Personal Intelligence
The Power of Personality and How It Shapes Our Lives
John D. Mayer
In 1990, Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey published the article that introduced a new intelligence of emotions—defining it as the ability to validly reason with emotions and to use emotions to enhance thought. It was a breakthrough concept, an idea that would lead to a groundswell of research, and would make waves in publishing when Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence hit the New York Times bestseller list and remained there for 80 weeks.
In the years since, Jack Mayer has been exploring another, as yet largely unremarked human intelligence. The concept of a separate personal intelligence—the ability to sort through, consolidate, and prioritize the information that we have about ourselves and other people—is a notion with vast implications. Personal intelligence is what enables us to create a sense of ourselves that is accurate, flexible, and resilient. It is an intelligence we can cultivate, and there is evidence that it contributes significantly to our health and well-being.
In Personal Intelligence: The Power of Personality and How It Shapes Our Lives, Jack Mayer introduces a major new way of thinking about human capability, a new intelligence that is essential to our ability to integrate the various aspects of our personalities into a whole that is “who we are.” This is a profound and original way to think about how we make our way through the world.
Visit the Personal Intelligence website at www.personalintelligence.info
Published by Scientific American Books / Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Praise for Personal Intelligence
…a deep and intriguing read into how our personalities evolve from infancy to adulthood . . . Mayer’s insights challenge us to broaden our understanding of what it means to be successful in our society.
— Psychology Today
invariably stimulating insights backed by solid scientific research, so readers looking to understand the human condition will certainly enjoy this book.
— Kirkus
