♦ …you are looking chiefly for a self-help book. Personal Intelligence is focused on a general understanding of the mental ability, how to develop it through examples of people who use it, and the implications of the existence of personal intelligence for understanding society. Although workbooks and practical guides can be helpful, this book is a narrative and has no bulleted lists of actions to follow, no lists of “10 steps to take,” or specific exercises to go through.

♦ …you are uninterested in reading about people and their lives. The narrative includes many case examples of real people; these are used to illustrate concepts drawn from personal intelligence and psychology more generally. Some readers have been surprised to find that there is a lot about real people in the book.

♦ …you don’t like reading about psychology or science more generally. “Personal intelligence” reports on many important scientific studies that help explain how personality works and help illustrate the reasoning involved in personal intelligence.

If, however, you are often engaged by books about scientific discovery; if you are curious about intelligences and how we figure out ourselves and the people around us; and if you are interested in examples of real people who can do that, then you might well enjoy this book.