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Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter…
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Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (original 1995; edition 2005)

by Daniel Goleman (Author)

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6,967811,318 (3.71)20
Even though this book came out in 1995, it's still pretty relevant. What would be interesting if the author wrote an updated version of this, using all the new data from neuroscience research, biology, psychology, and so on, to reinforce what he talked about in the original.

The most interesting part of the book, I thought, was the documented work with emotional intelligence and children, something that I believe is still very relevant today. Children from certain school were taught to observe their emotions and to adjust them according to their situation. One example was a disagreement between to boys over a project they were working on in class, and the boy that was the most angry was taken aside to settle his mind and observe his emotions. He was guided to take the perspective of his project partner, to try and see things from his point-of-view, while examining his own emotions as to why he reacted the way he did. This, I believe, is an essential skill that all humans need to be taught, especially from a young age. Considering all the anger, confusion, hatred, and stress in the world (especially in the Western cultures), emotional intelligence needs to be taught to all in order to achieve a more balanced world.

Though a bit outdated with many other books by other experts in psychology, sociology, neuroscience, etc., talking about this and many other, more updated, aspects of the human mind, this should still be read if you are at all interested in E.Q. and/or psychology. ( )
  Kronomlo | Jun 24, 2017 |
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I don't usually find myself buying or reading books labeled "Self-Help." Not that I don't like myself, or consider myself unworthy of help--or beyond the realm of needing help--but I find the books labeled and marketed this way to be largely vapid and boring.

This was not the case with Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. This is a thoughtful, sober, and careful analysis of specific issues related to character formation and the steady slide of young people in society into a situation of being incapable of articulating, let alone controlling, their passions--as they would have been called in the 18th century--and directing their attentions and efforts in pursuits likely to lead to productive, healthy, and contented lives. What could be more urgent and important?

The book details interesting scientific discoveries, data from studies and experiments, and intelligent and non-pedantic descriptions of complex phenomenon with ease. While offering ideas for solutions, Goleman is never so obnoxious as to pretend that providing training in emotional intelligence to young people will solve all of society's ills. In an age of mass shootings, youth nihilism and despair, and generations lacking the ability to toss their phones aside and pay attention to something for more than two minutes, focusing on a way to drive home the usefulness and almost unlimited upside of character formation (which Goleman concedes is actually what he's talking about at the end) seems a tremendous imperative. While the book begins with philosophy--where the answers ultimately lay--Goleman hopes to avoid that field by keeping the majority of the book in the hard(ish) sciences.

However, if he wishes to succeed in reforming education along the conservative/classical (though thoroughly secular and traditionally liberal) lines he proposes here, he will need to get a bit more explicitly philosophical. There, I fear he will collapse into a heap of utilitarianism and collectivism and squander the good that this book hints towards and wishes to promise. ( )
  JohnLocke84 | Jan 3, 2024 |
I had been under the impression that emotional intelligence was a counter-argument to IQ, and that EQ recognized the ableism of IQ. But apparently, it was created as another tool for businesses to use in determining the best hire.

I had such high hopes, and yet here we are. ( )
  EmberMantles | Jan 1, 2024 |
Powerful stuff ( )
  kmaxat | Aug 26, 2023 |
I found this book to contain quite an academic (and at times scientific) view of emotion that includes some good story-telling.

It started very dry but I found it got more engaging about 60 pages in. I found the book to be more focussed on describing emotional intelligence as opposed to providing much guidance about how to improve your emotional intelligence. Despite this, I did however find that it contained a wealth of interesting information.
( )
  gianouts | Jul 5, 2023 |
Deri në ditën kur psikologu Daniel Goleman botoi këtë libër, njerëzimi ishte i fiksuar me idenë që njeriu duhet të mësojë të zgjidhë ushtrime logjike të komplikuara, sa më shumë dhe sa më shpejt të jetë e mundur, në mënyrë që të jetë i sukseshëm në biznes dhe në jetë. Por a mundet të “zgjidhësh” dashurinë si ushtrim logjik? Inteligjenca emocionale na shpjegon ne se ka më shumë rëndësi aftësia jonë për të vepruar në kushtet e emocioneve, për të marrë vendime ndërsa na rreh zemra dhe jo aftësia për të llogaritur përmendësh sa bëjnë 257*1234.
  BibliotekaFeniks | Jan 24, 2023 |
every parent shall read this ( )
  vexierspiegel | Jan 9, 2023 |
I read the 10th anniversary edition that contains updates from the original 1995 publication. I am not sure how I missed reading this over the years. In the updated edition, Goleman clears up myths that have arisen around emotional intelligence. The overall thesis is that emotional intelligence is primarily an advantage in the soft skills, especially in interpersonal relationships. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I had read it years ago. It contains a lot of good information that has become part of mainstream thinking.

3.5
( )
  Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 |
Emotional Intelligence is a pathfinding book about this important facet of being human.
  laibasaleem | Sep 12, 2022 |
I read this as part of a reading group at work.

Emotional Intelligence is something of a classic in popular psychology books. In the mid-1990s, Goleman popularized the idea of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence makes explicit the fact that rationality is not independent of emotions. Emotional intelligence is a set of characteristics which contribute to a positive relationships between the rational mind and the emotional mind.

The key aspects of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman, are:
- Knowing one's emotions.
- Managing emotions.
- Motivating oneself.
- Recognizing emotions in other.
- Handling relationships.

