For many, day-to-day pressures, mounting frustrations and unexpected developments or news can lead to irrational, emotion-driven actions and decisions. Learning to understand, anticipate and manage them can be essential. This ability is known as emotional intelligence (EI). 

Despite its importance, EI is often overlooked by IQ tests that prioritize mental abilities. In “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ,” author Daniel Goleman says this can result in a “narrow view of intelligence.” 

The book notes that EI includes “self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself.” These skills “can be taught to [individuals], giving them a better chance to use whatever intellectual potential [aka mental intelligence] the genetic lottery may have given them.” 

Emotional brain 

In many cases, a decision can be explained as a rational action based on a purely thought-based process or as one driven by emotion. 

A case in point is when parents put their children’s well-being over their own. “Seen from the perspective of evolutionary biologists, such parental self-sacrifice is in the service of ‘reproductive success’ in passing on one’s genes to future generations,” Goleman says. “But from the perspective of a parent making a desperate decision in a moment of crisis, [it] is about nothing other than love.” 

Like purely mental decisions, each emotion “points us in a direction that has worked well [in the past] to handle the recurring challenges of human life.”  

Therefore, “a view of human nature that ignores the power of emotions is … shortsighted,” the book stresses. “Feeling counts every bit as much – and often more – than thought.” 

However, “IQ and emotional intelligence are not opposing competencies, but rather separate ones.” Goleman also acknowledges “a slight correlation between IQ and some aspects of emotional intelligence – though small enough to make clear these are largely independent entities.” 

In reality, an individual “balances between emotional and rational minds, with emotion feeding into and informing the operations of the rational mind, and the rational mind refining and sometimes vetoing the inputs of the emotions,” Goleman explains. “The emotional and the rational operate in tight harmony for the most part, intertwining their very different ways of knowing to guide us through the world.” 

When that balance is disrupted by emotions that run high, they “overwhelm reason … for better or for worse,” the book explains. “For worse,” could lead onlookers to say: “I can’t believe someone so smart can do something so dumb.” For “better,” witnesses might label it “dumb luck.” ​ 

Three levels 

The book classifies people’s EI profiles into three types. First are those who are “self-aware” of their moods as they happen. This clarity can make them “autonomous and sure of their own boundaries, in good psychological health, and tending to have a positive outlook on life,” the book says. “When they get into a bad mood, they don’t ruminate and obsess about it, and are able to get out of it sooner.” 

Secondly, there are those “swamped by their emotions and helpless to escape them, as though their moods have taken charge,” the book says. “They do little to try to escape bad moods, feeling they have no control over their emotional life.” 

Last are those “accepting” whatever mood they are in, the book says. “While these people are often clear about what they are feeling, they also tend to be accepting of their moods, and so don’t try to change them.” That applies to both good and bad moods. It’s a “pattern found among, say, depressed people who are resigned to their despair.” 

Goleman notes that behavior, public perception, decision-making processes and social interactions all vary depending on one’s position on the classification spectrum. These differences are especially evident across genders. 

IQ-EI males 

Males with high IQs have “a wide range of intellectual interests and abilities,” the book says. That translates to continual “ambition and [being] productive, predictable and dogged, and untroubled by concerns about themselves.” 

On the downside, they “tend to be critical and condescending, fastidious and inhibited, uneasy with sexuality and sensual experience, unexpressive and detached, and emotionally bland and cold.” 

Also, “males high in emotional intelligence are socially poised, outgoing and cheerful, not prone to fearfulness or worried rumination,” the book says. “They have a notable capacity for commitment to people or causes, for taking responsibility and for having an ethical outlook; they are sympathetic and caring in their relationships. Their emotional life is rich, but appropriate; they are comfortable with themselves, others and the social universe they live in.” 

IQ-EI females 

On the flipside, “Purely high-IQ women have the expected intellectual confidence, are fluent in expressing their thoughts, value intellectual matters, and have a wide range of intellectual and aesthetic interests,” the book says. “They also tend to be introspective, prone to anxiety, rumination and guilt, and hesitate to express their anger openly.” 

