What is Emotional Intelligence? +23 ways to improve it (2023)

We all have days when emotions overwhelm us. Passion can cloud our judgment, fear can bully our decisions, and resentment can cause us to do things we regret.

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 for social interactions and form the basis of our moral sense.

Emotional intelligence can offer a significant advantage in mastering our emotions. In this post we will get closer to Emotional Intelligence to find out what it is, why it is valuable and how you can cultivate more of it.

Before proceeding, we thought you might want to do thisDownload our three emotional intelligence exercises for free. These science-based exercises not only improve your ability to understand and work with your emotions, but also give you the tools to develop the emotional intelligence of your clients, students or employees.

What is Emotional Intelligence? 3 examples

Many people have an intuitive understanding of what emotional intelligence is, but for academicsemotional intelligence(EQ or EI) is a notoriously difficult construct to agree on.

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

“a set of skills believed to contribute to the accurate assessment and expression of emotions in oneself and others, the effective regulation of emotions in oneself and others, and the use of feelings to motivate one's life , to plan and to achieve.”

From this perspective, emotional intelligence could be useful in almost every area of ​​life. Let's look at a fewExamples of emotional intelligencein action.

self-confidence and leadership

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

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised around the world for her ability to listen, show empathy and reach out to people in crisis.CEO Today Magazinsays we can learn a lot from Ardern's ability to effectively manage her own emotions because "Confidence is the foundation upon which everything else is built”and“allows us to hire others on their terms“ (Lothian, 2020).

decision making

Psychologist and EQ expert Daniel Goleman (2019) recommends listening to your gut, as bodily intuitions show “Decision rules that the mind collects unconsciously.In this way, emotional signals from our bodies provide a kind of intangible wisdom that guides us to make the "right" decisions.

To support this, Seo and Barrett (2007) found that stock investors who experienced more intense emotions and were better at distinguishing between emotions showed better decision-making performance. Researchers suggested that greater awareness of emotions strengthened investors' ability to manage emotional biases, ultimately leading to better decisions.

Stress management and psychological well-being

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

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex has spoken publicly about his struggles with mental health which ultimately led him to seek therapy.CNN Healthhighlighted how Prince Harry's openness to talking about it and expressing his feelings also helps others by making spiritual wellbeing a more acceptable topic of conversation, especially for men (Duffy, 2021).

Emotional intelligence and personality

There has been some controversy surrounding the use of the term "emotional"intelligence' in models of EQ that contain constructs resembling personality and broader social skills. Where do these attributes end and where does EQ begin (Neubauer & Freudenthaler, 2005)?

While more objective measures of EQ's performance (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) have shown that it differs from EQPersonality traits of the Big FiveSome self-report measures of EQ, such as extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, have shown greater overlap 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).

3 Fascinating Components and Theories of EQ

The proposed number of components of the EQ differs between theories; However, the Mayer and Salovey (1997) model conceptualizes EQ as measurable skills that do not rely on self-perceived EQ ratings.

The model of integrative emotional intelligence according to Mayer and Salovey

Mayer and Salovey's (1997) integrative model includes four interconnected emotional abilities:

1. perception and expression of emotions
   Perceiving one's own emotions and picking up on the emotions of others as well as the ability to distinguish between individual emotions.
2. Using emotions to make thinking easier
   How to include emotions in your thought processes and understand when and how emotions can be helpful to thought processes.
3. Understand and analyze emotions
   The ability to decipher emotions, understand their meaning and understand how they relate to each other and change over time.
4. Reflective emotion regulation
   An openness to all emotions and the ability to do soregulate your own emotionsand the emotions of others to facilitate growth and insight.

Bar-On's model of social and emotional intelligence

Bar-On's (1997, 2006) blended model asserts 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) proposes that 10 distinct components make up the framework of emotionally and socially intelligent behaviors:

1. Self-esteem
2. Emotional Awareness
3. assertiveness
4. Empathy
5. Interpersonal relationships
6. stress tolerance
7. impulse control
8. reality test
9. flexibility
10. solve problems

Self-actualization, independence, social responsibility, optimism, and happiness were originally thought to be components of EQ but were later rebranded as 'facilitators' of EQ (Bar-On, 2006).

Daniel Goleman's EQ Theory

Daniel Goleman (1995) popularized the concept of emotional intelligence in his widely acclaimed bookEmotional intelligence. look at hisTED talkabout the art of dealing with emotions.

Goleman (1995, p. xii) offers a broad conceptualization of EQ capabilities, including “Self-control, zeal and perseverance, and the ability to motivate yourself.” Goleman (2001) suggested that EQ is an indication of a person's “potential” to develop emotional competencies (i.e., practical skills) that can help them succeed at work.

