emotional intelligence summary essay

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Mia Belle Frothingham

Author, Researcher, Science Communicator

BA with minors in Psychology and Biology, MRes University of Edinburgh

Mia Belle Frothingham is a Harvard University graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Sciences with minors in biology and psychology

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Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, understand, and manage one’s own emotions and relationships. It involves being aware of emotions in oneself and others and using this awareness to guide thinking and behavior. Emotionally intelligent individuals can motivate themselves, read social cues, and build strong relationships

Some researchers propose that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others argue it is an inborn characteristic.

The ability to express and manage emotions is essential, but so is the ability to understand, diagnose, and react to the emotions of others. Imagine a world in which one could not understand when a friend felt sad or a classmate was angry.

Why is Emotional Intelligence Critical?

Emotional Intelligence is the “ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior” (Salovey and Mayer, 1990).

Having a higher level of emotional intelligence allows one to empathize with others, communicate effectively, and be both self and socially aware. How people respond to themselves and others impacts all types of environments.

Living in this world signifies interacting with many diverse kinds of individuals and constant change with life-changing surprises.

Being emotionally intelligent is key to how one reacts to what life throws. It is furthermore a fundamental element of compassion and comprehending the deeper reasons behind other people’s actions.

It is not the most intelligent people who are the most prosperous or the most fulfilled in life. Many people are academically genius and yet are socially incompetent and unsuccessful in their careers or their intimate relationships.

Intellectual ability or intelligence quotient (IQ) is not enough on its own to achieve success in life. Undoubtedly, IQ can help one get into university, but your Emotional Intelligence (EI) will help one manage stress and emotions when facing final exams.

IQ and EI exist in tandem and are most influential when they build off one another.

Emotional intelligence is also valuable for leaders who set the tone of their organization. If leaders lack emotional intelligence , it could have more far-reaching consequences, resulting in lower worker engagement and a higher turnover rate.

While one might excel at one’s job technically, if one cannot effectively communicate with one’s team or collaborate with others, those specialized skills will get neglected.

By mastering emotional intelligence, one can positively impact anywhere and continue to advance one’s position and career in life. EI is vital when dealing with stressful situations like confrontation, change, and obstacles.

Emotional intelligence helps one build stronger relationships, succeed at work or school, and achieve one’s career and personal goals, as well as reduce group stress, defuse conflict, and enhance job satisfaction.

It can also help connect with one’s inner feelings, turn purpose into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to oneself.

During these times, it is essential to remember to practice kindness, and being in touch with our emotions can help us do just that.

Examples of Emotional Intelligence

How does one become emotionally intelligent? Below we will discuss what one can do to learn to improve the skills that are behind emotional intelligence (EI).

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to recognize the meanings of emotions and to reason and problem-solve based on them (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999).

By working on and improving these skills, one can become more emotionally intelligent and, therefore, more successful!

Emotional Awareness and Understanding

Self-awareness, or the ability to recognize and comprehend one’s own emotions, is a vital emotional intelligence skill. Beyond acknowledging one’s feelings, however, is being conscious of the effect of one’s actions, moods, and emotions on other people.

According to research by Tasha Eurich, an organizational psychologist, 95% of individuals believe they are self-aware. Still, only 10 to 15 percent genuinely are, which can cause problems for the people one interacts with.

Being with people who are not self-aware can be frustrating and lead to increased stress and decreased encouragement.

To become self-aware, one must be capable of monitoring one’s emotions while recognizing different emotional reactions and correctly identifying each distinct emotion.

Self-aware individuals also can recognize the connections between the things they feel and how they act.

These individuals also acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, are open to new data and experiences, and learn from their exchanges with others.

Furthermore, people who maintain self-awareness have a fine sense of humor, are confident in themselves and their capabilities, and know how others perceive them.

Here are some tips on improving one’s self-awareness:

Ask for constructive feedback from others.

Keep a journal of one’s thoughts and feelings.

Practice mindfulness – try meditating.

Pay careful attention to one’s thoughts and emotions.

Pursue one’s passions and do what makes one happy.

Learn new skills and set goals for oneself.

Reflect on one’s experiences and be grateful.

Use positive self-talk daily.

Work on building a growth mindset.

Emotional Self Regulation (Managing Emotions)

In addition to being aware of one’s own emotions and the impact one has on others, emotional intelligence requires one to regulate and manage one’s emotions .

This does not mean taking emotions out of sight and essentially “locking” them away, hence hiding one’s true feelings. It just means waiting for the right time and place to express them. Self-regulation is all about communicating one’s emotions appropriately in context. A reaction tends to be involuntary.

The more in tune one is with one’s emotional intelligence, the easier one can transition from an instant reaction to a well-thought-out response. It is crucial to remember to pause, breathe, compose oneself, and do what it takes to manage one’s emotions.

This could mean anything to oneself, like taking a walk or talking to a friend, so that one can more appropriately and intentionally respond to tension and adversity.

Those proficient in self-regulation tend to be flexible and acclimate well to change. They are also suitable for handling conflict and diffusing uncomfortable or difficult situations.

People with healthy self-regulation skills also tend to have heightened conscientiousness. They reflect on how they influence others and take accountability for their actions.

Here are some tips on improving one’s self-regulation:

Look at challenges as opportunities.

Be mindful of thoughts and feelings.

Build distress and anxiety tolerance skills.

Work on accepting reflections and emotions.

Find ways to manage difficult emotions.

Practice communication and social skills.

Recognize that one has a choice in how one responds.

Use cognitive reframing to change emotional responses and thought patterns.

Social Empathy (Perceiving Emotions)

Empathy , or the capability to comprehend how other people are feeling, is crucial to perfecting emotional intelligence.

However, it involves more than just being able to identify the emotional states of others. It also affects one’s responses to people based on this knowledge.

How does one respond when one senses someone is feeling sad or hopeless? One might treat them with extra care and consideration, or one might make a push to lift their mood.

Being empathetic also allows one to understand the authority dynamics that frequently influence social relationships, especially in the workplace.

This is essential for guiding one’s daily interactions with various people. In fact, it is found that empathy ranks as the number one leadership skill.

Leaders proficient in empathy perform more than 40% higher in coaching, engaging others, and decision-making. In a different study, researchers found that leaders who show more empathy toward their co-workers and constructive criticism are viewed as better performers by their supervisors.

Those competent in this element can recognize who maintains power in different relationships. They also understand how these forces impact feelings and behaviors. Because of this, they can accurately analyze different situations that hinge on such power dynamics.

Here are some tips on improving social empathy:

Be willing to share emotions.

Listen to other people.

Practice meditation.

Engage in a purpose like a community project.

Meet and talk to new people.

Try to imagine yourself in someone else’s place.

Social Skills (Using Emotions)

The ability to interact well with others is another vital aspect of emotional intelligence. Solid social skills allow people to build meaningful relationships with others and develop a more robust understanding of themselves and others.

Proper emotional understanding involves more than just understanding one’s own emotions and those of others. One also needs to put this information to work in one’s daily interactions and communications.

In the workplace or professional settings, managers benefit by being able to build relationships and connections with employees.

Workers benefit from developing a solid rapport with leaders and co-workers. Some prefer to avoid conflict, but it is crucial to address issues as they arise correctly.

Research shows that every unaddressed conflict can waste almost eight hours of company time on unproductive activities, damaging resources and morale. Essential social skills include active listening , verbal communication, nonverbal communication, leadership , and persuasiveness.

Here are some tips on improving social skills:

Ask open-ended questions.

Find icebreakers that will help start conversations.

Practice good eye contact.

Practice active listening with the entire body.

Notice other people’s social skills.

Show interest in others and ask them personal questions.

Watch one’s body language and that of others.

In The Workplace

Emotional intelligence includes showing genuine compassion, empathizing with the needs of individuals, and encouraging the ongoing personal growth of individuals.

When a leader takes into account the emotions of their followers, they then learn how to best engage with them.

1. Lending a Compassionate Ear to a Frustrated Co-Worker

Employees will inevitably get upset, have bad moods, argue, and just generally have bad days. In practice, compassion, understanding, and awareness are definite signs of emotional intelligence.

Awareness of and reacting to other people’s emotional states shows an understanding that all humans experience intense emotions and says that a person’s feelings matter.

2. Listening to Others Respectfully

Ever been to a conference when it seems like everyone is speaking over each other, trying to get the last word?

This is not only an indication of egos taking over and a lack of consideration for others; these are also indications of there being a lack of emotional intelligence.

When individuals are allowed to speak, and others listen without persistent interruptions, it is a good sign of EI. It shows reciprocal respect between parties and is more likely to lead to a productive conclusion in meetings.

3. Being Flexible

Flexibility is a critical term in organizations today. Building flexibility into how people function can be the difference between keeping the best workers and drifting out the door.

Emotionally intelligent leaders comprehend the changing needs of others and are ready to work with them rather than attempting to impose rigid restrictions on how people go about their work.

They do not expect everyone to work the hours they do, hold the same priorities, or live by precisely the same values.

In Healthcare

1. being patient with hurting individuals.

When in healthcare, it is expected that doctors and nurses will have to manage people in pain. Emotional intelligence not only allows for better patient care but also for better self-care.

For instance, if a patient is lashing out, and one can see that they are in pain, one will be far less likely to take their combativeness personally and treat them better.

2. Acting as the Effective Leader

In healthcare, there is a necessity to have influential leaders, a trusting environment with a helpful team, critical thinking, and quality patient and family-centered care.

A higher emotional intelligence will allow healthcare professionals to respond and react better to patients. Studies have shown a correlation between emotional intelligence and positive patient outcomes.

3. Responding Better to Stressful Situations

Multiple occasions in healthcare involve an urgent situation involving a life or death scenario. Doctors and nurses must check their own emotions.

Being in healthcare is a highly emotional career, and being aware of your feelings when they come up is key to effective self-care.

Interacting with patients can cause overwhelming joy or deep sadness, and these fluctuations can be utterly exhausting.

The ability to deal with these feelings, take breaks, and ask for help when you need it is another example of good emotional intelligence that nurses should practice.

Tips for Improving EI

Be more self-aware.

Awareness of one’s emotions and emotional responses to others can significantly improve one’s emotional intelligence. Knowing when one is feeling anxious or angry can help process and communicate those feelings in a way that promotes healthy results.

Recognize how others feel

Emotional intelligence could start with self-reflection, but measuring how others perceive one’s behavior and communication is essential. Adjusting one’s message based on how one is being received is an integral part of being emotionally intelligent.

Practice active listening

People communicate verbally and nonverbally, so listening and monitoring for potentially positive and negative reactions is essential. Taking the time to hear others also demonstrates a level of respect that can form the basis for healthy relationships.

Communicate clearly

Solid communication skills are critical for emotional intelligence. Knowing what to express or write and when to offer information is crucial for building strong relationships.

For instance, as a manager in a work environment, communicating expectations and goals is required to keep everyone on the same page.

Stay positive

A positive attitude is incredibly infectious. Emotionally intelligent people comprehend the power of positive words, encouraging emails, and friendly gestures. When one can also remain positive in a stressful situation, one can help others stay calm. It can also encourage further problem-solving and collaboration.

