Essay Sample on Multiple Intelligences, Temperaments, and Emotions

Teaching and learning are important practices to be considered by both teachers and students. Having knowledge on how these practices occur can be a significant step in enhancing the success in teaching and learning. The three concepts for effective teaching and learning include multiple intelligences, temperament, and emotions.

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Specific Features of MI Theory, Temperament, and Emotions

The Multiple Intelligence theory refers to the concept or notion that human brains have many different capacities for learning. The theory was postulated by Howard Gardner. When defining intelligence, Gardner acknowledged the capacity of the human brain to learn concepts in various ways. This led to the development of eight specific features of multiple intelligence theory. The following are the main features of the multiple intelligence theory.

• Logical or mathematical intelligence, concerned with one's capacity for logical or numerical patterns.
• Linguistic intelligence, the capacity of one to effectively use language or words.
• Spatial intelligence, the capacity for visual-spatial manipulation
• Musical intelligence, which is the capacity to discern patterns and rhythms.
• Naturalistic intelligence, which is the capacity of an individual to understand nature well.
• Kinesthetic intelligence, capacity for good physical movement
• Intra-personal, the capacity to understand personal emotional strengths.
• Interpersonal intelligence, the enhanced capacity of understanding and responding to others.

Gardner noted that this intelligence was inherent in every human being. However, only one or two types of intelligence would be dominant in a particular person. He added that it would be better for teachers to be able to discern various abilities of students to understand what kind of intelligence each student possess to enable them to adopt the most appropriate teaching and learning approach (Ahvan & Pour, 2016).

On the other hand, temperament refers to consistent differences in behavior and personality traits between different individuals. There are four major personality traits as follows. First, there is a sanguine trait. Individuals with the sanguine trait are normally active, enthusiastic, and very social. The second trait is choleric, very short-tempered, easily irritable, and fast. Thirdly, there is a melancholic trait, wise, quiet, and analytical. Lastly, there is the phlegmatic trait, always peaceful and relaxed (Chen & Schmidt, 2015).

The third concept is emotion, which refers to the feeling of an individual derived from the prevailing circumstances, environment, as well as relationships one has with others. The feeling may be distinguished from an individual's knowledge or reasoning. There are numerous emotional features including happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust. Happiness is the feeling of joy, satisfaction, gratification, contentment, or well-being. It can be demonstrated through facial expression such as smiling or laughing. Sadness is a kind of emotion characterized by the feeling of disinterest, grief, or dampened the mood. It can be shown by crying. Fear as a kind of emotion can be demonstrated with a feeling of anxiety. Disgust is a revulsive feeling from things one considers unpleasant. Anger shows up through feelings of agitation, hostility, or frustration. Surprise emotion is characterized by a psychological startle response due to the feeling coming from an unexpected occurrence. It can either be negative, positive, or neutral.

How Multiple Intelligences, Temperament, and Emotions Work to Make Up a Person's Character

Character is the moral quality with which an individual can be distinguished. People may portray either good or bad character traits. The character of an individual is as a result of the interplay of the individual's intelligence, temperament, and emotions. These can result in the modeling of a particular character in an individual. As noted, there are two main character traits with which an individual can be identified. These are good or bad character traits. A good character trait can be identified in numerous ways, including integrity, which enables an individual to uphold strong moral principles or values in society. Others include respectfulness, humility, responsibility, honesty, compassion, loyalty, and fairness. On the other hand, bad character traits can also be identified in such ways as demonstrating arrogance, which means an attitude that makes a person feels like they are better than others. Other ways through which bad characters can be identified include being bossy, awkward, conceited, cruel, bad-tempered, and beastly.

A person's temperament determines their capacity to learn from circumstances as well as their environment. For example, persons demonstrating a melancholic trait can be said to be wise, quiet, and very analytical. These people are more likely to have a higher capacity to learn as compared with those having sanguine traits. Learning helps them to gain multiple intelligences making them more likely to develop relatively upright characters. The character can be said to be a factor of a person's intelligence, temperament, and emotions. Emotions, arising from personal feelings and moods, can determine one's behavior at a particular moment. For example, a happy person may gladly assume responsibility, show kindness, and become honest in their dealings. This gives rise to the development of a good character. On the other hand, a sad person may become bad-tempered, cruel, and beastly; thus, demonstrates a bad character. Given these examples, it is easily evident that the interplay between intelligence, temperament, and emotions produce character in an individual. Therefore, enhancing these three elements is necessary to help produce positive character in a person.

Reasons Including Specific Evidence from Gardner and Keirsey

Gardner's multiple intelligence concepts bring a great revelation of how a person's intelligence, temperament, and emotions may come into play to produce character. For example, a person demonstrating both logical and interpersonal intelligence has an in-depth capacity to bring forth logical reasoning into a particular matter, are good to other people, and can greatly enjoy social interactions. These people may have good character because they have mastered the art of going along with others well. They have developed good decision-making skills, problem-solving skills; thus, able to readily tolerate other people's weaknesses and go along with them so well. In addition to that, persons with naturalistic intelligence are appreciative and sensitive to nature. They can easily learn without being forced. The learning itself cultivates the desirable behaviors in them, making them develop good characters.

David Keirsey, on the other hand, fine-tuned the four temperaments to make clear their linkages to personal character. Keirsey's four temperaments demonstrate some of the common traits inherent in persons having various temperaments. For example, persons with the choleric trait, being easily irritable and short-tempered are most likely to demonstrate some characters such as being bossy, awkward, conceited, cruel, bad-tempered, and beastly. However, this might not be the case even though; they might be likely to demonstrate such characters due to personality traits inherent in them.

Conclusion

Multiple intelligence, temperament, and emotions are significant concepts that aid in understanding learning in human beings. The interplay between these three elements produces the character of an individual. Individuals can have two distinct characters such as good or bad depending on the various factors in play. These particular elements can be managed to produce a desirable character in an individual.

References

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.

Chen, X., & Schmidt, L. A. (2015). Temperament and personality. Handbook of child psychology and developmental science, 1-49.