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Review

Reviewed Work(s): Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner

Review by: Richard E. Snow

Source: American Journal of Education , Nov., 1985, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Nov., 1985), pp. 109- 112

Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1085295

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Book Reviews

Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1983. xiii+440 pp.; notes, name and subject indexes. $23.50.

Richard E. Snow

Stanford University

Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind seeks to provide "a new theory of human intellectual competencies ... [that] challenges the classical view of intelligence that most of us have absorbed explicitly (from psychology and education texts) or implicitly (by living in a culture with a strong but possibly circumscribed view of intelligence)" (p. 5). Apparently, this classical view is that intelligence is a single-rank order based on the verbal and reasoning abilities reflected by standardized IQ tests. The new view, which Gardner admits is not really new, is that distinct kinds of intellectual competencies ought to be thought of as different "intelligences." The new contribution will be to reach a new foundation for this view in the confluence of evidence coming from the widely disparate, recent advances in biology, cognitive psychology, and cultural research; a new basis for the improvement of psychological assessment and educational practice is thus envisioned.

For Gardner, a human intellectual competence is a "relatively auton- omous ... set of skills of problem solving ... [that enables persons] to resolve genuine problems or difficulties ... and, when appropriate, to create an effective product.... [It] also entail[s] the potential for finding or creating problems-thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge" (pp. 8, 60-61; emphasis in original). This definition is much like many previous definitions of intelligence, except for the word "autonomous." To decide whether or not a proposed set of skills qualifies as such, eight criteria or "signs of an intelligence" are applied. Briefly, these are: the potential destruction, or sparing in isolation, of the set by brain damage; the existence of idiot savants, prodigies, and other exceptional individuals showing the set; an identifiable core operation or set of operations; a distinctive developmental history, along with a definable set of expert, goal achievements; an evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility; support from research with ex-

RICHARD E. SNOW is professor of education and psychology at Stan- ford University. He is currently on leave as liaison scientist for psychology in Europe and the Middle East for the U.S. Office of Naval Research, London branch office.

November 1985 109

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Book Reviews

perimental laboratory tasks; support from research with psychometric tests; and susceptibility to encoding in a culturally contrived symbol system, such as language, picturing, mathematics, music, or dance.

In the core chapters of the book, each of the following, surviving candidates are reviewed in some detail: linguistic, musical, logical- mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and intra- and interpersonal intelligences. In the introductory chapters and in each of these sub- sequent chapters, the author brings to bear a rich spectrum of knowledge in defining and elaborating each proposed intelligence. Important use is made of evolutionary biology; genetics; the neurophysiology and psychology of brain damage; clinical studies of brain-damaged patients, idiot savants, and protegies; and cultural psychological and anthro- pological analyses of what makes for recognized talent in different ecological niches the world over. The result is beautifully written, inspiring prose. There is much here to enrich our thinking about individual differences and their biological and cultural correlates.

The final two chapters, however, fall flat in their attempt to draw out educational and social implications. It is suggested that attempts should be made early to identify talents in each of the proposed in- telligences, that the matching of instruction to different intellectual profiles is critical, that assessment of such profiles requires lengthy clinical study, and that the design and evaluation of educational programs should take the idea of multiple intelligences into account. There are some interesting cross-cultural examples provided in this section of the book. But the advice given to educators is superficial and rather behind the times; thoughtful educators will find little in these chapters that they did not already know.

This reviewer is in sympathy with the author's scientific and edu- cational goals and with much that he writes along the way. But sympathy does not make science. This book attempts to popularize-with flowing, glowing prose unencumbered by the scientific nuts and bolts-ideas that are still in the laboratory, the observational records, and the imag- ination of author, reviewer, and no doubt many other researchers as well. The following questions to the author and to his public are thus prompted by my reading.

Why write a popular book on this topic now, open to the criticism that it is more journalism than science? Why make no serious attempt at proper citation of the vast and detailed supporting scientific literature, or of the scientific literature that contradicts? The book teems with

valuable hypotheses about brain organization and about culture, in relation to human abilities, but only the expert can tell which statement is probable fact, which is bold hypothesis, and which is in the vast range between.

110 American Journal of Education

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Book Reviews

In particular, why set up as straw men the conventional intelligence tests, the psychometric research with them, and the old Spearman- Thurstone argument about one versus many cognitive abilities, and cite Gould(!) as an authority? Informed educators and researchers know (though the public may not) that IQ tests do not just produce single scores and are not used today in isolation as they were decades ago; that Binet, Wechsler, and significant others along the way were imaginative clinical theorists of intelligence, not advocates of blind single-rank ordering; and that several decades of psychometric research by Cattell and Horn, Vernon, Guttman, and many others (see, e.g., Gustaffson 1984; Snow, Kyllonen, and Marshalek 1984) coalesce in a hierarchical model of human abilities that is closely consistent with the distinction between linguistic (i.e., crystallized-verbal-educational), logical-mathematical (i.e., fluid-analytic), and spatial (i.e., spatial-vis- ualization-mechanical) intelligence but is much more elaborate in its identification of the constituent abilities involved in each than is this

book. Why ignore in all the discussion of logical-mathematical intel- ligence, flexibility, and metaphorical and analogical thinking the pos- sibility that the G of the psychometric hierarchy is reflected here? Why ignore the wealth of new evidence about the details of all this coming from cognitive-information-processing research (see, e.g., Sternberg 1985)? Why ignore Seashore's extensive work on musical ability, or the extensive psychology of psychomotor and physical abilities, or the strong upsurge of new work in the last decade on social intelligence? Why imply that psychometric and laboratory research has done nothing about all these categories of talent? Why cite psychometric and laboratory evidence, or evidence for underlying identifiable operations, as criteria but acknowledge none of it in discussion? Why suggest that Piagetian developmental theory is wrong in general but right within categories of intelligence, when there is mounting evidence that Piagetian theory is also wrong within categories? It is simply not satisfactory to say that to deal with all of this would require another book.

Why cite biological and cultural evidence as though its implications were entirely clear? Why should certain cultures that produce particular kinds of intelligence not be recognized for producing that kind of in- telligence rather than only evolving or unfolding it? What new and different kinds of intelligence might we expect to find in Culture X or on Planet Y? Why should idiot savants and autistic individuals, or prodigies for that matter, be accepted as displaying isolated intelligence when their speciality might well be the result of much that is not biological? Why should anyone accept a general theory of brain or- ganization that applies (if it does) only to right-handed persons or to brain-damaged persons?

November 1985 111

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Rook Reviews

A popular book should be representative of all the best that psy- chological science has to say on a topic today-the best evidence as well as the best speculation. It should be couched in terms that, as much as possible, avoid misrepresentation byjournalists. I do not know what U.S. newspapers and popular educational journals have said about this book, but here is the lead caption from a review in the New Scientist (June 7, 1984), a respected science weekly in Britain: "Con- ventional intelligence testing produces a single score for each of us, regardless of our strengths and weaknesses. The American psychologist Howard Gardner has returned to the old idea of several separate skills that can be measured independently of one another." I think this says something more, less, and different than Gardner intended.

References

Gustaffson, J-E. "A Unifying Model for the Structure of Intellectual Abilities." Intelligence 8 (1984): 179-203. Snow, R. E., P. C. Kyllonen, and B. Marshalek. "The Topography of Ability and Learning Correlations." In Advances in the Psychology of Human Intelligence, vol. 2. Edited by R. J. Sternberg. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1984. Sternberg, R. J., ed. Human Abilities: An Information Processing Approach. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1985.

112 American Journal of Education

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