Thinking about how others might be feeling is an essential quality of emotional intelligence. It means you can empathize with feelings that one may not be feeling oneself and respond in a way that is respectful and relaxing to others.

Be open-minded

Emotionally intelligent people are comfortable to approach because they are good listeners and can consider and understand other viewpoints. They are also receptive to learning new things and embracing novel ideas.

Listen to feedback

It is essential to be the type of person who can hear feedback, whether it is positive on a recent presentation or more critical advice on how you should commission tasks more efficiently.

Being receptive to feedback means taking responsibility for one’s actions and being willing to improve how one communicates with others.

Stay calm under pressure

It is essential to approach stressful situations with a calm and positive attitude. Pressures can quickly escalate, primarily when people are operating under deadlines, so keeping steady and concentrating on finding a solution will help everyone complete their goals.

History of Emotional Intelligence

In the 1930s, psychologist Edward Thorndike explained the concept of “social intelligence” as the ability to get along with other individuals.

During the 1940s, psychologist David Wechsler suggested that different practical elements of intelligence could play a critical role in how successful people are in life.

In the 1950s, the school of thought was known as humanistic psychology, and scholars such as Abraham Maslow concentrated attention on how people could build emotional strength.

Another critical concept to arise in the development of emotional intelligence was the concept of multiple intelligences . This idea was put forth in the mid-1970s by Howard Gardner, presenting the idea that intelligence was more than just a single, broad capacity.

Emotional intelligence did not come into our vernacular until around 1990. The term “emotional intelligence” was first utilized in 1985 as it was presented in a doctoral dissertation by Wayne Payne.

In 1987, there was an article written by Keith Beasley and published in Mensa Magazine that used the term emotional quotient or EQ.

Then in 1990, psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey published their milestone article, Emotional Intelligence , in the journal Imagination, Cognition, and Personality .

They described emotional intelligence as the capability to monitor one’s and others’ feelings and emotions, discriminate among them, and use this knowledge to guide one’s thinking and actions.

Salovey and Mayer also initiated a research study to develop accurate measures of emotional intelligence and explore its significance. For example, they found in one investigation that when a group of people saw an upsetting film, those who ranked high on emotional clarity, or the ability to recognize and label a mood that is being experienced, recovered more quickly.

In a different study, people who scored higher in the ability to perceive accurately, understand and appraise others’ emotions were sufficiently capable of responding flexibly to changes in their social environments and building supportive social networks.

But despite it being a relatively new term, attraction to the concept has grown tremendously. In 1995, the concept of emotional intelligence was popularized after the publication of Daniel Goleman’s book  Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is emotional intelligence important in the workplace.

Researchers have indicated that emotional intelligence influences how excellently employees interact with their colleagues, and EI is also considered to play a role in how employees manage stress and conflict.

It also affects overall performance on the job. Other studies have connected emotional intelligence with job satisfaction.

Studies have shown that workers with higher scores on measures of EI also tend to be ranked higher on criteria of interpersonal functioning, leadership abilities, and stress management.

While standard intelligence was associated with leadership success, it alone was not enough. People who are prosperous at work are not just brilliant; they also have a high EI.

But emotional intelligence is not simply for CEOs and senior executives.

It is a quality that is essential at every level of a person’s career, from university students looking for internships to seasoned workers hoping to take on a leadership role.

Emotional intelligence is critical to success if one wants to succeed in the workplace and move up the career ladder.

Can emotional intelligence be taught?

As it turns out, the question whether emotional intelligence can be learned is not a straightforward one to answer.

Some psychologists and researchers claim that emotional intelligence is a skill that is not quickly learned or improved. Other psychologists and researchers, though, believe it can be improved with practice.

One key to improving EI is sustained practice – especially in high-stakes situations. Referring back to the above tips, one could read them and say those guidelines are pretty straightforward.

But, the challenging task is to do these practices in real-time and consistently. It takes practice to develop these skills. Then as you acquire them, you have to rehearse them under stress.

Can emotional intelligence be measured?

Several different assessments have arisen to gauge levels of emotional intelligence. These trials typically fall into one of two types: self-report tests and ability tests.

Self-report tests are the most abundant because they are the quickest to administer and score. Respondents respond to questions or statements on such tests by rating their behaviors.

For example, on a comment such as “I sense that I understand how others are feeling,” a test-taker might describe the statement as strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree.

On the other hand, ability tests involve people responding to situations and assessing their skills. These tests often require people to demonstrate their abilities, which a third party rates.

If one is taking an emotional intelligence trial issued by a mental health professional, here are two measures that could be used: Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI).

What is the dark side of emotional intelligence?

The dark side of emotional intelligence is using one’s understanding of emotions manipulatively, to deceive, control, or exploit others.

High emotional intelligence can mask hidden agendas, enabling insincere charm or feigned empathy, potentially leading to deceitful or self-serving actions.

Boyatzis, R. E., & Goleman, D. (2011). Emotional and social competency inventory (ESCI): A user guide for accredited practitioners.  Retrieved December ,  17 , 2019.

Eurich, T. (2018). What self-awareness really is (and how to cultivate it).  Harvard Business Review , 1-9.

Gardner, H. E. (2000). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century . Hachette UK.

Goleman, D. (1996).  Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ . Bloomsbury Publishing.

Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (1999). Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence.  Intelligence, 27 (4), 267-298.

Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1993). The intelligence of emotional intelligence.  Intelligence, 17 (4), 433-442.

Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (2007).  Mayer-Salovery-Caruso emotional intelligence test . Toronto: Multi-Health Systems Incorporated.

Payne, W. L. (1985). A study of emotion: developing emotional intelligence; self-integration; relating to fear, pain and desire.

Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence .  Imagination, cognition and personality ,  9 (3), 185-211.

Thorndike, R. L., & Stein, S. (1937). An evaluation of the attempts to measure social intelligence.  Psychological Bulletin ,  34 (5), 275.

Wechsler, D., & Kodama, H. (1949).  Wechsler intelligence scale for children  (Vol. 1). New York: Psychological corporation.

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Emotional Intelligence: How We Perceive, Evaluate, Express, and Control Emotions

Is EQ more important than IQ?

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Shereen Lehman, MS, is a healthcare journalist and fact checker. She has co-authored two books for the popular Dummies Series (as Shereen Jegtvig).

Hinterhaus Productions / Getty Images 

• How Do I Know If I'm Emotionally Intelligent?
• How It's Measured

Why Is Emotional Intelligence Useful?

• Ways to Practice
• Tips for Improving

Emotional intelligence (AKA EI or EQ for "emotional quotient") is the ability to perceive, interpret, demonstrate, control, evaluate, and use emotions to communicate with and relate to others effectively and constructively. This ability to express and control  emotions  is essential, but so is the ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of others. Some experts suggest that emotional intelligence is  more important than IQ  for success in life.

While being book-smart might help you pass tests, emotional intelligence prepares you for the real world by being aware of the feelings of others as well as your own feelings.

How Do I Know If I'm Emotionally Intelligent?

Some key signs and examples of emotional intelligence include:

• An ability to identify and describe what people are feeling
• An awareness of personal strengths and limitations
• Self-confidence and self-acceptance
• The ability to let go of mistakes
• An ability to accept and embrace change
• A strong sense of curiosity, particularly about other people
• Feelings of empathy and concern for others
• Showing sensitivity to the feelings of other people
• Accepting responsibility for mistakes
• The ability to manage emotions in difficult situations

How Is Emotional Intelligence Measured?

A number of different assessments have emerged to measure levels of emotional intelligence. Such tests generally fall into one of two types: self-report tests and ability tests.

Self-report tests are the most common because they are the easiest to administer and score. On such tests, respondents respond to questions or statements by rating their own behaviors. For example, on a statement such as "I often feel that I understand how others are feeling," a test-taker might describe the statement as disagree, somewhat disagree, agree, or strongly agree.

Ability tests, on the other hand, involve having people respond to situations and then assessing their skills. Such tests often require people to demonstrate their abilities, which are then rated by a third party.

If you are taking an emotional intelligence test administered by a mental health professional, here are two measures that might be used:

• Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) is an ability-based test that measures the four branches of Mayer and Salovey's EI model. Test-takers perform tasks designed to assess their ability to perceive, identify, understand, and manage emotions.
• Emotional and Social Competence Inventory (ESCI)   is based on an older instrument known as the Self-Assessment Questionnaire and involves having people who know the individual offer ratings of that person’s abilities in several different emotional competencies. The test is designed to evaluate the social and emotional abilities that help distinguish people as strong leaders.

There are also plenty of more informal online resources, many of them free, to investigate your emotional intelligence.

Try Our Free Emotional Intelligence Test

Our fast and free EQ test can help you determine whether or not your responses to certain situations in life indicate a high level of emotional intelligence:

What Are the 4 Components of Emotional Intelligence?

Researchers suggest that there are four different levels of emotional intelligence including emotional perception, the ability to reason using emotions, the ability to understand emotions, and the ability to manage emotions.  

• Perceiving emotions : The first step in understanding emotions is to perceive them accurately. In many cases, this might involve understanding nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expressions.
• Reasoning with emotions : The next step involves using emotions to promote thinking and cognitive activity. Emotions help prioritize what we pay attention and react to; we respond emotionally to things that garner our attention.
• Understanding emotions :   The emotions that we perceive can carry a wide variety of meanings. If someone is expressing angry emotions, the observer must interpret the cause of the person's anger and what it could mean. For example, if your boss is acting angry, it might mean that they are dissatisfied with your work, or it could be because they got a speeding ticket on their way to work that morning or that they've been fighting with their partner.
• Managing emotions : The ability to manage emotions effectively is a crucial part of emotional intelligence and the highest level. Regulating emotions and responding appropriately as well as responding to the emotions of others are all important aspects of emotional management.

Recognizing emotions - yours and theirs - can help you understand where others are coming from, the decisions they make, and how your own feelings can affect other people.

The four branches of this model are arranged by complexity with the more basic processes at the lower levels and the more advanced processes at the higher levels. For example, the lowest levels involve perceiving and expressing emotion, while higher levels require greater conscious involvement and involve regulating emotions.

Interest in teaching and learning social and emotional intelligence has grown in recent years. Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have become a standard part of the curriculum for many schools.

The goal of these initiatives is not only to improve health and well-being but also to help students succeed academically and prevent bullying. There are many examples of how emotional intelligence can play a role in daily life.

Thinking Before Reacting

Emotionally intelligent people know that emotions can be powerful, but also temporary. When a highly charged emotional event happens, such as becoming angry with a co-worker, the emotionally intelligent response would be to take some time before responding.

This allows everyone to calm their emotions and think more rationally about all the factors surrounding the argument.

Greater Self-Awareness

Emotionally intelligent people are not only good at thinking about how other people might feel but they are also adept at understanding their own feelings. Self-awareness allows people to consider the many different factors that contribute to their emotions.

Empathy for Others

A large part of emotional intelligence is being able to think about and empathize with how other people are feeling. This often involves considering how you would respond if you were in the same situation.

People who have strong emotional intelligence are able to consider the perspectives, experiences, and emotions of other people and use this information to explain why people behave the way that they do.

