emotional intelligence

[awein999]

http://www.danielgoleman.info/blog/topics/emotional-intelligence/

I've been reading this book, Emotional Intelligence, and I find it fascinating. It's everything I've been thinking about people, grades, other forms of intelligence besides the purely intellectual.

how it relates to me: The k-12 system (I'm currently a senior) tends to put you in a room and bash you on the head with purely intellectual concepts such as just about all the academic classes in high schools (exception being social science but it's not a required class). At least in my high school, Weston MA, most students eventually come to only care about grades and they become increasingly obedient as they move up the chains in the k-12 grade system. Less imagination is used and we are taught to conform and obey like little drones. We learn to take a huge range of concepts and simplify it as much as possible, almost never the other way around. This is what the big corporations want, little drones who obey without question, little factory workers and sorters who don't understand what he or she want in life. Albert Einstein once said "Imagination is more important than knowledge".

of course the book touches upon a lot more aspects of life then this, the main point of the book is that emotional intelligence is more important than intellectual intelligence and that the two different life skills are indepedent of each other. There are people with lower IQ's that "succeed" in society while people with higher IQ's "don't succeed" (succeed as in ultimately do what they want in life, what makes them happy, not necessarily the most respected job or the biggest home) because emotional intelligence is not shown in the IQ, IQ really is a very small part of life. Emotional Intelligence, the book, states that Intellectual ability is 20% and emotional intelligence is 80% of influence in life's successes.

It sure made me feel happy that someone else in the world thinks about intelligence in a similar way that I do.

Anyone else ever heard or read this book? Any thoughts?

[Mollocephalus]

Re: emotional intelligence

so what exactly is emotional intelligence and how is it defined?

[awein999]

Re: emotional intelligence

emotional intelligence is a term that describes the ability, capacity, skill or a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups

[korny]

Re: emotional intelligence

This is something I couldn't agree with more. Having the ability to successfully analyze the mood and setting of ones environment, makes you an incredibly intelligent person in it's own retrospect. Some people are completely lacking in this area, and from experience, use their intellect to cover up their flaws in this area. Awesome. I might get this book.

[MrRubix]

Re: emotional intelligence

I've read plenty of books about the subject, and I think it's all pretty fascinating, but I also think that the concept is horribly overblown. Intelligence is merely your ability to think rationally, learn, conceptualize, etc. You can apply it to various things, including emotions -- which derive from your own hardwiring. People tend to forget that the ability to perform "emotional" skills like empathy require intellectualized, rational thought. It's just that people choose to apply intellect to different things. You'll also notice plenty of intelligent people who are also very "emotionally" intelligent because they too understand how rationalization fits into the whole picture.

This is also different from how the education system is structured -- I just think it sucks altogether because there's too much fact-memorization and plug-and-chug taught rather than critical thought, asking the right questions, and tackling problems dynamically. Of course, to do that you need very good teachers, which is never guaranteed.

Saying that one type of intelligence is more important than the other is a little suspect, especially with ratios like 80% and 20%. If our world were run by "emotional intelligence," we'd have pretty **** progression. Whether or not most people realize it, many favorable aspects to life are the result of rational thought and "booksmart" intelligence. Social skills do help traverse the social structure we've set up that encapsulates our economy, cultural progression, career choices, education, etc, and so there's no denying that they're important for utility purposes. But I'd say that to say "emotional intelligence is more important" is a bit misleading. They're both important for different reasons.

[Tokzic]

Re: emotional intelligence

of course the book touches upon a lot more aspects of life then this, the main point of the book is that emotional intelligence is more important than intellectual intelligence and that the two different life skills are indepedent of each other. There are people with lower IQ's that "succeed" in society while people with higher IQ's "don't succeed" (succeed as in ultimately do what they want in life, what makes them happy, not necessarily the most respected job or the biggest home) because emotional intelligence is not shown in the IQ, IQ really is a very small part of life. Emotional Intelligence, the book, states that Intellectual ability is 20% and emotional intelligence is 80% of influence in life's successes.

One really big problem I'm taking from this is that you seem to have this idea that emotional intelligence encompasses everything that isn't covered in an IQ test. That's not how it works. Emotional intelligence is a very secluded branch of intelligence that really only applies to empathy and is a small part of socializing. Having a high emotional intelligence has extremely little to do with whether or not you're a successful person.