His original theory assigned emotional intelligence to five key domains:

1. know your emotions
2. dealing with emotions
3. motivate yourself
4. Recognize emotions in others
5. dealing with relationships

Why is emotional intelligence important?

Emotional intelligence is widely hailed as a valuable commodity because it can predict life outcomes that matter to us, such as , Grewal, Kadis, Gall & Salovey, 2006b).

Is EQ important in the workplace?

Lopes, Côté, and Salovey (2006a) suggest that better ability to manage emotions can improve job performance in a number of ways. UseEmotional intelligence in the workplacecan improve decision-making, help social interactions run smoothly, and improve employees' ability to deal with stressful times.

EQ has been associated with better task performance, employee organizational civic behavior (Côté & Miners, 2006), higher organizational rank, and higher scores for stress tolerance and interpersonal facilitation (e.g., positive interaction) as rated by peers and/or supervisors (Lopes et al., 2006b).

A meta-analysis of 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 get even harder when you're struggling to manage your own emotions or the emotions of those you lead.

EQ has been found to predict leadership effectivenesseven accounting for IQ and personality (Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005). Furthermore, Gardner and Stough (2002) found that emotional intelligence, specifically understanding and managing emotions, is strongly related to the (positive) transformative leadership behaviors of leaders.

Can EI be taught and learned?

Considering the many benefits EQ can bring, it's not surprising that the popularity ofEQ-Traininghas experienced a boom in the last ten years.

Notably, one study found that just 10 hours of group EQ training (lectures, role-plays, group discussions, partner work, readings, and journaling) significantly improved people's ability to recognize and manage their emotions, and these benefits lasted for six months later on (Nelis, Quoidbach, Mikolajczak & Hansenne, 2009).

It is clear that puttingEQ skillsinto practice plays an important role in the development of emotional intelligence. So if that's what you're looking forTeach EQ Skills, Cherniss, Goleman, Emmerling, Cowan, and Adler (1988) propose to distinguish between:

• cognitive learning— Intellectual grasp of the concept of how to improve emotional skills. In other words, you may know that you need to bring your attention to your emotions more often, but that doesn't mean you will be able to.
• Emotional Learning— Unlearn old habits and relearn more adaptable ones. In order to grow emotionally, we need to break out of our standard responses. If your old habit is withdrawing from loved ones when you're overwhelmed, a new habit might be reaching out to others when you're stressed instead of closing down.

Training and promotion of EI skills

in a (nInterviewwith the Harvard Division of Continuing Education (2019), Margaret Andrews, an emotional intelligence leadership instructor, outlined three steps to put you on the path to more EQ:

1. Recognize and name your emotions.
   Taking the time to notice and name your feelings can help you choose the best way to respond to situations.
2. Ask for feedback.
   Though it may make you cringe, it's helpful to get other people's perspectives on your emotional intelligence. Ask people how they think you deal with difficult situations and how you react to other people's emotions.
3. Literary Lies
   Reading books from someone else's perspective can deepen your understanding of their inner world while increasing social awareness.

MindTools (n.d.) also outlined six helpful ways you can improve your emotional intelligence with a little self-reflection and honesty:

1. Pay Attention to How You React to People - Do you judge others biased or biased?
2. Practice Humility - Being humbled about your accomplishments means you can acknowledge your accomplishments without shouting about them.
3. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses and explore opportunities for improvement.
4. Think about how you deal with stressful events - Do you try to blame others? Can you keep your emotions in check?
5. Take responsibility for your actions and apologize when necessary.
6. Consider how your decisions may affect others - Try to imagine how they might feel before you do something that might affect them.

World-renowned personal coach, entrepreneur and corporate strategist Tony Robbins (n.d.) summarized his six tips for increasing emotional intelligence:

1. Recognize what you are feeling. Use mindfulness to routinely examine your feelings from a more neutral perspective.
2. Recognize and appreciate your emotions for what they are. Robbins (n.d.) emphasizes that “Emotions are never wrong. They are there to support you.”
3. Be curious about what an emotion is trying to tell you.
4. Use your inner confidence to manage emotions by reminding yourself of when you have successfully done so in the past.
5. Think about how you would deal with difficult feelings in the future to help you feel more prepared when the time came.
6. With a newfound confidence in your EQ, Robbins suggests looking forward to using these skills to achieve your goals and improve your relationships with others.

Want more tips on boosting EQ? Ramona Hacker shares an overview of her six steps to improving emotional intelligenceTED talk, which she developed through her personal EQ journey.

If you're serious about using EQ training to help customers or organizations, check out our in-depth article onHow to improve emotional intelligence through training.