How You Can Practice Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be used in many different ways in your daily life. Some different ways to practice emotional intelligence include:

• Being able to accept criticism and responsibility
• Being able to move on after making a mistake
• Being able to say no when you need to
• Being able to share your feelings with others
• Being able to solve problems in ways that work for everyone
• Having empathy for other people
• Having great listening skills
• Knowing why you do the things you do
• Not being judgemental of others

Emotional intelligence is essential for good interpersonal communication. Some experts believe that this ability is more important in determining life success than IQ alone. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to strengthen your own social and emotional intelligence.

Understanding emotions can be the key to better relationships, improved well-being, and stronger communication skills. 

Press Play for Advice On How to Be Less Judgmental

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast , shares how you can learn to be less judgmental. Click below to listen now.

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Are There Downsides to Emotional Intelligence?

Having lower emotional intelligence skills can lead to a number of potential pitfalls that can affect multiple areas of life including work and relationships. People who have fewer emotional skills tend to get in more arguments, have lower quality relationships, and have poor emotional coping skills.

Being low on emotional intelligence can have a number of drawbacks, but having a very high level of emotional skills can also come with challenges. For example:

• Research suggests that people with high emotional intelligence may actually be less creative and innovative.
• Highly emotionally intelligent people may have a hard time delivering negative feedback for fear of hurting other people's feelings.
• Research has found that high EQ can sometimes be used for manipulative and deceptive purposes.

Can I Boost My Emotional Intelligence?

While some people might come by their emotional skills naturally, some evidence suggests that this is an ability you can develop and improve. For example, a 2019 randomized controlled trial found that emotional intelligence training could improve emotional abilities in workplace settings.

Being emotionally intelligent is important, but what steps can you take to improve your own social and emotional skills? Here are some tips.

If you want to understand what other people are feeling, the first step is to pay attention. Take the time to listen to what people are trying to tell you, both verbally and non-verbally. Body language can carry a great deal of meaning. When you sense that someone is feeling a certain way, consider the different factors that might be contributing to that emotion.

Picking up on emotions is critical, but we also need to be able to put ourselves into someone else's shoes in order to truly understand their point of view. Practice empathizing with other people. Imagine how you would feel in their situation. Such activities can help us build an emotional understanding of a specific situation as well as develop stronger emotional skills in the long-term.

The ability to reason with emotions is an important part of emotional intelligence. Consider how your own emotions influence your decisions and behaviors. When you are thinking about how other people respond, assess the role that their emotions play.

Why is this person feeling this way? Are there any unseen factors that might be contributing to these feelings? How to your emotions differ from theirs? As you explore such questions, you may find that it becomes easier to understand the role that emotions play in how people think and behave.

Drigas AS, Papoutsi C. A new layered model on emotional intelligence . Behav Sci (Basel). 2018;8(5):45. doi:10.3390/bs8050045

Salovey P, Mayer J. Emotional Intelligence . Imagination, Cognition, and Personality.  1990;9(3):185-211.

Feist GJ. A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity . Pers Soc Psychol Rev . 1998;2(4):290-309. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0204_5

Côté S, Decelles KA, Mccarthy JM, Van kleef GA, Hideg I. The Jekyll and Hyde of emotional intelligence: emotion-regulation knowledge facilitates both prosocial and interpersonally deviant behavior . Psychol Sci . 2011;22(8):1073-80. doi:10.1177/0956797611416251

Gilar-Corbi R, Pozo-Rico T, Sánchez B, Castejón JL. Can emotional intelligence be improved? A randomized experimental study of a business-oriented EI training program for senior managers . PLoS One . 2019;14(10):e0224254. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0224254

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emotional Intelligence Essay

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• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
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Emotional intelligence(EI) is defined as “the capacity for recognizing a person’s own feelings and those of others, for motivating themselves and for managing emotions well in themselves and other relationships” (Goleman, 1998). Serat (2009) on the other hand defines EI as the “ability, capacity, skill or self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, of others and of groups” (p. 2).

EI has significantly gained popularity in the world mainly because of its association with a person to manage his/her own emotions and handling other people. It is believed that people with high EI are not only good in knowing and understanding themselves, but are also able to sense and respect other people’s emotions.

More to this, Serat (2009) argues that high EI people are more optimistic, affable and resilient than people who have lower EI. Over the years, analysts have drawn a fine distinction between Intelligence Quotient and Emotional intelligence while stating that people with high EI are able to cope and relate with others better than people who have high IQ but are devoid of high EI levels.

Analysts agree that EI is important. However, they are yet to device ways through which IE can be measured. The different instruments available for measuring the same sometimes overlap or divulge thus making it hard for ordinary people to know just what is the appropriate tool of measurement (Cherniss & Goleman, 2001). Admittedly, EI is a complex issue that has been the debate of numerous debates.

One thing that analysts seem to agree on is the fact that EI is a combination of emotional and cognitive abilities. To this end, Goleman (1998) states that EI is the combination of “emotional centers of the brain (the limbic system) and the cognitive centers (prefrontal cortex)”.

Cherniss & Goleman (2001), states that EI provides a bedrock for effective performance by individuals in their respective places of work, thus encouraging development in any given society. In managers, the authors argue that high EI is a tool that enables conflict resolution to take place more easily and effectively that would be the case if the manager had low IE levels.

According to Goleman (1998), EI has varied competencies, some which has a clear relation, while it is still unclear about how some of the competencies are related. The author suggests that self-awareness produces social awareness and self control. The two on the other hand are responsible for breeding social skills in a person.

According to arguments presented by different authors, this essay holds the opinion that EI unlike IQ is not a pre-programmed quality in the brain. One gets the impression that some of the qualities of EI can be deliberately acquired. Mersino (2007) for example argues that getting in touch with one’s feeling is a good starting point to developing EI. Further, the author states that self-awareness can be learnt. This then means that a person with low EI can still work at developing the same to higher levels.

In addition to self-awareness, Mersino (2007) suggests developing accurate self-assessment skills. This regards viewing one-self accurately and even seeking opinions regarding one’s behaviors from others. Citing Daniel Goleman, Mersino (2007) identifies self-assessing people as those who are conscious of their strengths and weakness; reflect and learn from past experiences; open to feedback, lessons, perspectives and beneficial comments; and possess a sense of humor towards their achievements and failings.

Citing Gardner (1983), Goleman (1998) identifies seven categories of intelligence. They are: Intrapersonal, interpersonal, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, visual/spatial, logical/mathematical and verbal/linguistic. Goleman (1998) however associates EI with emotional competence, which he argues is responsible for self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

Under self awareness, a person develops emotional awareness, self-assessment skills and self-confidence. Under self-management, one gains emotional control, transparency, optimism, initiative, adaptability and transparency. Under social awareness, one develops service orientation, organizational awareness and empathy. Under relationship management, one is able to relate with others, develops conflict management skills, and is able to develop inspirational leadership skills, in addition to team working skills (Goleman et al, 2002).

Ruderman et al. (2001) argues that while high IQ can result to high competencies, it does not automatically result in high EI. As such, the authors identify a need for highly intelligent people to develop their EI capabilities in order to be able to relate well with other people.

Most notably, Ruderman et al. (2001) notes that people with high IQ levels are good performers at work, but rarely know how to relate with other people. Because of their skills and competencies, they look down on other people who are not as skillful as they are, and if put in managerial positions, are more likely to command people under them rather than create work teams where strengths can be shared. “Such characters make you wonder how people can be so smart, yet so incapable of understanding themselves and others” (p.3).

According to Ruderman et al. (2001) emotional intelligence can not only be learnt, but can also be enhanced. They suggest that the first step to developing IE is coming to terms with ones emotions. The next step would be to deliberately guide thoughts and actions towards a particular identified path.

In management, Rudeman et al (2001) argues that EI has been in existence for much longer but was known as ‘peoples skills’. People’s skills were a management concept that was endorsed for use in managers, since analysts had proved that managers who possessed the same were more successful than those who did not. While the importance of intellect was not underrated in workplaces, the same in management positions was seen as a complementary attribute.

According to Ruderman et al. (2001), a manager needs to engage other people in the management process. This calls for proper people engagement through talking and listening, influencing decisions and laying a good environment for consensus building. The manager is also responsible for putting people working under him or with him at ease.

This however is closely related to the manager’s happiness. If the manager is always angry, impatient and fails to understand other people’s positions, he or she is more prone to knee-jerk responses. This means he can be quick to anger and lashing out at other people.

Generally, people who are self-aware have a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and are therefore more willing to seek assistance beyond their strengths. They also appreciate other people’s strengths and are more willing to chip in when others need help.

Emotional intelligence no doubts seem to be the missing link that would lead to success on a personal level as well as success in the workplace. No one wants to be around a person who cannot quite grasp the extent of his strengths and weaknesses.

More to this, as much as people admire a skillful person, they detest such a person if he or she cannot pass on the skills to others or better still, a person who is patient with people who are not as equally gifted. As the different authors covered in this essay agree, emotional intelligence is indeed the bedrock of better relationships. Once a person understands him/herself, he/she is able to know the limits of what he/she can do. More to this, he is able to respect others for what they can do.

People with high EI are therefore easier to cope with, they are more willing to change and adapt to new environments and are more empathetic to other people’s causes. In an organizational setting, high EI people are relied upon as moderators and people who are capable of fostering good working relationships based on understanding. They are also able to foster harmony, continuity and stability.

Cherniss, C. & Goleman, D. (2001). The emotionally intelligent workplace: how to select for, measure, and improve emotional intelligence in individuals, groups, and organizations . London: John Wiley & Sons.

Goleman, D. (1998). Working with Emotional Intelligence. NY: Random House.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston: HBS press.

Mersino, A. (2007). Emotional intelligence for project managers: the people skills you need to achieve outstanding results . New York: AMACOM Div American Mgt Assn.

Ruderman, M., Hannun, K., Leslie, J & Steed, J. (2001). Making the connection leadership skills and emotional intelligence. LIA journal . 21(5), 2-7.

Serat, O. (2009). Understanding and developing emotional intelligence. Knowledge solutions, 49(1), 1-9.

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What is Emotional Intelligence? +23 Ways To Improve It

But although emotionality has historically been portrayed as the fiery and foolish nemesis of reason and rationality, emotions are fundamental to our ability to function. They motivate us to act, are essential to social interactions, and form the bedrock of our felt sense of morality.

Emotional intelligence can provide a significant advantage for mastering our emotions. In this post, we’ll get up close with emotional intelligence to find out what it is, why it’s valuable, and how you can cultivate more of it.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will not only enhance your ability to understand and work with your emotions, but also give you the tools to foster the emotional intelligence of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is emotional intelligence 3 examples, 3 fascinating components and theories of eq, why is emotional intelligence important, training and fostering ei skills, how to measure eq: 3 reliable tests, 3 best books on the topic, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

Many people have an intuitive grasp of what emotional intelligence is, but for academics, emotional intelligence (EQ or EI) has been a notoriously tricky construct to agree on.

Peter Salovey and John Mayer (1990, p. 185) were the first to develop a psychological theory of emotional intelligence and introduced EQ as a:

“set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one’s life.”

