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You have probably heard of IQ, which stands for Intelligent Quotient. Basically this measure how smart someone is when compared to a standardized norm. But have you ever heard of EQ? The Emotional Quotient, or more commonly called, emotional intelligence, is how smart we are with our emotions in every day situations.
The Development of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence has been the subject of much research from as early as the 1930s, when it was referred to as social intelligence. However it became very popular among self-help guru’s with the publication of Daniel Goleman’s book ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Since then it has become very popular among those wanting to better their lives. It has also become a popular tool in industrial and organizational psychology to help businesses and their employees.
The Four Areas of Emotional Intelligence
- Perceiving emotions: In order to understand our emotions, we first need to perceive them. This involves acknowledging they are there. For you can’t consciously deal with something you do not acknowledge. Perceiving and acknowledging then opens the doorway to understanding and managing.
- Reasoning with emotions: Once you have perceived your emotions you can then begin to think about them and why you are experiencing them.
- Understanding emotions: To become more emotionally intelligent a person needs to understand the emotion, this means understanding it as a whole, and not just why you are personally experiencing it.
- Managing emotions: This is of course when, after a person has perceived, reasoned, and understood their emotions, they begin to manage their emotions and how they experience them.
Emotional intelligence is a wonderful tool for understand our feeling selves.
