Parents’ estimates of their own and their children's multiple intelligences

TLDR

Previous research indicates that fathers tend to overestimate their own IQ and rate their sons higher than daughters. This study examines how parents estimate their children’s multiple intelligences using Gardner’s seven‑dimensional model. A total of 112 parents assessed their own and their sons’ and daughters’ abilities across verbal, mathematical, spatial, musical, body‑kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal dimensions. The results showed that fathers rated themselves higher on mathematical and spatial intelligence, parental perceptions of children’s intelligence differed only in these domains—with mothers rating their children higher on math and spatial skills, both parents viewing sons as more numerate, and the effect being stronger for firstborns.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that when parents estimate their own and their children's overall IQ (general intelligence), fathers estimate their own scores significantly higher than mothers estimate their own scores, and both parents estimate their sons’ IQ higher than their daughters’ (Furnham & Gasson, 1998). This study looks at differences in parental estimation of children's multiple intelligences based on Gardner's (1983) seven‐dimensional model. In all, 112 parents estimated their own and their sons’ and daughters’ ability on each of seven specific dimensions (verbal, mathematical, spatial, musical, body‐kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal). As before, males (fathers) rated themselves as more intelligent on mathematical and spatial intelligence than females (mothers) rated themselves on these intelligences. Results indicated that differences in perception of children's intelligence lay only in the areas of mathematical and spatial intelligence, which may be conflated with lay concepts of overall intelligence. Overall, mothers rated their children higher on mathematical and spatial intelligence than did fathers, and both parents indicated that they thought their sons more numerate than their daughters. This result was stronger for the first child than for the second, suggesting the cultural significance attached to first‐born sons (primogeniture).