On the flipside, “emotionally intelligent women … tend to be assertive and express their feelings directly, and to feel positive about themselves; life holds meaning for them. Like the men, they are outgoing and gregarious, and express their feelings appropriately; they adapt well to stress. 

As a result, “their social poise lets them easily reach out to new people; they are comfortable enough with themselves to be playful, spontaneous and open to sensual experience. Unlike purely high IQ women, they rarely feel anxious or guilty, or sink into rumination.” 

Emotions and destiny 

Having high EI defines one’s professional future, as “IQ offers little to explain the different destinies of people with roughly equal promise, schooling and opportunity,” Goleman notes. 

A case in point was when “95 Harvard students from the classes of the 1940s – a time when people with a wider spread of IQ were at Ivy League schools than is presently the case – were followed into middle age, the men with the highest test scores in college were not particularly successful compared to their lower-scoring peers in terms of salary, productivity or status in their field,” the book says. “Nor did they have the greatest life satisfaction, nor the most happiness with friendships, family and romantic relationships.” 

The book also cites a survey of boys from underprivileged areas with average education and intelligence that showed “IQ had little relationship to how well they had done at work or in the rest of their lives. For instance, 7% of men with IQs under 80 were unemployed for 10 or more years, but so were 7% of men with IQs over 100.” 

While “in our increasingly knowledge-based society, technical skill is certainly [a success factor], even among ‘nerds,’ emotional intelligence offers an added edge in the workplace.” 

Aside from professional success, high EI can lead to a more satisfying life. “People with well-developed emotional skills also are more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity.” 

On the flip side, “people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.” 

Smarter emotions 

Increasing one’s EI requires practice and learning, and the book highlights ways to “expand these abilities.” 

First is “knowing one’s emotions,” which Goleman stresses is “the keystone of emotional intelligence.” It requires the person “to monitor feelings from moment to moment [for] psychological insight and self-understanding. People with greater certainty about their feelings are better pilots of their lives.” 

Second is managing emotions. “Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that builds on self-awareness … to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability.” 

Third is motivating oneself. “Marshaling emotions in the service of a goal is essential for paying attention, for self-motivation and mastery, and for creativity,” the book says. “Emotional self-control [by] delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness underlies accomplishment of every sort.” 

Another crucial point is recognizing emotions in others, the book says. This is better known as “people skills” or “empathy.” “People who are empathetic are more attuned to the subtle social signals that indicate what others need or want,” says Goleman. “This makes them better at callings such as the caring professions, teaching, sales and management.” 

Last is handling relationships, which “in large part” requires “skill in managing emotions in others,” the book says. “These are the abilities that undergird popularity, leadership and interpersonal effectiveness. People who excel in these skills do well at anything that relies on interacting smoothly with others; they are social stars.” 

Cost of emotional illiteracy 

The book stresses that EI is “like the canary in the coal miner’s tunnel whose death warns of too little oxygen.” Signs of trouble include “withdrawal,” socializing problems, feeling “unhappy,” and being “overly dependent.” 

EI illiteracy also causes “anxiety and depression,” the result of feeling lonely despite “preferring to be alone.” Other feelings include “having fears and worries, needing to be perfect, feeling unloved, feeling nervous or sad and depressed.” 

Emotional ignorance also causes “attention and thinking problems,” including being “unable to pay attention or sit still, daydreaming, acting without thinking, and being too nervous to concentrate,” or being “delinquent or aggressive.” 

“While any of these problems in isolation raises no eyebrows, taken as a group they are barometers of a sea change, a new kind of toxicity … signifying sweeping deficits in emotional competences,” according to the book. 

Goleman notes that EI illiteracy is common and begins at a very early age. “As a society, we have not bothered to make sure every child is taught the essentials of handling anger or resolving conflicts positively, nor have we bothered to teach empathy, impulse control or any of the other fundamentals of emotional competence.” 

Overcoming the roots of the illiteracy problem can be challenging. For one, the issue “is largely outside the [the scope of] mainstream education, [only covered] in a handful of private schools and a few hundred public schools.” Additionally, “no program is an answer to every problem.” 

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