I read somewhere when I was reading about classifications of intelligence that some people think there is a sort of "success intelligence" - that is, being smart enough to do everything you need to do, to aspire, to create and follow goals, and so on. None of these things are covered on an IQ test, and they certainly play a very large role in whether or not you succeed, yet emotional intelligence has nothing to do with them whatsoever.

By the way, emotional intelligence is intellectual ability.

[PhaeL v2]

Re: emotional intelligence

My english skills doesn't let me formulate an appropriate post to this thread.
The subject is great, but I can't "translate" my thoughts to english, too many things.

[awein999]

Re: emotional intelligence

glad to hear from some people, Tokzic nice thoughts, definitely getting me to think differently.

[MrRubix]

Re: emotional intelligence

Well what I tend to find is that those who tout "emotional intelligence" as superior are usually doing so because they're inept at academics and need an excuse to claim that what they're bad at doesn't matter.

The truth is that being able to think rationally will undoubtedly get you far in life in terms of career/academics, but there's no denying that being good with people is essential if you plan on holding a career, which will undoubtedly involve other people. Either way, being able to hold healthy relationships requires the same sort of intellectualized, rational approaches that any other skill or subject calls for.

[awein999]

Re: emotional intelligence

if you were truly emotionally intelligent you would already know that in order to build relationships in schools, you need to show effort, and to do that you complete assignments instead of making whiny excuses like "this is useless, I dont need to learn this."

getting a good grade in academics is not the only way to show effort with other people. Other key factors are your personality, how you work and get along with others. Often where effort is shown beyond a grade is more "impressive" to others.

[MrRubix]

Re: emotional intelligence

Often where effort is shown beyond a grade is more "impressive" to others.

Elaborate?

[funmonkey54]

Re: emotional intelligence

Elaborate?

This please. Because the way I am interpreting that statement is that people are more impressed with the effort put into something than the outcome. This is most certainly not always true. Take the example of art. There are many people who could work and put many years of effort into a painting/song/etc. and have it turn out far below the level of quality that someone with high natural ability puts out in a few hours.

Slightly more relevant is in school. I take from your examples of grades that you are suggesting that a teacher would value a students work when they put a large amount of effort into it more than that of a much more intelligent student who threw together a very beautiful work with less effort. This is also not always true, obviously depending entirely upon the gearing of the instructor grading the work, but chances are the greater work would be rewarded more than that of the high effort with a poor result.

My point in this is that the result is just as important and often times more important than the level of effort put out in the process.

[awein999]

Re: emotional intelligence

I agree doing well academically in school is important. What I mean is a person who gets A's in academic classes is not necessarily the person the society likes the most and sometimes they don't even end up being "successful" (successful is not necessarilly having the highest paying job, the biggest house etc.) after school. We like the nice people, the people good at communicating, the people willing to help others for others, not for his or herself. Sometimes that is the person who gets straight A's, and sometimes it isn't.

I'm open to others opinions and ideas on this, if I feel you presented me better evidence for otherwise, I'll change my opinion.

[MrRubix]

Re: emotional intelligence

I agree doing well academically in school is important. What I mean is a person who gets A's in academic classes is not necessarily the person the society likes the most and sometimes they don't even end up being "successful" (successful is not necessarilly having the highest paying job, the biggest house etc.) after school. We like the nice people, the people good at communicating, the people willing to help others for others, not for his or herself. Sometimes that is the person who gets straight A's, and sometimes it isn't.

Just because you like someone doesn't mean they're going to get further in life with respect to career/etc. Nobody wants to hire someone who's nice but can't produce value/results that justify their pay level. Again, though, it all depends on what your goals are in life. If you're after a high-paying career, you absolutely need to have skills. Being good with people though is indeed its own skill (consider managers), but it's a specific skill set and it's ludicrous to imply that it's somehow 4 times as important as all other intellectualized/ability-oriented skillsets. Sometimes companies are fine with hiring complete assholes who are bad with people but can deliver on amazing skill. Other times they need teamwork that calls for a certain social sensitivity in addition to other skills.

I think that so many things call for teamwork such that it's important to be emotionally aware and understanding of the psychology and underlying relationship dynamics, and so to some extent I do think that being good with people opens more doors for you, but again, you have to be able to deliver on skill, which is harder to come by.

[awein999]

Re: emotional intelligence

your right.

values change from individual to individual