INTRAPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE: What it is, Examples and Activities to Improve It

Howard Gardner revolutionized the concept of intelligence in the 1980s. His Theory of Multiple Intelligences breaks with the academic approach to intelligence and shows that the IQ is made up of various factors or types of intelligence. This theory includes the intelligence to understand and relate to our own person, the so-called intrapersonal intelligence. It is an intelligence intimately linked to emotions, whose development is related to our well-being. If you want to continue learning about this intelligence, be sure to read our Psychology-Online article: Intrapersonal intelligence: what it is, examples and activities to improve it.

Index

1. What is intrapersonal intelligence
2. Intrapersonal intelligence: characteristics
3. Intrapersonal intelligence: examples
4. Interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence: differences
5. Intrapersonal intelligence: activities for youth and adults
6. Intrapersonal intelligence test

Intrapersonal intelligence is one of the types of intelligences recognized by the psychologist Gardner in his Theory of multiple intelligences. This intelligence is related to the quality of relationship we have with ourselves or ourselves. But what is intrapersonal intelligence?

Interpersonal intelligence: definition

The definition of intrapersonal intelligence consists of the ability and degree of self-knowledge, as well as the ability to perceive and form a true individual image, as objective as possible and adjusted to reality. This intelligence implies awareness and knowledge of own intentions, motivations, desires, moods, emotions, abilities, etc. In short, intrapersonal intelligence is having self-knowledge about who we are and what we want and being able to use this information for a more appropriate performance in life, as well as the development of a behavior consequent. This ability allows us analyze our thoughts and feelings, know what happens to us, how to address our emotional needs and act in a way that has a positive impact on our emotional well-being.

Interpersonal intelligence: Howard Gardner

The intrapersonal intelligence of Howard Gardner it is related to the capacities of self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation:

• Self-awareness or self-knowledge: It implies the self-recognition of our feelings, thoughts and reactions, how they affect us, as well as the cause that is at the base of these. It includes emotional awareness, self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and self-confidence.
• Self-regulation: refers to the ability to act based on prior knowledge of our emotions. It also includes the ability to reflect on our own emotions that we are experiencing, their causes and how to act based on them. It is based on the skills of self-control, reliability, adaptability and innovation.
• Self motivation: It is the capacity by which we are capable of establishing and fulfilling our own goals and objectives and of making efforts based on what we want to achieve. Self-motivation is related to the capacity for achievement, commitment, initiative and optimism.

Regarding the cerebral location of intrapersonal intelligence, it can be located mainly in the frontal lobes, which are in charge of executive functions and regulation of people's behavior, and the parietal lobes, in charge of integrating the information. It is also located in the limbic system, the emotional part of the brain.

Below we list the characteristics of intrapersonal intelligence:

• People with this intelligence are capable of describe and explain one's own emotions and feelings accurately and in detail. They are also able to identify their own emotions easily, since they pay attention to their physical and emotional state and reflect on it.
• There is a high capacity for introspection, so the person is reflected and self-observed in order to know himself more and have a greater awareness of oneself. People with this intrapersonal intelligence spend time and enjoy this internal reflection, it is a must for them. In the following article you will find How to do an introspection exercise.
• They also usually analyze your own actions, since they tend to try to understand them, value them and learn from mistakes for future occasions.
• People with intrapersonal intelligence have a self-concept adjusted to reality about your personality, strengths and limitations. This knowledge helps them to be able to make decisions that have a beneficial impact on their own person more easily, and to achieve the proposed objectives.
• Intrapersonal intelligence promotes self pity, feeling by which people understand themselves, their own mistakes and have the capacity to forgive themselves. Being aware of their own limitations and of the circumstances favors that, in case of error, the person does not punish himself, but rather treat yourself with kindness and understanding. Self-understanding promotes understanding of the causes of failure and how to improve in the future, without falling into defeatism.
• People with this type of intelligence know your emotional needs and how to address them more effectively. They are also able to know what they want and set realistic goals and objectives based on their motivations and knowledge of their abilities and circumstances. In turn, setting realistic goals makes it easier for the person to commit and strive to achieve them.
• People with intrapersonal intelligence often practice emotional self-care more competently. This greater competence is due to the fact that they are aware of themselves, what they need and how to address these needs.
• These people have a large emotional vocabulary and they are able to understand and grasp small nuances of emotions.

Interpersonal intelligence: professions

People with high interpersonal intelligence are often attracted to professions such as psychology, psychiatry, sociology, philosophy, writing, anatomy or others that involve analytical skills.

We can find in daily life examples of intrapersonal intelligence What:

• A person who pays attention to their own circumstances, their emotional and physical state and he realizes that he begins to feel sad. She is aware that when she is sad she is not capable of making good decisions and it is positive for her mood to talk with her friends and go for a walk. Based on this knowledge, he chooses to postpone an important decision he had pending, until he is emotionally better. Likewise, she decides to go for a walk and call her best friend in order to improve her emotional state.
• Another person who resigns from a job offer in which one of the conditions is having to deal with tough social situations, since she is aware that she is an extremely sensitive person and apprehensive. Based on her own knowledge of her personality and skills, she concludes that she could not face it competently and without suffering excessively, therefore, she decides to wait for another job offer.