How to measure EQ: 3 reliable tests

Below we have listed three of the most well-known and reliable onesEQ-Testsavailable.

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 that measures abilities in their four core domains of EI:

1. perceive emotions
   Tasks ask people to rate how strongly a particular emotion is expressed in a person's facial expression, design, or landscape.
2. Using emotions in thinking
   People are asked to rate which emotions would be useful in certain situations and to identify different sensations that match certain feelings.
3. understand emotions
   Tasks assess emotional understanding, e.g. B. knowing how different emotions can be combined to create other emotions and how emotions can evolve over time.
4. dealing with emotions
   In hypothetical scenarios, people are tasked with evaluating the best way to achieve a specific emotional outcome and also deciding what actions will be most effective in dealing with another person's feelings.

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

Gives you an emotional Quotientenventar (EQ-i)

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

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

Subscales of the EQ-i are grouped into these five scales:

• Intrapersonaler EQ:
  • Self-esteem
  • Emotional Awareness
  • assertiveness
  • Self-actualization
  • Independence
• Interpersonal EQ:
  • Empathy
  • Interpersonal relationships
  • Social responsibility
• Adaptability:
  • solve problems
  • reality test
  • flexibility
• Coping with stress:
  • stress tolerance
  • impulse control
• General Mood:
  • happiness
  • optimism

An overall EQ score as well as composite scores can be calculated for each of the five scales. theEQ-i 2.0is a newer version of the EQ-i that you can buy.

Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SREIT)

This from Schutte et al. (1998) was based on the EQ model by Salovey and Mayer (1990) with the aim of creating an empirically based self-assessment measure for the current level of people's emotional intelligence.

The scale captures self-reported EQ in three categories:

1. Assessing and expressing emotions (self and others)
2. Emotion regulation (self and others)
3. Using emotions to solve problems

The SREIT asks people to rate how much they agree that things are characteristic of them, such as "It is easy for others to confide in me" or "I like to share my feelings with others.The good news is that the authors of the SREIT have made their scale freely available for clinical and research use and can be found in theirsgenuine paper(Schutte et al., 1998).

If you want to explore a wider variety of assessments and tests, we've listed 17 different types of testsEmotional intelligence testshere.

Want to learn more about EQ scoring? Then continue reading our articleAssessment of emotional intelligence scales.

The 3 best books on the subject

If you're looking to get lost in a library of EQ literature, we've provided a comprehensive rundown of the top 26Books on Emotional Intelligence.

To hone your EQ skills even further, here are three more great reads that might help you understand and use your emotions to better yourself and others:

1. Dare to leadby Brené Brown
2. How emotions arise: The secret life of the brainby Lisa Feldman Barrett
3. Permission to Feel: Unleashing the power of emotion to help our children, ourselves and our society thriveby Marc Brackett

Resources from PositivePsychology.com

If you want to apply your knowledge of emotional intelligence, you've come to the right place. In ourPositive Psychology Toolkit©We have over 400 tools. Many of these are useful for developing EQ, for example:

• Build Emotional Awareness:
  This is a 10 to 40 minute meditation practice. Meditation practices can be helpful for the EQ as mindfulness of emotions facilitates understanding and insight into emotional experiences.
• Reading facial expressions of emotions:
  This is a fun 15 minute group activity to develop facial expression awareness.
• Self Reflection on Emotional Intelligence:
  This short exercise looks at the four components of EQ.
• Telling an Empathy Story:
  This free resource –Tell an empathy story– is a group exercise that promotes the development of empathy, which is an integral part of emotional development.
• Master Class Emotional Intelligence©:
  This master classis the ultimate resource for improving your clients' emotional intelligence or your own. Highly recommended with multiple five-star reviews, this is a thoroughly researched and practical approach to improving EQ.
• 17 Emotional Intelligence Exercises
  If you're looking for more science-based ways to help others develop emotional intelligence, this collection contains17 validated EI tools for practitioners. Use them to help others understand their emotions and use them to their advantage.

A take-home message

Plato was definitely expecting something when he said: "Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge” (Brainy quote, undated).

Emotions can be a valuable source of knowledge. As we have seen in this post, emotional intelligence can facilitate positive decisions and behaviors that help us achieve success in our relationships, mental well-being, and work aspirations.

If you're looking to develop your EQ, there are plenty of easy ways you can start building your emotional awareness today. When helping others to cultivate their EQ, both cognitive and emotional forms of learning are likely to be important (Cherniss et al., 1988). Besides knowing what emotional intelligence is and how to get more of it “in theory”, EQ needs to be put into practice in order to grow.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Do not forgetDownload our three emotional intelligence exercises for free.