Rationale for and Scope of this Website
October 1st, 2013; Revised Jan. 9th, 2014; Feb. 3rd, 2014
Over the past several years, research in my laboratory has turned increasingly to understanding personal intelligence. As that new focus evolved, I wanted to create a website where I could provide reliable information about personal intelligence directly to anyone interested in the theory, its origins, meaning, and implications.
In 2008, in an article entitled “Personal Intelligence,” I suggested that a new intelligence might exist that focused on how people understand personalities—both their own personality and the personalities of other people. The article appeared in the journal Imagination, Cognition & Personality. In that same journal, eighteen years earlier, I had published the article “Emotional Intelligence” with my colleague Dr. Peter Salovey. (That article has since been cited by other researchers over 5,700 times, according to Google Scholar).
I developed this website to communicate some of the ideas about personal intelligence, the rationale around the work, and the progress in our research on the topic. I envision the site as an online resource that:
- provides a succinct and accurate overview of the theory of personal intelligence
- traces the theory’s origins
- explains how personal intelligence is measured
- recommends books, articles and online resources that enrich our understanding of personal intelligence
- explains a little about psychological research in the area more generally
Thank you for your interest in the site. I hope you’ll find the material here of use.
Sincerely,
John D. Mayer