Interpersonal intelligence: characters

We also find famous people with a cultivated intrapersonal intelligence. Some examples of people with a high development of intrapersonal intelligence are Virginia Woolf and Carl Jung:

• Virginia Woolf she was a 20th century British writer. In her writings and essays, she stands out for the analysis that she performs about her feelings and emotions, both in the present and in the past. Virginia made immersions in her own inner world in order to understand herself better and later reflected her reflections and conclusions in her writing.
• Carl Jung he was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist born in the late 19th century. Jung had a high capacity to pay attention and analyze his own feelings and emotions, which led him to investigate them in depth and finally develop theories. Part of his method was based on self-knowledge and exhaustive analysis of his own person. She founded the school of analytical psychology and made great contributions to the field of psychology that continue to exist.

Both intelligences are part of Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences and interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences are social and emotional. However, they encompass different capabilities and goals. The Intrapersonal intelligence refers to the capacities and abilities that are possessed to relate to oneself. Instead, the Interpersonal intelligence refers to abilities and skills in social interactions with other people. Therefore, intrapersonal intelligence is the ability to understand and listen to oneself, know the own strengths and weaknesses and act as a consequence of this self-knowledge, while interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people and act consistently. Both intelligences are necessary and important for a quality and more satisfying emotional life.

Intrapersonal intelligence is the capacity for self-knowledge realistic and self-reflection. This intelligence has a positive impact on our well-being and emotional awareness, decision-making and self-care. In addition, it is the basis for our personal growth and development. Therefore, it is important to cultivate and stimulate this ability, but how to develop intrapersonal intelligence? Here we show you a series of activities to develop intrapersonal intelligence:

• Analyze your emotions: Spend time thinking about how you feel or have felt in different situations, naming those emotions, and trying to verbalize them with other people. You can lean on this list of emotions with their meaning. This analysis favors both the early identification of possible emotions, and the understanding of them based on the circumstances or situations. Understanding yourself and your emotions empowers you when making decisions based on knowledge realistic, and promotes that you are able to know what you should avoid and what to look for with certain emotions for a greater wellness.
• Record your emotions and feelings: writing down how we have been feeling, what we think has affected these emotions and describing these emotions in detail promotes self-awareness. Writing and recording our thoughts and feelings helps us reflect on them, as well as later analyzing all the material together facilitates the task of learning about the person. The records and their analysis make it easier for us, for example, to discover that taking a certain action makes us feel good or bad, when otherwise we would not have been able to decipher this relationship or Connection.
• Take some time to examine our own person: It is necessary to leave a space to reflect on our person, our strengths and weaknesses, to recognize our virtues and think about how we can improve our limitations. Doing this task in writing can facilitate the self-awareness process.
• Review your values, priorities and goals: Our goals in life change, just like our own person does. This is why it is necessary to seek and create moments of reflection about what we want, what our needs are and how they have evolved over time. You can develop a hierarchy of objectives, assess what we lack to achieve them and what we could do in relation to what we lack. It is also important to assess those goals that we set ourselves in the past and have already achieved, assess learning, how they made us feel, etc.
• Get ahead of possible difficult situations: It consists of applying the knowledge we have about our strengths and limitations to face future situations. Therefore, through display and imagination we can generate an idea of ​​the situation, in which aspects we develop adequately and in which not so much and we would like to be able to work on them to improve them.
• Find those activities that favor your introspection: It is important that you also know what type of activities and stimuli promote internal reflection and contact with your emotions. People are different, so what is beneficial to another person may not and vice versa. In the process of self-knowledge it is important that we get to know what favors our internal dialogue. Some of these activities can be playing a certain type of music and being alone, practicing yoga, practice meditation, paint, play an instrument, play sports, go for a walk, talk to other people about yourself and your emotions, write about your emotions, go to a person who is an expert in psychology, etc.

You will be able to know if your interpersonal intelligence stands out with this multiple intelligences test. With the result, you will be able to know which of the 8 intelligences, according to Howard Gardner's theory, is the predominant intelligence in you:

• Linguistic Intelligence
• Logical Intelligence - Mathematics
• Visual Intelligence - Spatial
• Kinesthetic or Body-kinetic Intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Naturalistic Intelligence

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Intrapersonal intelligence: what it is, examples and activities to improve it, we recommend that you enter our category of Cognitive psychology.

• Ernst-Slavit, G. (2001). Education for all: Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Journal of Psychology, 19(2), 319-332.
• Gardner, H. (2003). Intelligence in seven steps. New Horizons For Learning, Creating the Future. Report retrieved December, 21, 2005.
• Shepard, R., Fasko, D. J., & Osborne, F. H. (1999). Intrapersonal intelligence: Affective factors in thinking. Education, 119(4), 633.