From this perspective, emotional intelligence could be useful in almost all areas of life. Let’s look at some examples of emotional intelligence in action.

Self-awareness and leadership

Our awareness of emotions is centrally important to our relationships (Schutte et al., 2001) and ability to lead others (Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005).

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised globally for her ability to listen, show empathy, and connect with people in a crisis. CEO Today Magazine says we can learn a lot from Ardern’s ability to manage her own emotions effectively, as “ self-awareness is the foundation on which all else is built” and “allows us to engage others on their terms ” (Lothian, 2020).

Decision making

Psychologist and EQ expert Daniel Goleman (2019) recommends listening to your gut, as bodily intuitions reveal “ decision rules that the mind gathers unconsciously. ” In this way, emotional signals from our bodies provide a sort of intangible wisdom guiding us toward the “right” decisions.

To support this, Seo and Barrett (2007) found that stock investors who were experiencing more intense emotions and better at discriminating between emotions showed better decision-making performance. The researchers suggested that a greater awareness of emotions boosted the investors’ ability to manage emotional biases, which ultimately led to better decisions.

Stress management and mental wellbeing

Having an awareness of and ability to manage emotions can make us feel more equipped to deal with difficult feelings and situations (Gohm, Corser, & Dalsky, 2005), and support greater mental wellbeing (Fernandez-Berrocal, Alcaide, Extremera, & Pizarro, 2006).

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has spoken publicly about his struggles with mental health that ultimately led him to seek therapy. CNN Health highlighted how Prince Harry’s openness to talk about and express his emotions is helping others too, by making mental wellbeing a more acceptable topic to talk about, particularly for men (Duffy, 2021).

Emotional intelligence and personality

There’s been some controversy around using the term emotional ‘ intelligence ’ in models of EQ that include constructs resembling personality and broader social skills. Where do these attributes end and EQ begin (Neubauer & Freudenthaler, 2005)?

While more objective performance measures of EQ (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) have shown to be distinct from the Big Five personality traits of extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, some self-report measures of EQ have shown greater crossover with personality measures (Brackett & Mayer, 2003).

Ability measures and self-report measures have shown a weak correlation with each other, suggesting that they may capture different aspects of EQ (Brackett & Mayer, 2003).

Mayer and Salovey’s integrative emotional intelligence model

Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) integrative model comprises four interconnected emotional abilities:

• Perception and expression of emotion Noticing your own emotions and picking up on the emotions of others as well as the ability to distinguish between discrete emotions.
• Using emotion to facilitate thought How you incorporate emotions into your thinking processes and an understanding of when and how emotions can be helpful for reasoning processes.
• Understanding and analyzing emotions The capacity to decode emotions, make sense of their meaning, and understand how they relate to each other and change over time.
• Reflective regulation of emotion An openness to all emotions and the ability to regulate your own emotions and the emotions of others to facilitate growth and insight.

Bar-On’s model of social and emotional intelligence

Bar-On’s (1997, 2006) mixed model claims that EQ is a combination of competencies, skills, and “facilitators” that contribute to how people express themselves, respond to challenges in their environment, and connect with others.

Bar-On (2006) suggests that 10 distinct components provide the scaffolding of emotionally and socially intelligent behaviors:

• Self-regard
• Emotional awareness
• Assertiveness
• Interpersonal relationships
• Stress tolerance
• Impulse control
• Reality testing
• Flexibility
• Problem solving

Self-actualization, independence, social responsibility, optimism, and happiness were originally considered to be components of EQ but were later reframed as “facilitators” of EQ (Bar-On, 2006).

Daniel Goleman’s theory of EQ

Daniel Goleman (1995) popularized the concept of emotional intelligence in his widely acclaimed book Emotional Intelligence . Check out his TED talk on the art of managing emotions.

Goleman (1995, p. xii) offers a broad conceptualization of EQ abilities, including “ self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself .” Goleman (2001) proposed that EQ provides a sign of an individual’s “potential” for developing emotional competencies (i.e., practical skills) that can help them thrive at work.

His original theory mapped emotional intelligence into five key domains:

• Knowing your emotions
• Managing emotions
• Motivating oneself
• Recognizing emotions in others
• Handling relationships

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Emotional intelligence is widely celebrated as a valuable commodity because it can predict life outcomes we care about, such as academic performance (MacCann et al., 2020), psychological adjustment (Fernandez-Berrocal et al., 2006), and workplace success (Lopes, Grewal, Kadis, Gall, & Salovey, 2006b).

Is EQ important in the workplace?

Lopes, Côté, and Salovey (2006a) suggest that a greater ability to manage emotions can benefit work performance in many ways. Using emotional intelligence in the workplace can improve decision making, help social interactions run smoothly, and enhance employees’ ability to deal with stressful times.

EQ has been linked to better task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors of employees (Côté & Miners, 2006), higher company rank, and higher scores of stress tolerance and interpersonal facilitation (e.g., positive interaction) as rated by peers and/or supervisors (Lopes et al., 2006b).

A meta-analysis involving 43 EQ studies concluded that ability measures, mixed models, and self-report and peer measures of EQ were all equally good at predicting job performance (O’Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver, & Story 2011).

The importance of EI in leadership

Being a leader is a tough job that is likely to be harder if you have trouble managing your own emotions or the emotions of those you lead.

EQ has been found to predict leadership effectiveness even when accounting for IQ and personality (Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005). In addition, Gardner and Stough (2002) found that emotional intelligence, particularly understanding and managing emotions, was strongly related to (positive) transformational leadership behaviors of senior managers.

Can EI be taught and learned?

Considering the many advantages EQ can bring, it’s not surprising that the popularity of EQ training has boomed over the last decade.

Remarkably, one study found that only 10 hours of group EQ training (lectures, role-play, group discussions, partner work, readings, and journaling) significantly improved people’s ability to identify and manage their emotions, and these benefits were sustained six months later (Nelis, Quoidbach, Mikolajczak, & Hansenne, 2009).

It’s clear that putting EQ skills into practice plays an important role in developing emotional intelligence. So, if you’re looking to teach EQ skills , Cherniss, Goleman, Emmerling, Cowan, and Adler (1988) suggest distinguishing between:

• Cognitive learning — Intellectually grasping the concept of how to improve emotional abilities. In other words, you may know that you need to bring your awareness to your emotions more often, but this doesn’t mean you’ll be able to.
• Emotional learning — Unlearning old habits and relearning more adaptive ones. To grow emotionally, we need to cut ties with our default ways of responding. If your old habit is withdrawing from your loved ones when you’re overwhelmed, a new habit could be reaching out to others when you’re stressed rather than closing off.

• Recognize and name your emotions. Taking the time to notice and label your feelings can help you choose the best way to respond to situations.
• Ask for feedback. Even though it might make you cringe, it’s helpful to get others’ viewpoints on your emotional intelligence. Ask people how they think you handle tricky situations and respond to the emotions of others.
• Read literature. Reading books from someone else’s perspective could deepen your understanding of their inner worlds and boost social awareness in the process.

MindTools (n.d.) has also helpfully laid out six ways you can enhance emotional intelligence with a little self-reflection and honesty:

• Notice how you respond to people — Are you being judgmental or biased in your assessments of others?
• Practice humility — Being humble about your achievements means you can acknowledge your successes without needing to shout about them.
• Be honest with yourself about your strengths and vulnerabilities and consider development opportunities.
• Think about how you deal with stressful events — Do you seek to blame others? Can you keep your emotions in check?
• Take responsibility for your actions and apologize when you need to.
• Consider how your choices can affect others — Try to imagine how they might feel before you do something that could affect them.

World-renowned personal coach, entrepreneur, and business strategist Tony Robbins (n.d.) has outlined his six tips for growing emotional intelligence:

• Identify what you’re feeling. Use mindfulness to routinely check in on your feelings from a more neutral perspective.
• Acknowledge and appreciate your emotions for what they are. Robbins (n.d.) emphasizes that “ emotions are never wrong. They are there to support you. ”
• Be curious about what an emotion is trying to tell you.
• Tap into your inner confidence to deal with emotions by remembering when you’ve done this effectively in the past.
• Mentally think through how you would deal with difficult feelings in the future to feel more equipped when the time comes.
• With a renewed confidence in your EQ, Robbins suggests getting excited to use these skills to achieve your goals and enhance your relationships with others.

Want more tips on how to foster EQ? Ramona Hacker gives a rundown of her six steps to improve emotional intelligence in this TED talk , which she developed through her personal EQ journey.

If you’re serious about EQ training to help clients or organizations, check out our in-depth article on How to Improve Emotional Intelligence Through Training .

Below we’ve listed three of the most well-known and reliable EQ tests available.

Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) 2.0

The MSCEIT 2.0 (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002; Mayer, Caruso, Salovey, & Sitarenios, 2003) is a 141-item test capturing abilities across their four core domains of EI:

• Perceiving emotion Tasks ask people to rate how much a specific emotion is expressed on someone’s facial expression, in a design, or a landscape.
• Using emotions in thought People are asked to rate which emotions would be useful in certain situations and to identify different sensations that match specific feelings.
• Understanding emotion Tasks evaluate emotional understanding, such as knowing how different emotions can be combined to make other emotions and how emotions can evolve with time.
• Managing emotion In hypothetical scenarios, people are tasked with rating the best way to achieve a particular emotional outcome and also to decide the actions that would be most effective to manage someone else’s feelings.

You can order copies of the MSCEIT from the publisher, Multi-Health Systems Inc .

The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i)

The EQ-i is a 133-item self-report scale developed alongside Bar-On’s (1997) model of emotional and social intelligence .

People rate the extent to which a short description is very seldom true of them (1) or very often true of them (5), and higher scores are associated with more effective emotional and social functioning (Bar-On, 1997).

Sub-scales of the EQ-i are grouped within these five scales:

• Self-actualization
• Independence
• Social responsibility

A total EQ score can be calculated as well as composite scores for each of the five scales. The EQ-i 2.0 is a more recently released version of the EQ-i you can purchase.

Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SREIT)

This 33-item scale developed by Schutte et al. (1998) was based on Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) EQ model, with the aim of creating an empirically sound self-report measure of people’s current level of emotional intelligence.

The scale captures self-reported EQ across three categories:

• Appraisal and expression of emotion (self and others)
• Regulation of emotion (self and others)
• Using emotions to solve problems

The SREIT asks people to rate how much they agree that items are characteristic of them, such as “ Other people find it easy to confide in me ” or “ I like to share my emotions with others. ” The good news is, the authors of the SREIT have made their scale freely available for clinical and research purposes, and it can be found in their original paper (Schutte et al., 1998).

If you’d like to explore a larger range of assessments and tests, we listed 17 different types of emotional intelligence tests here.

Want to learn even more about EQ assessment? Then read our article on Assessing Emotional Intelligence Scales .

