You've discovered your empathizing and systemizing quotients--but wait, there's much more to you than that! What about your impeccable ear for musical registers? Your sense of rhythm? Your excellence at Sudoku!
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Of course, empathizing and systemizing are not the sum total of your mental functions. They're coordinates to help you figure out where you are, and maybe they'll even give you a sense of where you’re headed.
These days, the map of the mind is getting more and more crowded. Sensing that Americans put too much emphasis on verbal and logical 'IQ,' educational psychologists have come up with a seven-category definition of 'multiple intelligence.' Step inside your local Montessori classroom, and you'll witness a version of the 'multiple intelligences theory' in action. Children explore by touch, hearing, reading; they learn that you can be picture smart, body smart, music smart and not just logic smart.
The Seven Intelligences
Howard Gardner popularized the Seven Intelligences with his influential Frames of Mind: the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. His seven areas are
- Verbal
- Logical
- Visual
- Physical
- Auditory
- Social Skills
- Self-knowledge
The empathizing quotient roughly covers the latter two, inter- and intrapersonal communication. Systemizing deals with logical and visual skills. But Gardner's pie chart also credits the five senses as intelligences.
Intelligence Tests Going Too Far?
Since then, others have come along and added more intelligences to the map. Naturalist (a sensitivity to the natural environment) and Existential (tendency to ponder the big questions) are among the newly 'discovered' mental capacities. But are these really intelligences? It's possible to take this mental mapping too far. What about the Wine-Tasting gene? the Daredevil trait (that's the uh, intelligence that allows people to basejump, for example)?
GPS for the Mind
Categories don't work well when it comes to human nature--even if, like Myers-Briggs, you increase them exponentially by combining types into a four-type profile. That's why the EQ SQ tests give you a pair of distinct intelligences to use as benchmarks. They're like X and Y axes; you can relate your two scores and get a general sense of where you are on the vast map of human personality. It's like a GPS for the mind.
And like a GPS, your EQ SQ score is a navigational device, not a destination. As you set out on your career exploration, expect to be buffeted by serendipity, some setbacks, and some good fortune. The important thing is to set sail and have faith that you'll strike solid ground eventually.
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