When we speak of somebody who’s intelligent, we most often are referring to a person who’s smart and who knows a lot about certain things. This individual may be an expert in his subject matter, or a brilliant conversationalist.
Whatever is the case, to use the adjective “intelligent” in describing someone will typically point to the mental capacity.
There is nothing inherently wrong about this thinking because it’s true. You are indeed intelligent when you have that muscle in between your ears functioning as it should, and probably better than most people.
However, this definition is somewhat limiting. Why? Because intelligence is far more than just the brains. It speaks of the person in quite a holistic sense.
What exactly do I mean?
Well, you can be an intelligent being without exactly hitting the books all the time. Maybe you’re excellent at interpersonal relationships, or perhaps you are an extraordinary athlete.
There are simply so many other facets to it. So, let’s dig deeper into the subject to learn more about the different kinds of intelligence.
The intelligent types
How many different kinds of intelligence are there?
If you try and Google your way through the topic at hand, you will quickly find out that the material on kinds of intelligence is definitely not in short supply.
In fact, you will be overwhelmed by how much you can read through. However, let’s simplify things for you and stick to the most basic ones.
There are essentially nine types of intelligence, according to a number of psychological studies done by the authors of the Science of People website and some renowned universities.
These educational institutions have even begun to consider these in providing customised education to their students to address their specific intelligence category.
The nine types are:
- spatial
- naturalist musical
- logical-mathematical
- existential
- interpersonal
- bodily-kinesthetics
- linguistic
- intra-personal
Without having to go through each in detail, let’s categorise them instead to make things a bit simpler.
Mind/reasoning smart
This category pertains to your intelligence in number and reasoning, your word wisdom, and spatial abilities.
If you’re the type who can make sense of complicated puzzles and find meaning in patterns, you may be logically/mathematically smart.
Sequential reasoning, induction and deduction as well as symbolic and abstract thoughts are your kind of thing.
You also find joy thinking in 3D! Solving puzzles and mazes is your favourite pastime and you have a bright future in design and any career involving your imaginative mind.
Now, some people are also linguistically gifted. They have a way with words and have an excellent command of several languages, not just one. They are storytellers and are very proficient communicators.
People smart
Now, like I said, intelligence is not restricted in the mind. There are those who are smart in terms of their interpersonal and intra-personal aspects or the “people person” as they are more commonly known.
You are this kind of smart if you get along well with others because you can discern their various personalities and mood swings and adjust how you interact with them accordingly.
Due to this skill, you can talk effortlessly with people and they can have a vibrant conversation with you without a hilt.
These individuals will develop a lot of deep and significant connections their entire life.
On the one hand, people smart can also mean self-smart, or those who are highly introspective and have an acute understanding of themselves compared to others.
Aside from this profound insight of oneself, you are also keenly aware of the nature of man and all the intricacies of his behaviour.
These people make excellent therapists, social workers or even writers.
Talent smart
This type of smart may not be typically seen as “intelligent” since there are other adjectives that you can use to describe people that fall in this particular category.
For instance, somebody who’s obviously a fantastic singer or an amazing musician of some type will be remembered as a person with special musical prowess but not necessarily intelligent.
But, you must realize that these people are also brilliant in their own way. It takes an extraordinary kind of wisdom to “listen” to various tones, timbre, rhythm, pitch and other musical components and some people just don’t have it in them to be sensitive to these things.
They say that you must be born with this skill to be truly great at it. Therefore, somebody who has this talent is also smart.
Another type is those of athletes. Again, these people are known to be exceptional in their chosen sports, but rarely described as intelligent. But, again, when you have bodily-kinesthetics intelligence, you have that keen sense of your surroundings, the people and objects in it.
Your body can move around these physical elements with precision and perfect timing. They give extraordinary performances in their sports category because of being body smart.
Life Smart
People who are existentially smart are those who are deep thinkers.
They ponder on the meaning of life and how every single moment comes together to make the world the way it is now for everybody. They will make excellent philosophers or inspirational speakers.
Apart from this, there is also what you may call a born naturalist. They love being outdoors, connecting with nature. They feel most alive when they are around or when they care for flora and fauna alike.
Environmentalists, scientists or even people who are simply outside communing with the natural world belong in this category of intelligence.
What now?
What then must we do with this knowledge about multiple intelligence types?
Thanks to Howard Gardner, who was the main proponent of this concept in his time, we now have a broader understanding of what it means to be smart.
Even if you don’t exhibit the mind smart stereotype, it doesn’t mean that you are not intelligent in some other way. It gives us the motivation to dig deeper into the person to discover his kind of genius.
As for the rest of us, it will help to do a bit of introspection ourselves and know for sure where our smarts lie.
Armed with this information and how we see where our inclinations point us to, we can take steps towards our personal growth and development by giving focus to our unique strengths and weaknesses.
So, what do you say? Isn’t it exciting to know which kind of smart you are? Keep exploring the different kinds of human intelligence to find out!
The Fit Stewards 