Two Decades of «multiple Intelligences»: Implications for Educational Psychology

telligence was conceived in the last two decades of the 20th century: Frames of Mind, Gardner (1983); Beyond IQ, Sternberg (1985); The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray (1994); and Emotional Intelligence, Goleman (1995). Gardner’s book, the first of them all, did not cause any particular stir on its publication, and remained discreetly in the background. That of Sternberg raised some dust due to its harsh criticism of the use of IQ tests. The work by Herrnstein and Murray, ironically the most classical of them all, following as it did the traditional psychometric line, provoked a lively scientific debate that brought considerable fame (and notoriety) to the book. It argued that intelligence was a unitary and largely hereditary capacity distributed among the population in the form of a bell curve; it claimed, moreover, that many of the ills of our society are due to the behaviour and shortcomings of people with relatively low intelligence. Goleman’s book, which appeared the following year, went further insofar as it became the best-selling social science book (despite being the least scientific of the four) in history. Nevertheless, in the cold light of day, after all the press attention has died down, the book that has truly left a mark on society, and particularly on the Psychology of Education, is that of Gardner who, flying in the face of the traditional thesis of a single intelligence, declared the existence of multiple intelligences in human beings. Gardner (1983, 1999) refused to accept the monolithic and stable conception of intelligence, and came to the conclusion that there were just two possible alternatives: to continue with the traditional ideas of intelligence and of how it should be measured, or to find a new way of interpreting and developing what we understand by this construct. He chose the second option. But the challenge for Gardner – and this is where, as so many times before, the shadow of humanity’s past creeps onto the scene – is not only to discover the true nature of intelligence or how it can be developed, but to find how to combine intelligence and ethics to create a world in which we all wish to and are able to live. After all, a society run by intelligent people could quite easily end in disaster or finish the planet off altogether. Intelligence is valuable, but personality is more important (Gardner, 1999). And dissatisfaction with the psychometric interpretation was not confined to psychologists; neuroscientists were sceptical about psychology’s assumptions on intelligence, and thought it more reasonable to conceive of the brain as housing an indeterminate quantity of intellectual capacities whose relationship required clarification (Pinker, 1997) Likewise, professionals in information technology TWO DECADES OF «MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES»: IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY