- What is Emotional Intelligence?
- How did emotional intelligence come about?
- Advantages of emotional intelligence
- Scientific support
We explain what emotional intelligence is and how this concept arises. Also, what are the advantages of emotional intelligence.
The concept was introduced by psychologist Howard Gardner in 1983.What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence refers to the abilities and abilities psychological that involve the feeling, understanding, control and modification of one's own and other's emotions.
An emotionally intelligent person is one capable of satisfactorily managing emotions to achieve positive results in their relationships with others.
How did emotional intelligence come about?
Interpersonal intelligence allows you to react according to the mood of the other.Despite the fact that several psychologists had already pointed out the insufficiency of the cognitive and rational elements as the only indicators of intelligence, the concept arose in 1983 with the psychologist Howard Gardner, who considered the tests of intelligence quotient as insufficient to achieve an appreciation of intelligence.
There are two elementary forms of emotional intelligence:
- Interpersonal intelligence. It implies understanding and understanding the emotions of others and having the ability to react according to the mood of the other.
- Intrapersonal intelligence. It involves understanding and understanding your own emotions, taking them into account at the time of take decisions and be able to regulate emotions according to the situation.
The dissemination of the concept among population, based on the scientific dissemination carried out by various academics (including the psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of the best-selling book on the subject), promoted the appearance of seminars, workshops and courses related to the learning emotional intelligence, which quickly became widespread in the society, especially in the business field, providing techniques and tools to reinforce intra and interpersonal skills.
The dissemination of the concept also prompted the appearance of numerous tests, with the objective to measure, calculate and compare the emotional abilities of people, but since the affective and sentimental characteristics are not easily measurementMany of these tests do not have scientific endorsement.
Advantages of emotional intelligence
There are certain practical skills that are manifested with greater intensity in emotionally intelligent people, such as empathy, the capacity of motivation (both towards oneself and towards others), self-awareness, the ability to control the externalization of emotions, leadership, among other. Generally, these skills are used as indicators of emotional intelligence, when you want to measure this psychological ability.
Emotional intelligence plays a central role in the success or failure of all types of human relationships, from romantic and family relationships to work relationships.
It is also a determining factor in the functioning of organizations, since the empathy, emotional self-control and motivation of people can condition the teamwork, making it more or less efficient and satisfactory.
These skills are also important in people's ability to convince, manipulate, and even dominate others (leaders tend to be emotionally intelligent people).
This concept has also had an enormous impact in the educational field, introducing the question of emotional elements in the relationship between teacher and student, and the importance that this has at the time of cognitive learning. Both the emotional intelligence of the teacher and that of the student have a significant weight in the successful or unsuccessful outcome of the learning process. teaching.
Scientific support
Scientific studies on emotional intelligence focus on both the personal lives of individuals, and their emotional learning during childhood and adolescence, as on biological and anatomical factors, such as the role played by the amygdala and the hippocampus in the evolution of emotions or the importance of hormones.
In the literature Scientific there are two great models of emotional intelligence:
- Mixed model. Combine emotional skills with elements of personality.
- Skill model. It focuses exclusively on the emotional processing of the information obtained from the environment or introspection.
While the first model is more widespread thanks to marketing and the advertising, the skill model has more support within the community scientific