Learning to manage emotions for greater success

Many of us have had or know someone with school report cards that say, “she would do well if she tried.” Doing well with homework and exams is more than just brains. Some people just lack the motivation.

Such observations have increasingly led people to question the concept of IQ (“intelligence quotient”) as a predictor of success. Evidence confirms that people who do better in life are not necessarily more intelligent.

In 1990, researchers Salovey and Mayer proposed a framework for emotional intelligence, “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.”

The concept of emotional intelligence captured the imagination of psychologist Daniel Goleman. In 1996, he published a number one bestseller contending that emotional intelligence can matter more than IQ.

Goleman argued that emotional intelligence is comprised of skills that “can be taught to children, giving them a better chance to use whatever intellectual potential the genetic lottery may have given them.” While innate intelligence gives us aptitude, Goleman suggests an average IQ combined with high emotional intelligence is a recipe for personal success.

In the research arena, scientists have attempted to define, measure and investigate whether and how emotional intelligence can create happiness and success. READ MORE…

Published in Health & PE, Warringal Publications, July 2018.