity to perceive, discriminate, transform and express musical forms
  6. Interpersonal Intelligence – the ability to perceive and make distinctions in the moods, intentions, motivations, and feelings of other people.
  7. Intrapersonal Intelligence – self- knowledge and the ability to act adaptively on the basis of that knowledge.
  8. Naturalist Intelligence –expertise in the recognition and classification of the numerous species –the flora and fauna – of an individual’s environment.

MI theory is a theory of cognitive functioning, and it proposes that each person has capacity in all eight intelligences. Everyone has the capacity to develop all eight intelligences to a reasonably high level of performance if given the appropriate encouragement, enrichment and instruction. Intelligences are always interacting with each other. MI theory emphasizes the rich diversity of ways in which people show their gifts within intelligences as well as between intelligences.