The Holi Intelligence

The festival Holi signifies the triumph of good over evil. It is also considered to be the festival of love. Even though its name and the way it is celebrated vary from region to region in India (Panguni Uthiram in Tamil Nadu,?Phaguwa in Bihar and so on), all varieties of this celebration are closely associated with using multiple colours. This explains why we often refer to Holi as the festival of colours.?

So, what comes to your mind when you see a variety of colours? Usually, multiple colours represent the idea of inclusivity. For example, the three colours of the Indian flag represent various elements that constitute our idea of nationalism. On the other hand, the LGBTIQ+ rainbow flag represents the spectrum of human sexuality and gender in an inclusive way. Using multiple colours to promote inclusivity makes perfect sense.

Let's examine another situation where multiple colours are used to explain the theory of Multiple Intelligences beautifully.

The above image shows different human intelligences that are compartmentalised into Musical - Rhythmic and Harmonic Intelligence, Logical-Mathematical Intelligence, Visual-Spatial Intelligence, etc. These intelligences are colour coded to explicitly depict how independent they are of each other. Also, this theory of human intelligence was proposed and popularised by the Harvard professor of Cognition and Education, Howard Gardner in his book Frames of Mind in 1983 (Nuzzi, 2018).

The general public and educators find this theory very convincing because it is proposed by someone famous. The only problem with this theory is, it is wrong!

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” is a popular quote by the famous scientist and Nobel Laureate, Richard P Feynman. This is not an attempt to counter-argue Howard Gardner's theory using a higher authority, but this is just to show how important empirical evidence is in epistemology.

Howard Gardner's idea is that humans have eight kinds of intelligences as Linguistic, Musical, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Naturalistic, and that these intelligences are independent of each other. He argued that separate brain regions are responsible for each of these intelligences and they have a separate developmental progression, i.e each of them has its own neural processing circuit (Gilman, 2001).

The growing literature in mainstream psychology doesn’t agree with Gardner's idea, whereas they consider the idea of General Intelligence (g factor) as an evidence-based theory. A recent study found that Gardner's different types of intelligence were closely correlated with the g factor. This justifies the existence of a single dominant intelligence which is inclusive of all the independent intelligences proposed by Gardner (Visser, Ashton & Vernon, 2006). Another study concludes that the multiple intelligences are interconnected and support each other during performance (Ahvan & Pour, 2016). This contradicts the very definition of independent multiple intelligences. Unlike the MI theory, the g factor is supported by biological factors as well.?Biological variables such as cerebral glucose metabolic rate (Haier et al., 1988) and brain volume measured by MRI scans (McDaniel, 2005; Wickett, Vernon, & Lee, 2000) correlate strongly with the g factor.

In conclusion, the beautiful-colourful theory of MI is an educational myth. You are not linguistically intelligent or kinesthetically intelligent; you are just intelligent. You may have different aptitudes, abilities or likes but it has nothing to do with your intelligence. If you don’t sing or if you don’t possess the skill to solve mathematical problems, that doesn’t make you less of an intelligent person. Your intelligence is beyond all these categories and you can be successful in your life by unleashing your true potential.

Hope this helps bring colour and warmth to each of us. Happy Holi!

References:

1. Nuzzi, R. J. (2018, November 5). multiple intelligences. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/multiple-intelligences
2. Gilman, L. (2001). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Indiana University.
3. Visser, B. A., Ashton, M. C., & Vernon, P. A. (2006). g and the measurement of Multiple Intelligences: A response to Gardner. Intelligence, 34(5), 507-510.
4. Ahvan, Y. R., & Pour, H. Z. (2016). The correlation of multiple intelligences for the achievements of secondary students. Educational Research and Reviews, 11(4), 141-145.
5. Haier, R. J., Siegel Jr, B. V., Nuechterlein, K. H., Hazlett, E., Wu, J. C., Paek, J., ... & Buchsbaum, M. S. (1988). Cortical glucose metabolic rate correlates of abstract reasoning and attention studied with positron emission tomography. Intelligence, 12(2), 199-217.
6. McDaniel, M. A. (2005). Big-brained people are smarter: A meta-analysis of the relationship between in vivo brain volume and intelligence. Intelligence, 33(4), 337-346.
7. Waterhouse, L. (2006). Inadequate evidence for multiple intelligences, Mozart effect, and emotional intelligence theories. Educational psychologist, 41(4), 247-255.