To enhance your EQ prowess even further, here are three more great reads, which could help you understand and harness your emotions for the betterment of yourself and others:

• Dare to Lead  by Brené Brown
• How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain  by Lisa Feldman Barrett
• Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett

17 Exercises To Develop Emotional Intelligence

These 17 Emotional Intelligence Exercises [PDF] will help others strengthen their relationships, lower stress, and enhance their wellbeing through improved EQ.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

If you want to apply what you know about emotional intelligence, we’ve got you covered. In our Positive Psychology Toolkit© we have over 400 tools. Many of these are useful for the development of EQ, for example:

• Building Emotional Awareness: This is a 10- to 40-minute meditation exercise. Meditation exercises can be helpful for EQ because being mindful of emotions facilitates understanding and insight into emotional experiences.
• Reading Facial Expressions of Emotions: This is a fun 15-minute group task to develop an awareness of facial expressions.
• Self-Reflecting on Emotional Intelligence:  This short exercise considers the four components of EQ.
• Telling an Empathy Story: This free resource – Telling an Empathy Story – is a group exercise encouraging the development of empathy, which is a integral part of emotional development.
• Emotional Intelligence Masterclass©: This Masterclass is the ultimate resource for enhancing your clients’ or your own emotional intelligence. Highly recommended with several five-star reviews, this is a thoroughly researched and practical approach to enhancing EQ.
• 17 Emotional Intelligence Exercises If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop emotional intelligence, this collection contains 17 validated EI tools for practitioners . Use them to help others understand and use their emotions to their advantage.

Plato was definitely onto something when he said “ Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge ” (BrainyQuote, n.d.).

Emotions can be a valuable source of knowledge. As we’ve seen in this post, emotional intelligence could facilitate positive decisions and behaviors that help us realize success in our relationships, mental wellbeing, and work aspirations.

If you want to develop your EQ, there’s an abundance of simple ways you can begin building your emotional awareness today. If you’re supporting others to cultivate their EQ, both cognitive and emotional forms of learning are likely to be important (Cherniss et al., 1988). In addition to knowing what emotional intelligence is and how to get more of it “in theory,” EQ needs to be put into practice to grow.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free .

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Leaves you going down a rabbit hole beyond the article, didn’t know the levels of EQ and how bottomless the idea of it is.

This is a Very informative and motivational article. I really respect and appreciate the “break downs”. How well presented it is.

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The Spectrum of Emotional Intelligence: a Journey into Human Understanding

This essay about the multifaceted nature of Emotional Intelligence (EI) beyond traditional measures like IQ. It explores the intricate interplay of self-awareness, empathy, and social adeptness, emphasizing their pivotal roles in personal growth and interpersonal relationships. Through self-awareness, individuals gain clarity and authenticity in navigating their emotions, while empathy fosters deep understanding and connection with others. Additionally, emotional regulation equips individuals with resilience in facing life’s challenges, and social adeptness enables them to navigate social dynamics with finesse. Overall, EI offers a comprehensive understanding of human capabilities, emphasizing the importance of emotional insight and interpersonal skills in personal and professional success.

How it works

In our quest to comprehend human cognition, the conventional lens of intelligence quotient (IQ) has long dominated. Yet, in the evolving narrative of human psychology, attention has shifted towards a more intricate and comprehensive concept: Emotional Intelligence (EI). Beyond the confines of IQ lies a vast spectrum of emotional acumen, encompassing the intricate interplay of self-awareness, empathy, and social adeptness.

At the core of Emotional Intelligence lies the profound trait of self-awareness. This cornerstone attribute delves into the depths of our inner world, requiring us to introspect and comprehend the nuances of our emotional tapestry.

Individuals who possess a heightened sense of self-awareness exhibit a remarkable ability to navigate their emotions with clarity and authenticity, paving the way for profound personal growth and self-actualization.

Moreover, Emotional Intelligence extends its reach to encompass empathy—a cornerstone of human connection and understanding. Empathy serves as the bridge that transcends individual experiences, allowing us to resonate with the emotions of others on a profound level. Those adept in empathy not only understand the feelings of others but also possess the capacity to offer genuine support and companionship, fostering bonds that transcend the boundaries of mere acquaintanceship.

In addition to self-awareness and empathy, Emotional Intelligence entails the crucial skill of emotional regulation. This skill demands mastery over one’s emotional landscape, enabling individuals to navigate the highs and lows of life with resilience and composure. Those who excel in emotional regulation demonstrate a remarkable capacity to weather the storms of adversity, emerging stronger and more resilient in the face of challenges.

Furthermore, Emotional Intelligence encompasses the art of social adeptness—the ability to navigate the intricate dynamics of human interaction with finesse and grace. From effective communication to conflict resolution, social adeptness equips individuals with the tools necessary to forge meaningful connections and cultivate harmonious relationships. These skills are not merely confined to the realm of personal interactions but also hold profound implications for professional success and leadership.

In conclusion, while IQ may provide a glimpse into cognitive prowess, Emotional Intelligence offers a holistic understanding of human capabilities. Beyond the realm of intellect lies a rich tapestry of emotional insight, empathy, and social adeptness, waiting to be explored and embraced. As we embark on this journey into the depths of human understanding, we unearth profound insights into the essence of what it means to be truly human.

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Emotional Intelligence Essay | Essay on Emotional Intelligence for Students and Children in English

February 13, 2024 by Prasanna

Emotional Intelligence Essay:  Emotional intelligence is the capability and the ability to understand and manage your own emotions in a positive manner. It is a positive way to release stress and communicate effectively. It helps to make relations stronger.

It is as important as intellectual ability. It helps to connect with feelings and turns intentions into actions. It is a helping hand in achieving personal goals.

You can also find more  Essay Writing  articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Emotional Intelligence for Students and Kids in English

We are providing the students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words and a short essay of 150 words on the topic of Emotional Intelligence Essay for reference.

Long Essay on Emotional Intelligence 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Emotional Intelligence is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Emotional intelligence is one of the essential components of leadership and an inbuilt ability of an individual to perceive the emotions and feelings of other people. It is also known as emotional quotient or EQ. It is defined as the capability of individuals to identify their own emotions. To discern between different feelings and to use the appropriate emotional guide to label each feeling and emotion in the correct way forms a part of emotional intelligence.

Empathy is an emotion that is somewhat related to emotional intelligence because it relates to an individual who connects their personal experiences with those of others. Emotional intelligence is commonly divided into four attributes which include self attributes in which a person can control his impulsive feelings and behaviour and manage his or her emotions in healthy ways. The second attribute is self-awareness, where the person gets to recognize his emotions and the thoughts that affect his behaviour.

The third attribute of emotional intelligence is social awareness. The person has empathy and can understand emotions, needs and concerns of other people. The person who has empathy can pick up on emotional cues and is able to recognize the power of dynamics in a group. The last attribute is the aspect of relationship management. This attribute helps to develop and maintain good relationships and to communicate early and manage a conflict.

Emotional intelligence has its affects. High emotional intelligence helps to navigate the social complexities of the workplace or place of education and helps to motivate others and excel in a career. Emotional intelligence helps to manage emotions. If the emotions are not handled properly, then the stress will not be handled ideally. Being in proper tune with emotions, a social purpose can be served. It helps to connect to people all around the world.

The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned at any time. There lies a difference between learning emotional intelligence and applying it in your daily life activities. In order to permanently change behaviour to stand up to pressure, one needs to learn how to overcome stress to be emotionally aware.

Self-awareness is an essential feature of emotional intelligence. It helps an individual to know their own strengths and use them wisely. In today’s scenario, emotional intelligence is one of the most significant aspects to reach the goal and succeed in life. Emotional intelligence leads to general happiness.

Having emotional intelligence leads to a satisfied and peaceful mind. It also leads to rationality in behaviour. With this aspect, a person can see the situation under which the behaviour takes place in the right perspective. With such a perspective, the person can establish the right relationship. Studies say that people with high EI have more excellent mental health, better job performance, leadership skills and better personality traits.

High emotional intelligence helps to deal with low self-esteem and helps a person to upgrade his life and have a better living scenario.

Short Essay on Emotional Intelligence 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Emotional Intelligence is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Emotional intelligence or emotional quotient is an aspect or an ability to manage emotions in a positive way. It also defines the capability of managing the emotion of others. Emotional intelligence generally includes three skills which are, emotional awareness, the ability to harness a person or others’ emotions and regulating them.

There is no validated psychometric test or scale for emotional intelligence. A highly emotional intelligent individual is both highly conscious of his or her own emotional states, like negativity, frustration or sadness and being able to manage those aspects and emotions.

It is a crucial component of leadership. It is considered to be one of the most vital indicators of workplace performance. Studies have shown that 90% of top performers possess high emotional intelligence. There are online courses and training that an individual can undertake to boost the emotional intelligence and perform better in life and reach their desired goal.

10 Lines on Emotional Intelligence Essay in English

1. Building emotional intelligence helps an individual to coach teams effectively at a workplace. 2. Writing down thoughts of your entire day, be it negative or positive will help to spot behavioural patterns of an individual. 3. Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence points out five areas of intelligence. 4. A person with high emotional intelligence can express himself openly and respectfully without the fear of offending his co-workers. 5. High emotional intelligence can navigate complex and challenging decision making with the ideal emotional response. 6. Emotional intelligence impacts every aspect of a career to be successful. 7. Psychologists Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer coined the term “emotional intelligence” in the year 1990. 8. It is a critical factor in leadership effectiveness. 9. Emotional intelligence takes diligence and practice to incorporate into interactions on a daily basis. 10. It helps to identify a person’s triggers.

FAQ’s on Emotional Intelligence Essay

Question 1. What are the four types of emotional intelligence?

Answer: The four types of emotional intelligence are social awareness, self-awareness, self-management and relationship management.

Question 2. How is Emotional Intelligence different from Regular Intelligence?

Answer: Emotional intelligence is the ability to express and control emotions. Regular intelligence is used to define academic abilities.

Question 3.  Does emotional intelligence matter in the workplace?

Answer: Yes, emotional intelligence matters in the workplace.

Question 4.  Why do we take up the topic of emotions in the context of business?

Answer: Emotions drive behaviour, thus by engaging with the emotions of your team, you are more likely to be successful in your interaction.

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• Jan 5, 2021
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Emotional Intelligence — Summary and Application

Updated: Jan 31, 2022

Here are my key takeaways from the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. I recommend everyone to read this post (and perhaps the book) because emotional intelligence affects almost every aspect of our lives, including your relationship with yourself, relationships with others, and your success.

The book answers questions such as

How can I better manage negative emotions like anger, depression, and anxiety?

How can I have more emotional harmony with others?

How is emotional intelligence useful in the workplace?

What are the negative consequences of low emotional intelligence?

(You can click on any question to jump to the answer)

This summary has four parts:

Part 1: Why did the author write this book?

Part 2: What are the main ideas and arguments?

The Emotional Brain

The Nature of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence Applied

Nurturing Emotional Intelligence in Children

Emotional Illiteracy — Consequences and Solutions

Part 3: What is my opinion on the book?

Part 4: how have i applied this book in my life.

One of the first things Goleman states in his book is that IQ contributes, at best, 20% towards a person’s success, and EQ is a significant part of the remaining 80%. Unfortunately, there’s worldwide trends for younger generations to be more emotionally troubled than past generations, which leads to serious consequences like mental illness, crime, and addiction.

