The method and what it rests on

This app comes from the workshops of Relazioni Autentiche and from one conviction: relating well is a skill, not a talent. Nobody is born able to do it: you learn. The quality of our relationships is the first factor in wellbeing, health and longevity. That is the conclusion of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest study ever run on happiness (Waldinger & Schulz, 2023), and of meta-analyses on more than 300,000 people (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010).

How the training works

Every exercise follows the experiential learning cycle (Kolb, 1984): a practice in real life, then written reflection, because writing about yourself in a structured way has measurable effects on wellbeing (Pennebaker, 1997) and “when X, I will do Y” plans double the likelihood of actually acting (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

On “multiple intelligences”: what the research really says

In the app you find a map of the nine intelligences, and we want to be clear about what it is and what it is not. Howard Gardner’s theory (1983) is one of the best-loved and most misunderstood ideas in psychology: it is a useful language, not an established fact.

• · When the nine abilities are measured with real tests, they correlate with each other instead of being independent: people who do well in one area tend to do better than average in the others too (Visser, Ashton and Vernon, 2006).
• · There is no validated instrument for multiple intelligences, and Gardner never developed one: this makes the theory hard to test (Waterhouse, 2006).
• · The empirically dominant model is a different one: the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory, hierarchical, adopted by almost all cognitive tests.
• · Multiple intelligences are not “learning styles”: it is the most common confusion, and Gardner says so himself, inviting people to drop the term “styles”.
• · A self-test, then, does not measure your abilities: it measures how you see yourself. Self-estimated intelligence correlates only r≈.30 with measured intelligence (meta-analysis of 115 samples, 36,833 people), with a tendency for males to overestimate themselves and for females to underestimate themselves.

So why do we keep it? Because as a vocabulary it works: it gives a name to ways of being in the world that school and work rarely recognise, and it opens a useful question: “where do I feel at home, and how do I bring that into my relationships?”. The two intelligences we care about most, the interpersonal and the intrapersonal, also have the best foundations: the ability to perceive, understand and manage emotions (Mayer and Salovey, 1997) is associated with satisfaction in close relationships (r≈.32) and can be trained. This is why the result does not give you a label, but a shape to read and three points to start from.

The main sources

• · Waldinger & Schulz (2023), The Good Life — Harvard Study of Adult Development
• · Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton (2010), social relationships and mortality, meta-analysis
• · Edmondson (1999), psychological safety in teams
• · Gottman (1999), “bids for connection” and repair
• · Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson (2005), positive psychology interventions in RCTs
• · Emmons & McCullough (2003), gratitude journals
• · Lieberman et al. (2007), affect labeling
• · Kross & Ayduk (2011), self-distancing
• · Huang et al. (2017), the power of follow-up questions
• · Itzchakov & Kluger (2018), high-quality listening
• · Weger et al. (2014), paraphrasing and the feeling of being understood
• · Rosenberg (2003), Nonviolent Communication
• · Stone & Heen (2014), Thanks for the Feedback
• · Hattie & Timperley (2007), the power of feedback
• · Gollwitzer & Sheeran (2006), implementation intentions, meta-analysis
• · Sone et al. (2008), ikigai and mortality — the Ohsaki study
• · Csikszentmihalyi (1990), Flow
• · Covey (1989), The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• · Kolb (1984), experiential learning · Lewin (1947), group dynamics
• · Mindell (1995), rank and privilege · Stone & Stone (1989), Voice Dialogue
• · Gardner (1983), Frames of Mind — multiple intelligences
• · Visser, Ashton and Vernon (2006), g and the measurement of multiple intelligences
• · Waterhouse (2006) and Frontiers in Psychology (2023), the critique of multiple intelligences
• · McGrew (2009), the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities
• · Mayer and Salovey (1997), the four-branch model of emotional intelligence
• · Malouff et al. (2014) and Sánchez-Álvarez et al. (2022), emotional intelligence and couple satisfaction, meta-analyses
• · Mehling et al. (2012), MAIA — interoceptive awareness
• · Freund and Kasten (2012) and the 2024 meta-analysis on self-estimated intelligence
• · Sternberg (1985), triarchic theory — analytical, creative, practical