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+% Mastery Mailing 1
+\documentclass[12pt]{apa7}
+\usepackage[style=apa,backend=biber]{biblatex}
+\usepackage{graphicx}
+\setlength{\headheight}{15pt}
+
+% According to several sources, the following commands should be active
+% for an APA paper, but I just hate them.
+% \raggedright
+% \language255 % no hyphenation
+\parindent=.5in
+\linespread{2}
+
+\shorttitle{Existential Intelligence}
+
+\addbibresource{sources.bib}
+
+\leftheader{Rohrer}
+
+\begin{document}
+\centerline{\textbf{Mastery Mailing 2: Existential Intelligence}}
+Hey Radeen,
+
+In my psych class, we've been studying the nature of intelligence, and I
+didn't realize how many different schema there were for categorizing
+intelligence.
+Some of these systems were based on measuring intelligence for education
+and managing learning disabilities, like IQ.
+For the single-number tests to be valid, we need to believe in a general
+intelligence, which one psychologist Spearman called the \emph{g}
+factor \autocite[276]{textbook}.
+But there are two other major schools: Gardner's school, which believes
+in many intelligences (including, possibly, a spiritual/existential
+intelligence) and Sternberg's school.
+Sternberg thinks that intelligence has three main categories and
+that Gardner's categories are only talents or capabilities
+\autocite[278]{textbook}.
+I cautiously subscribe to Gardner's school of multiple intelligences
+because the role of practice and very specific talents seems too
+important to talk about any general adaptive type of intelligence.
+
+Gardner's 8 intelligences includes, but isn't limited to, bodily-kinesthetic
+intelligence, musical intelligence, and naturalist intelligence.
+Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence differs most from a standard IQ test,
+but we have evidence of very different intelligence levels between
+Olympic athletes and laypeople.
+And psychologists have nowhere near settled the debate on how heritable
+intelligences are, even though most agree it is somewhat heritable.
+But even the metric that lets us measure heritability (IQ) has a lot of
+critical issues: it's racist, classist, and vulnerable to ``stereotype
+threat,'' where minorities perform worse due to the stereotype that
+they're less intelligent.
+
+Some empirical evidence backs Gardner's hypothetical spiritual
+intelligence, i.e. the ability to answer ``the big questions'' of
+philosophy, but proof remains elusive.
+Still, we can examine data from self-report assessments about questions
+about the ``unseen'' or where we came from.
+A study at the World Islamic Sciences University in Jordan at $n=56$
+(and previous research on the gender-existential intelligence link)
+found no statistically significant link between existential intelligence
+and gender or between specialization and gender \autocite{exist}.
+That study also showed medium-high existential intelligence of all of
+the graduate students it surveyed, and it gives us a high-quality test
+(stable, valid, and reliable) for Jordanian students.
+Another study, instead on an online sample of young adults, found a
+statistically significant relationship between existential intelligence
+and a depression-stress asssessment (with effect size $r = .22$)
+\autocite{eisneurosis}.
+That study is correlative, so it is unclear whether depression causes
+existential thinking, existential thinking causes depression, or a
+confounding variable.
+
+While many philosophers reject this measure as being too value-laden,
+Gardner's system is flexible enough to include skills valued in
+culture-specific ways.
+I'm still really interested in learning more about the ``big
+questions,'' and I'm curious if existential intelligence can be taught
+in a value-free way, so I'm excited that we have high-quality scales for
+existential intelligence self-assessment.
+The Fernandes study scares me a bit that I should be careful about my
+own mental health when exploring existential philosophy because it could
+be harmful.
+I think this multiple-intelligences theory will be useful to you
+because, in Model UN, and in any international affairs case study, we
+needed a good understanding of the valued competencies in different
+cultures.
+And in subcultures (like an academic context) that value philosophical
+abilities, we need to focus on preserving those values when we think
+about international policy.
+And, the degree to which education is a self-selection variable or
+correlated with existential intelligence can give us some interesting
+evidence on how to reduce suffering globally.
+One preliminary study from the University of Al-Qadisiyah actually
+showed that higher existential intelligence can paradoxically increase
+enjoyment of life, so we should continue to examine this variable in
+traumatic conditions like civil war \autocite{enjoyment}.
+
+\vfil\eject
+\printbibliography
+\end{document}