Schools currently offer little to no preparation for the emotional turmoil’s that will happen in life, so parents need to educate their children. The problem is, the general population of adults also aren’t very emotionally literate because they weren’t given education on emotional intelligence either. He hopes this book will educate the public on emotional intelligence and provide guidance on what emotional literacy programs can look like.

Part 2: What are the main ideas from the book?

This book talks about what emotional intelligence is and its impact on our daily lives and on society.

The book has five sections. You can click on any heading to jump to that section.

The Emotional Brain . This section explains the irrational things we do by looking at the neurology of the brain.

The Nature of Emotional Intelligence . This section breaks down what emotional intelligence actually entails.

Emotional Intelligence Applied . This section applies emotional intelligence to marriage, the workplace, and medical care.

Nurturing Emotional Intelligence in Children . This section is about what parents should do to help nurture emotional intelligence in children.

Emotional Illiteracy . This section is about the severe cost of emotional illiteracy and what a good emotional literacy program should contain.

Section 1: The Emotional Brain

Basically, the human brain has two parts: the emotional brain and the rational brain. In our evolutionary history, the emotional brain came first and is the bottom base of the brain. The rational brain came later and is in the outer upper regions. Due to the structure of the brain and its connections with the body, the emotional brain acts faster than the rational brain, and the emotional brain can also override the rational brain.

Section 2: The Nature of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is about five important abilities.

Emotional self-awareness

Emotional self-regulation

Self-motivation

Awareness of others’ emotions

Handling relationships

Ability 1: Emotional Self-Awareness

Emotional self-awareness is about being aware of your emotions when they happen, particularly the negative ones like anxiety, depression, and anger. It involves noticing what happens to your body physically and what goes on in your head mentally.

Ability 2: Emotional Self-Regulation

Emotional Self-Regulation is about using techniques to manage negative emotions so that they don’t last so long. Techniques include reframing a situation that made you angry, increasing physical arousal if depressed, and reducing physical arousal if anxious.

One of the best ways to douse the flames of anger is to reframe the situation more positively. On the other hand, the longer we ruminate about what made us angry, the more “good reasons” we come up with for being angry. Studies show that venting anger may feel good in the moment, but it doesn’t dispel the anger.

For example, you might be angry that someone criticized you unfairly. The more you think about why that person is wrong and why they should apologize to you, the worse you feel. But you can reframe the situation by thinking,

" A truly virtuous person is very humble and forgiving towards other. He would rather be wrongfully criticized and let others feel that he can be criticized rather than arguing with them over it. "

When we re-frame the situation, we change the anger into gratitude.

For Depression

Depression is a low-arousal state, so exercise helps lift the mood, while relaxation techniques worsen it. Often times when people feel low in spirit, if they go do some exercise, whether it be a run or a sport or even just some jumping jacks, they will feel better.

Another second method for reducing depression is to comparing ourselves to those worse off than us. The purpose here is to realize how fortunate we are. When we feel gratitude, we won't be depressed. For example, many students feel depressed about their low exam scores. But when they see a video of what school conditions are like in poor countries, they suddenly feel very grateful for their situation, realizing how much other people would crave their situation.

A third method is to help other people. We feel depressed because we are overly focused on what WE want and how we cannot get it. If we change to thinking about how we can help others, then our attention moves away from our selfish desires, and then we will feel better. The human brain is wired to social connection, so when we help others, we will naturally feel good.

For Anxiety

Anxiety is a high-arousal state, so relaxation techniques help. Examples include meditation, deep breathing, going for a walk, listening to calming music, etc.

Anxious people do worse academically and on the job. However, people do their best when there’s just enough anxiety. If there’s too little anxiety, people don’t prepare. But if there’s too much anxiety, people don’t have any mental capacity to focus. The sweet spot is in the middle.

Ability 3: Self-Motivation

Self-motivation is about being hopeful and optimistic in the face of difficulty, and using goal-directed self-imposed delayed gratification to achieve goals, and using flow state to reach peak performance.

Delayed gratification means foregoing a small reward now for a larger reward in the future. For example, instead of watching TV now (a small pleasure), I’ll study so that I can do well on my exam (big reward in the future).

Flow state is when your emotions are channeled and aligned to the task at hand; unconcerned with thoughts unrelated to the task. To enter flow state, we need intentional sharp focus on the task at hand. The task should be slightly above your ability level, but also something you’ve practiced many times before, and you shouldn’t be too tired.

Ability 4: Awareness of Others' Emotions

Being aware of other people's emotions requires us to have empathy. To have empathy, we need to be calm enough such that we can mirror the other person’s physiological state, allowing us to literally feel what they feel.

Ability 5: Handling Relationships

To handle relationships well, we need to know how to argue and resolve conflicts using the XYZ method. We also need to avoid emotional flooding during communications.

The XYZ method for expressing a complaint: When you did X, I felt Y, and I’d rather you do Z instead. It is an effective way to communicate your needs because it does not blame the other person, and it tells them exactly what they can do to make you happy.

Emotional flooding is when your heart rate rises by more than 10 beats per minute during a difficult conversation. The two sides should take a 20-minute break to calm down before resuming discussion. Although 5 minutes may feel enough, the actual physiological recovery time needs 20 minutes.

Section 3: Emotional Intelligence Applied

Part 3 applies emotional intelligence to marriages, the workplace, and medical care.

Emotional Intelligence in Marriage

Divorce rates are on the rise, from 30% in 1950 to 67% in 1990. Specific issues don’t break a marriage. It’s how a couple disagrees and then discusses that’s the key to marital survival. We need to guard against contempt and stonewalling .

Usually, what happens is the wife will complain about something to which the husband thinks is not a big deal and doesn’t do anything. Eventually, the wife’s complaints escalate to contempt by attacking the husband’s character. For example, the wife might say “You’re always so inconsiderate” instead of “What you did just now makes me feel like you don’t care about me.”

When the husband is faced by contempt, he gets emotionally flooded, and to deal with that, he stonewalls the wife as an evolutionary self-defense mechanism. For example, he’ll just go completely emotionless and ignore the wife. This stonewalling causes the wife to despise the husband even more, leading to more contempt and more stonewalling. If this perpetuates, it leads to divorce.

The solution requires emotions intelligence, namely aspect #5 , handling relationships. The couple can use the XYZ method and avoid emotional flooding when communication. But to handle relationships effectively, each person needs to be aware of each others’ emotions, and to do that, they need to be physiologically calm. These tough conversations will inevitably arouse each person physiologically, so they need to be emotionally self-aware and then emotionally self-regulate. We can see how emotional intelligence is key in sustaining a marriage.

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

Low EQ people makes others stressed. Stress makes people stupid.

The main EQ skills needed in the workplace are

Attunement to others’ feelings

Handling disagreements

Entering flow state

Venting grievances as helpful critiques

Creating a culture of diversity

Networking effectively

A manager-employee relationship can be analogous to a wife-husband relationship, where the manager might attack an employee’s character, leading to stonewalling from the employee. Another mistake managers make is letting small problems go unnoticed, then accumulating small frustrations until the manager finally blows up at the employee. This then makes the employee feel wronged for not being told earlier.

The artful critique focuses on the person’s actions rather than character, is specific about what needs to change, and offers a solution for improvement. The artful critique is usually done face to face and requires empathy from the giver to feel the impact on the receiver. Here’s an example of an artful critique:

“The main difficulty at this stage is that your plan will take too long and so escalate costs. I’d like you to think more about your costs, especially the design specifications, to see if you can figure out a way to do the same job more quickly."

In terms of fostering diversity and inclusion , research shows that it’s very difficult to change people’s deeply ingrained feelings, so it’s not worth trying. Instead, organizations should train behavior, which is much easier. Organizations need to set a zero-tolerance environment that swiftly and publicly punish acts of discrimination, which will train people to act in inclusive ways, even if they still feel prejudice deep down.

In team performance , harmony is the single greatest determinant. Harmony allows every member to contribute their fullest to the team. If there’s any emotional friction, then people cannot offer their best.

Top performers are better than everyone else at three things: taking initiative to go the extra mile, promoting cooperation, and regulating oneself emotionally. They also have quick access to a flexible, informal network that will help them solve unpredictable problems quickly.

Emotional Intelligence in Medical Care

There’s often a significant medical benefit to treating a person’s psychological needs in addition to their medical needs. Medical professionals often name all the horrible possibilities to an already anxious patient, which then makes them even more anxious. Anxiety has a scientific link to the onset of sickness and the course of recovery; there’s mounting evidence that stress causes wear and tear on the nervous system.

Anger is the most harmful to the heart. Being prone to anger is a stronger predictor of dying young than smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. The antidote is to develop a more trusting heart, to assume better intentions of others.

Loneliness doubles the risk for sickness and death. Smoking is only 1.6 times.

An effective way to deal with turbulent feelings is to write it on paper, then over the next several days, weave a narrative that finds meaning in the pain.

Section 4: Nurturing Emotional Intelligence in Children

Unsurprisingly, parents’ emotional intelligence play an enormous role in the emotional development of children. But it also helps children with areas outside of EQ, including academic performance (better focus) and health (lower stress).

Family life is our first school for emotional learning. We learn how to feel about ourselves, how others react to our feelings, how to think about those feelings, and how to express hopes and fears. There are three common types of emotionally inept parenting:

Completely ignoring the feelings of the child

Too care-free : These parents notice an emotional storm but decide that however the child handles it is fine, even hitting and screaming.

Contemptuous : harshly disapproving their children’s anger and being punitive about it.

Emotionally intelligent parents use the opportunity of a child’s upset to serve as an emotional coach to the child. They take the time to understand exactly what’s upsetting the child, then they help the child find positive ways to soothe their feelings.

Section 5: Emotional Illiteracy — Consequences and Solutions

The cost of low emotional intelligence in children are severe, including depression, delinquency, addiction to alcohol and drugs, and eating disorders.

Depression is caused mainly by a deficit in two areas of emotional competence: relationships skills and handling setbacks. The lack of relationship skills causes them to have problems with their parents or peers. Then, they respond to these setbacks by feeling like they can’t do anything about it, leading to depression.

Since depression often manifests initially as constant irritability, especially towards parents, people are less likely to engage socially with that depressed person, resulting in a downward spiral of arguments and alienation. If the child is taught to feel like there’s actions they can take to improve their situation, they won’t fall into depression.

Delinquency

Social rejects lack emotional intelligence; they can’t read emotional cues, so no one likes them. They are 2–8 times more likely to drop out of school.

Boys who have low IQ and become delinquents will typically join an outcast group by the time they’re in high school. The group is likely to commit petty crime like shoplifting and drug dealing. Girls who get in trouble and are “bad” have a different trajectory. By the time they finish high school, they are three times more likely than other girls to have a child already. Antisocial boys get violent. Antisocial girls get pregnant.

Addiction to Alcohol and Drugs

For those who experiment with alcohol and drugs, only 14% become alcoholics and 5% become drug addicts. The difference with the addicts is that they turn to the substance to soothe their negative emotions as a way of self-medication . Sometimes, these people have a genetic predisposition to these emotional problems.

Since alcohol has a relaxation effect, alcohol addicts turn to alcohol to soothe either their extremely high anxiety or agitation. Drug addicts turn to cocaine in response to depression, and they turn to heroin to control anger.

Intervention programs need to teach children key emotional skills to prevent and treat addiction. These skills include emotional self-awareness, emotional self-regulation, handling stress and anxiety, reading social cues, empathy, resisting negative influences, and understanding what behavior is acceptable in a situation.

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are caused by an inability to identify distressing feelings combined with high dissatisfaction with one’s body. For example, a girl feels stressed or angry but she can’t actually name the feeling, and she just assumes everything is hunger. Then she binge eats to soothe herself. But to avoid gaining weight, she purges it all out; that’s bulimia. Or the girl starves herself to feel a sense of control; that’s anorexia. To prevent or stop an eating disorder, girls need to learn to identify their feelings and then use healthy methods to soothe those feelings.

Solution: Emotional Literacy Programs

The author urges schools to design and implement emotional literacy programs that begin early, are age-appropriate, run throughout the school years, and intertwine with efforts at school, at home, and in the community. Age-appropriate means not teaching something the children don’t have the ability to learn yet.

From ages 6–11 , children develop the ability to learn delayed gratification, being socially responsible, controlling emotions like anger and impulse, and having an optimistic outlook. These years are crucial for defining their later adolescent experience.

From middle school to high school , into the teen years and puberty, virtually everyone has a drop in self-confidence and a rise in self-consciousness. During this period, children need to learn how to build close relationships, reading emotions, solving relationship problems, and nurturing self-confidence.

A technique that children can use before bursting into anger or crying is the Stoplight Method. First is red light: Stop and think before you act. Second is yellow light: Say the problem and how you feel, set a positive goal, and think of lots of solutions and their consequences. Last is green light: Go ahead and try the best plan.

The grown-up version of the Stoplight Method is SOCS :

Situation : say what the situation is and how it makes you feel

Options : think about the options for solving the problem

Consequences : think about the consequences of each option

Solutions : pick a solution and execute it

This book was long and at many times very research heavy. However, I’m very glad I read this book, and I think it’s an essential book that every person should read.

I like how Goleman broke down emotional intelligence into five concrete aspects. Before reading this book, I just thought of emotional intelligence as "people skills", and now I have a much more accurate and thorough understanding of the term.

Part 3 of the book, where it talked about applying emotional intelligence to marriages, is the most important part of the book in my opinion. The fact that divorce rates were at 67% in 1990s is startling. Harmony between husband and wife is key to societal peace. The husband-wife harmony influences the whole family, and they set the example for the younger generation. If there are conflicts between husband and wife, then they bring all that negative energy into the workplace, and the future generation learns a bad example. Emotional intelligence is a key tool for improving husband-wife harmony, which then improves societal peace.

Part 5 of the book was really memorable for me because it talked about the consequences of emotional illiteracy in children. Growing up, I had a good friend who later became depressed and turned to drugs, and I didn’t know how to help. With the knowledge from the book, I now know of two helpful treatments: I can make him go to the gym with me and volunteer to help homeless people.

When I first read the book, I wished there was more details on how to emotionally soothe my own negative emotions, such as anger, depression, and anxiety. After more research and reflection, I've realized that this topic is huge, which is probably why the author couldn't go into more detail in this book. I wrote a separate article to summarize what I've learned about managing stress and emotional health here .

The most relevant part of the book to me was Part 3, where it talked about applying emotional intelligence to relationships. Outside of this book, one of the best tools I've found for improving relationships is the Five Love Languages.

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The big insight with the Five Love Languages is that you need to speak your partner's love language, not yours, to make your partner feel loved. That requires us to actually know that there are five love languages. You can find out their love language by simply asking them which of the five do they care about most, or you can do the Five Love Languages Quiz together.

Often times, simply speaking your partner's love language will help you get over conflicts because most conflicts arise from feeling unappreciated. Resolving relationships conflicts topic is a huge though, and I think these other resources are great for further help:

The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling

Difficult Conversations Book Summary

Hone Your Intentions

How to Resolve Relationship Conflicts

Other People’s Wrongs are Right. Our Right is Wrong

Principles for Great Relationships

In my relationships, both personal and professional, I now focus more on harmony. Before, I used to focus on being right because I thought that was adding value to the relationship and also probably because I’m arrogant. By focusing on harmony, I’ve already found it to reduce stress and arguments in my interactions with others.

Like many people, I get annoyed at many things. Annoyance is really just anger on a smaller scale. So now I try to catch myself being annoyed and then reframe the situation to get rid of that anger.

For example, I’m annoyed about my 90 minute commute. I can reframe it as,

That’s 90 minutes of uninterrupted time to listen to podcasts and learn, which is important to me.

I also started saying “Yes, thank you” to things that annoy me. It creates this weird dissonance in my brain that removes the annoyance. For example, when the elevator stops and no one comes on, my first thought is “Ugh, what a waste of everyone’s time.” I can’t really reframe that positively…So I just say “Yes, thank you.” And then I feel weird. And then I think, “Well, at least I like the place that I’m living at.” And the initial annoyance is gone.

Top Performance

At work, I look for how I can take initiative to do things that people haven’t thought of (or thought of but don’t have time to do) that adds value to the team. I also try to build good rapport with everyone I work to increase harmony in our relationship.

When having difficult conversations, I stop it whenever I feel my heart rate to be too high or I feel the other person is agitated. Whereas before, I’d just keep trying to work it out, which is actually counter-productive when both sides are agitated, now I know to stop and rest. Once both sides are calm (at least 20 mins later), we can restart.

Artful Criticism

In life, there will be times where we need to tell others to improve, and if we do it wrong, they will get offended and at upset at us. But if we do it right, they will be appreciative and the relationship will improve.

The XYZ method of “ When you did X, I felt Y, and I’d rather you do Z instead," is great because it's focused on how I feel, not on attacking the other person. It also offers a specific solution.

From personal experience, I would also add the following rules about giving an artful critique:

Timing : They are not busy; their mood is good

Environment : No one else is present; the environment is comfortable

Intention : Be loving and considerate, not critical or judging

Tone of Voice : warm and comfortable

Person : Make sure you have their trust. Whatever behavior you're advising on, make sure you first set a good example with your behavior.

Giving criticism is difficult for both the giver and the receiver. But if we can do it right, it's highly worth it.

• Book Summaries

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The Truth About Emotional Intelligence

For those who have it, it predicts success in many ways..

By Psychology Today Contributors published March 5, 2024 - last reviewed on March 6, 2024

A Brief History of Emotional Intelligence

Everyone values EI, but actually learning the component skills is another matter entirely.

By Marc Brackett, Ph.D., and Robin Stern, Ph.D.

Thirty-four years ago, in a world still debating whether emotions were a disruptive or adaptive force, two research psychologists proposed the concept of emotional intelligence . Peter Salovey and John Mayer contended that there is “a set of skills contributing to the accurate appraisal of emotions in self and others and the effective regulation of emotion in self and others” and that feelings could be harnessed to motivate oneself and to achieve in life. So unorthodox was the notion that people could benefit from their emotions that their article could find a home only in an obscure journal. Five years later, psychologist-writer Daniel Goleman, unconstrained by scholarly review processes, penned Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ , which widely popularized the idea.

Decades later, there exists a general understanding that emotions matter and can serve people’s goals ; emotions have a seat at the table. From gaslighting to rizz , recent words of the year, people have adopted the language of emotions. Parents want their children to have emotional intelligence, and the new field of social and emotional learning is helping teachers bring it into classrooms. Adults understand the importance of EI in relationships and consider it a desirable quality in a partner. CEOs see it as essential to the 21st-century workplace, a requirement for good decision-making , inspiring others, team functioning, and general productivity ; headhunters pose interview questions to assess it.

Further, we know from theory and some preliminary research that the skills of emotional intelligence actually matter. People who have them are healthier, happier, more effective, and more productive. EI predicts things of importance for children and adults. And if the worth of EI wasn’t clear before 2020, the pandemic halted so much social interaction—the growth medium of EI—that just about everyone hungered for human contact and stumbled in their social and emotional well-being.

However chastened the world is about the value of understanding yourself, maintaining friendships, and mastering daily frustrations, it’s inescapable that mental health in the U.S. has been declining in recent decades, especially among the young. If EI contributes to mental health and offers tools to address disappointments and uncertainties, how could that be?

As we see it, the number-one problem is implementation. People give lip service to wanting EI but don’t necessarily devote effort to gaining the skills. You can’t hold a one-hour workshop or put kids in a circle to talk about their feelings and call it EI. Emotional intelligence consists of a set of skills that advance developmentally, as people do, and their teaching has to be aligned with social and cognitive development. Just being aware of emotions is not enough. And you can’t teach EI to children unless you teach adults first; parents have to live it at home, teachers have to model it in school.

Becoming emotionally healthy and emotionally intelligent is hard work. That’s a hard sell in a culture that, over the past 30 years, has promoted the idea that you can gain mental health by taking a pill. Effort must go not only into gaining mental health but also maintaining it.

Emotional intelligence supports mental health, but it isn’t the whole of mental health. People get anxious or depressed for many reasons: Their biology may incline them to it. A partner suffers a debilitating experience. A breadwinner gets laid off. The more readily a person can recognize and label their emotional responses to life’s roller coaster, the better able they are to address those feelings while experiencing them, so as not to be overwhelmed by them.

Another major factor eroding the mental health of the population is that the world is exponentially more complicated today than even 30 years ago. There are more reasons for kids and adults to be anxious and overwhelmed. Climate change is an existential threat. There are school shootings. The governance of the country has been openly roiling for close to a decade, with a new level of uncertainty accompanying elections.

You can’t talk about mental health today without talking about technology. Digital technology was becoming available globally just as the concept of EI was introduced. When you are staring at a screen much of the day versus interacting with a live person, you miss out on important emotional currency.

At the same time, algorithms are keeping people in a state of emotional upheaval. Social media in particular have deliberately built into their platforms mechanisms to activate the nervous system . Research has shown a correlation between anxiety and time spent on social media.

It’s not impossible to course correct. The world has moved beyond the Freudian idea that emotions sit in a cauldron of the unconscious , driving us to do things we don’t want to do. We have an emotion system for a reason. Emotions are helpful. Happiness tells you that you are achieving your goals. Fear alerts you to prepare for danger. All emotions are data and information. There are skills that can help people use them wisely, but every one of them has to be learned.

Marc Brackett, Ph.D ., is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center. Robin Stern, Ph.D ., is the associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and an associate research scientist in the Child Study Center.

Why You Should Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary

Emotional granularity, or the ability to precisely name a wide range of emotions, plays a critical role in psychological wellness. Here’s how to cultivate it.

By Katrina McCoy, Ph.D.

We’ve all felt it—the nagging of an unpleasant emotion that is difficult to name or explain. Maybe you chalk it up to feeling “off” or “upset.”

But finding more precise labels for our emotions can help us feel better—both in the moment and over the long term. This precise labeling of emotions is called emotional granularity.

The Benefits of Emotional Granularity Emotional granularity is a skill, and researchers have demonstrated its important role in psychological well-being for decades. For example, a 2015 review of the research on emotional granularity found that folks who could differentiate their emotions while experiencing intense distress were less likely to engage in potentially harmful coping strategies, such as binge drinking, lashing out at others, and hurting themselves.

This means a person who describes feeling “angry,” “disappointed,” “sad,” or “ashamed” in the context of, let’s say, a conflict with a friend is likely to cope more effectively with those feelings than a person who uses vague descriptions, such as feeling “bad” or “upset.”

Impressively, the benefits of emotional granularity extend beyond any specific moment of distress. That same 2015 review found that people who describe and label their emotions more specifically have less severe episodes of anxiety and depression .

How Emotional Granularity Works How does using more specific language to describe unpleasant experiences reduce distress? A straightforward answer is this: The more accurately we can describe our emotional experience and the context in which the experience is happening, the more information we have to decide what will help. Neuroscience even suggests that labeling our emotions can decrease activity in brain areas associated with negative emotions.

Yet a more nuanced answer requires us to take a step back and look at the components from which our emotions are made. Start by answering a simple question: What are emotions?

Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett succinctly sums up emotion as “your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean about what is going on around you in the world.” Imagine this: Your heart is racing, your palms are sweaty, and you’re short of breath. If you are walking down a dark street alone at night, you might label your experience as fear . Now, imagine you are experiencing those same physical sensations while enjoying a candle-lit meal with a romantic interest. In that case, you might label the experience as attraction .

Thus, the same constellation of physiologic experiences organizes us around different actions depending on the context. In the first example, our fear functions to keep us safe and readies us to fight, flee, or freeze. In the second example, our attraction functions to focus our attention on our love interest, thus increasing our connectedness (and therefore regulation and well-being).

Importantly, our personal histories determine what predictions and needs we might have in any specific context. Throughout our lives, we collect diverse emotional experiences, typically first labeled by our early caregivers, which help us categorize and form our emotion concepts—the diverse collection of physical sensations, thoughts, and situations we learn to associate with a particular emotion.

Our concept of anger, for example, may include a flushed face, muscle tension, and being cut off in traffic. Our concept of anger may also have a racing heart, the urge to speak loudly, and thoughts of being taken for granted by a relationship partner. These categorizations help us to navigate our physiology in the context of the specific situation, to figure out if we should take a breath and focus on a podcast—if, say, we were cut off in traffic—or use communication skills to improve our relationship if we’re feeling taken for granted.

More precise language leads to more tailored responses (“mild annoyance” cues letting it go, whereas “outrage” cues advocating for change). Not only that, more precise language can allow us to incorporate details that create a different emotion category altogether. For example, if you home in to notice and describe hunger during a relational conflict, you may save yourself from experiencing anger.

How to Strengthen Emotional Granularity Precisely labeling your emotional experiences, then, is likely to improve your quality of life. But how should you go about developing this skill? Experts recommend creating new emotion concepts and examining our existing concepts more closely.

In her book How Emotions Are Made , Feldman Barrett suggests that one of the easiest ways to build new emotion concepts is to learn new words. She also suggests we can add to our emotion concepts by being “collector(s) of experiences” through perspective-taking (e.g., reading books, watching movies) and trying new things.

To start, explore the emotion words collected in the list below. Find one or two words you don’t typically use and ask yourself if they describe your recent experiences. Perhaps when you next notice that nagging, nameless emotion, you will skim this list of emotion words to find the ones that resonate.

Katrina McCoy, Ph.D ., is a psychotherapist, educator, consultant, and scholar with a private practice based in Westchester, New York.

......................................................

Name That Feeling

Happy, sad, and angry are useful terms but aren’t enough to describe the full range of our emotional experience. Explore this list to identify emotion words that better capture your feelings.

Anger Rage Indignation Vengefulness Wrath

Sadness Despair Disappointment Sorrow Grief

Happiness Joy Contentment Pleasure Exhilaration

Fear Anxiety Dread Terror Apprehension

You’ve Named Your Emotions—What Now?

Being aware of your emotions isn’t enough; you also have to manage them. These four strategies can help you master this second pillar of emotional intelligence.

By Michael Wiederman, Ph.D.

Awareness of your and others’ emotions is the foundation on which emotional intelligence rests. But awareness, in itself, is not enough. Here, let’s consider four ways you can develop another critical pillar of EI: emotional self- management .

1. Pause to mentally distance. In an emotionally charged situation, the path of least resistance is to follow your feelings. Instead, take conscious control of your attention and shift from allowing your limbic system to guide your behavior (reacting) to engaging your cerebral cortex (responding). Doing so lets you choose how to act.

Of course, mentally stepping out of a whirlwind of emotion is easier said than done. As a first step, it can be helpful to note the particular physical experiences that accompany troublesome emotions. Then, when a situation arises that triggers those physical responses, take a moment to mentally step out of your immediate experience. Asking yourself a question, or imagining what you might look like to others, often does the trick. At that point, although still physiologically keyed up, you’ll be able to more calmly consider the best course of action. In other words, you won’t be just reacting; you’ll be choosing how to act.

2. Take control of your self-talk . We’re frequently unaware of how much chatter goes on in the background of our minds. Such self-talk might not be in fully articulated phrases but just flashes of thought about what’s happening, what should be, or how right we are and how wrong someone else is.

Becoming aware of your self-talk is an important skill because it is those background beliefs that fuel our emotional responses. To genuinely defuse a strong negative emotion requires examining the underlying belief and how accurate or useful it is.

You may be tempted to justify the belief (This situation should not be so difficult!) but, instead, recognize that the situation is the way it is, no matter how much you wish otherwise. Ask yourself: How useful is it to me to keep clinging to this belief? You might also flex your conscious awareness to focus on asking: Over what parts of this situation do I have some degree of control? What do I need to do to exercise that control?

3. Enlist partners. Ask others you trust to help you recognize when your emotions seem to be getting the best of you. Agree on a gesture or word to serve as a signal that your trusted individual wonders whether you’re riding the led-by-your-limbic-system train.

Of course, they may get it wrong—and even when they’re right, it can feel irritating to be called out when you’re already keyed up. But instead of responding defensively, focus on the fact that this person is offering a gift—one that you asked for!—and is taking a risk. Respond with grace and gratitude .

4. Cultivate curiosity. Our brains are wired to draw conclusions quickly. These judgments are not necessarily accurate but often feel as if they are, and they are responsible for many of our negative emotional states. Working to be more curious about other peoples’ experiences, including their interpretation of events and their own motives for their behavior, helps inhibit such hasty judgments.

To be able to apply the brakes on your strong emotional reaction when triggered, practicing curiosity in situations that are not nearly as charged is a good way to build that skill for when it’s most important. A side benefit of cultivating curiosity is that it also promotes a sense of empathy and deeper connection with those you better try to understand.

A common thread across these strategies is the ability to recognize an emotional storm and decide to shift to conscious intentionality rather than reaction. Like any skill, it requires practice, and there will be lapses along the way. However, the benefits, both professional and personal, can be immense. How might your life be enhanced by greater emotional self-control ?

Michael Wiederman, Ph.D ., is a former clinical psychology professor who now works full-time applying psychology to the workplace.

Emotional Intelligence Is a Skill Set

Peter Salovey, a co-author of the original paper on EI, clears up some widespread misunderstandings.

In the late 1980s, John Mayer and I noticed that there were separate groups studying facial expressions, emotion vocabulary, and emotion self-management, all independently. We thought there was a framework under which all those topics fit—an arsenal of skills that describe abilities having to do with the emotions. We called it “emotional intelligence.”

The skills form four basic clusters. The first is identifying emotions in yourself and in others, through verbal and nonverbal means.

A second is understanding how emotion vocabulary gets used, how emotions transition over time, what the consequences are of an emotional arousal—for example, why shame often leads to anger, why jealousy often contains a component of envy.

A third area is emotion management, which includes managing not only one’s own emotions but also the emotions of others.

The fourth is the use of emotions, such as in cognitive activities like solving a problem and making a decision.

Once we had a way to measure emotional intelligence, we realized that we had to demonstrate that EI matters above and beyond standard features of personality , such as the Big Five personality traits ( openness to experience , conscientiousness , agreeableness , neuroticism , and extraversion ) and beyond traditional intelligence as measured by an IQ test. Only if emotional intelligence still accounted for variance in important outcomes could we claim that it has validity.

Over the next 20 years, we showed that, in fact, it did predict outcomes in school, at work, and in relationships. It predicted who would receive positive performance evaluations and get recommended for raises, who would be viewed as contributing the most creative ideas and leading a group. It correlated with aspects of friendship and positive social relations—less aggression , less use of illicit substances, more friends, greater satisfaction in relationships with friends. In lab experiments, EI predicted subjects’ behavior with a stranger: Those with EI were more able to elicit information, and strangers rated the interaction as more pleasant. People viewing films of the interactions rated those with EI as more empathic .

There has been a lot of playing with the construct of emotional intelligence—for example, regarding the features as traits. But that does not yield any unique information. I think it’s best to stick to a definition of EI based on skills and abilities.

Peter Salovey, Ph.D ., is the president of Yale University.

Submit your response to this story to [email protected] .

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Psychology Discussion

Emotional intelligence: short essay on emotional intelligence.

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Emotional Intelligence: Short Essay on Emotional Intelligence!

Emotional intelligence is a new concept developed by Dr John Mayer and Dr Peter Salovey (1990) from American University. However, it was popularised by American Psychologist Daniel Goleman (1995).

Emotional intelligence is defined as “one’s ability to know, feel and judge emotions in cooperation with a person’s thinking process for behaving in a proper way, with ultimate realisation of happiness in him and in others”.

Like general intelligence, emotional intelligence is also developed in a person by birth. Normal development of emotion leads to healthy life, but too much variation in emotional level damages the individual’s life.

The level of emotion in a person is called Emotional Quotient (EQ). This can be obtained by using emotional intelligence tests, same way as we assess the IQ of a person.

The success of a person in his job or profession depends not only on his IQ, but also on his EQ. The nurse with high emotional quotient can identify and perceive her emotions and of others like patients easily through face reading, bodily language, voice tone, etc.

She can have a proper understanding of the nature, intensity and outcomes of her emotions. High EQ also helps the nurse to exercise proper control and regulation over the expression and use of emotions in dealing with her and others, so as to promote harmony and peace.

Hence, it is very important for nurses to develop a high level of emotional intelligence because; they come across many emotional situations in their duties. They see the suffering of patients from many serious diseases, death of patients, and the sorrowfulness of the relatives with patients.

Many times she will come across the situations which lead to a lot of anxiety, tension, anger, etc. To deal with such emotional situations effectively and to have proper control over her emotions, the nurse should have a high level of emotional intelligence.

If not, she can learn to manage her emotions by modifying, changing her existing level of emotions and to use them in an intelligent way.

Related Articles:

• Importance of Knowledge of Emotions for a Nurse
• Short Notes on Mental Ability of an Individual
• Why it is Important for a Nurse to understand the Individual Differences in Intelligence?
• Short Essay on Emotional Adjustment

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Emotional Intelligence — Emotional Intelligence: A Research Exploration

Emotional Intelligence: a Research Exploration

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Published: Dec 3, 2020

Words: 1933 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

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Does emotional intelligence contribute to better performance in education.

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