The book is organized into 5 parts.
- Part one: background on emotions and the emotional brain
- Part two: why emotional intelligence is important and a look at each of the 5 areas of emotional intelligence
- Part three: some domains in which emotional intelligence would be useful to apply
- Part four: some more of the same; it's unclear why this is a separate section
- Part five: integrating emotional intelligence into education

Parts one and two were the most interesting, but they were mainly description. Parts 3-5, where you might expect to read information on how to improve your own emotional intelligence skills, consist mostly of descriptions of studies that show the damage that can come from a lack of emotional intelligence skills and how teaching emotional intelligence skills improves many things from depression rates to violence in schools.

What the book never gives is ways to improve your own emotional intelligence. There are hints throughout; if I had not been expecting a section dedicated to practical knowledge, I probably could have extracted a substantial list of useful ideas, but there was no systematic description of techniques.

Thus, in some ways, the book was 300 pages trying to convince you that emotional intelligence is an important concept that we should pay attention to. For people who aren't already convinced of that, this book may be effective. But I was reading this as part of a reading group formed to study emotional intelligence. We were already convinced. Coming from that context, this book was disappointing. ( )
  eri_kars | Jul 10, 2022 |
8447102254
  archivomorero | Jun 27, 2022 |
'Impressive in its scope and depth, staggering in its implications, Emotional Intelligence gives us an entirely new way of looking at the root causes of many of the ills of our families and our society.'-Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., author of Wherever You Go, there You Are

Is IQ destiny? Not nearly as much as we think. Daniel Goleman's fascinating and persuasive book argues that our view of human intelligence is far too narrow, ignoring a crucial range of abilitites that matter immensely in terms of how we do in life.

Drawing on groundbreaking brain and behavioral research, Goleman shows the factors at work when people of high IQ flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well. These factors, which include self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy, add up to a different way of being smart-one he terms 'emotional intelligence.' While childhood is a critical time for its development, emotional intelligence is not fixed at birth. It can be nurtured and strengthened throughout adulthood-with immediate benefits to our health, our relationships, and our work.

This eye-opening book offers a new vision of excellence and a vital new curriculum for life that can change the future for us and for our children.

'Fascinating...it's a winner.'-The New York Times

'A smart, adventurous book...Goleman strikes a blow here for both science and common sense.'-The Philadelphia Inquirer

Contents

Aristotle's Challenge
Part one The emotional brain
1 What are emotions for?
2 Anatomy of an emotional hijacking
Part two The nature of emotional intelligence
3 When smart is dumb
4 Know thyself
5 Passion's slaves
6 The master aptitude
7 The roots of empathy
8 The social arts
Part three Emotional intelligence applied
9 Intimate enemies
10 Managing with heart
11 Mind and medicine
Part Four Windows of opportunity
12 The family crucible
13 Trauma and emotional relearning
14 Temperament is not destiny
Part Five Emotional literacy
15 The cost of emotional illiteracy
16 Schooling the emotions
Appendix A: What is emotion?
Appendix B: Hallmarks of the emotional mind
Appendix C: The neural circuitry of fear
Appendix D: W. T. Grant Consortium: Active ingredients of prevention programs
Appendix E: the self science curriculum
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
  AikiBib | May 29, 2022 |
p 66
  kristiederuiter | May 14, 2022 |
I've been meaning to read this for ten years or so - it's a little out of date but still relevant. In the midst of all of our hand-wringing about gun violence and the wilding of young people, here's a proposal to cultivate (officially, and in public schools) this thing known to the ancient Greeks as "character." The thesis here is that emotional management skills can be taught and can ward off depression and anxiety and reduce rates of violence, crime, drug abuse, etc. The question is, can we all agree that this sort of thing falls under the purview of the public school? ( )
  jdegagne | Apr 23, 2022 |
There are a lot of books in the self-help bestseller category out there. On one side, there are a lot of readers wanting to be better and maybe richer and, I presume that on the other side there are authors wanting the same. Hence, so many books on the same topics. So what makes this book different? This book stands out because Goleman is himself a trained researcher in psychology, and also, he seems to have spent a long time sifting through a wide array of research literature and interviewing some of prominent researchers themselves. He distilled these studies into the book, and some of them are very interesting. To be fair, he also seemed to add a bunch of filler. Hence my three star rating. Still, the good parts of the book made it worth reading.

The main messages I got from the book are:

a) A basic background in the neural basis for the origin and modulation of emotion.
b) That we have some ability to introspect, identify and reason about our own emotions, hopefully soon after they happen.
c) That this practice relates to our ability to express them constructively to other people and also to our ability to be perceptive of other people's emotions when we interact with them.
e) That these two abilities hold a stronger influence in the quality of our life than most people think, and are not strongly correlated with IQ. Hence the subtitle.

Contrary to what you may expect, the book does not spend too long debating on whether intelligence is the right word to describe these skills or whether it really matters more than IQ. The author does address these topics and clarifies IQ is still the stronger predictor out there, but that a lot of variation in outcomes is still left unexplained by IQ. Other skills such as emotional skills and self control tend to also have good predictive power and furthermore are independent of IQ, so they are worth exploring.

The book did give me plenty of food for thought. The main thing the book is missing is more concrete suggestions on how to put some of these ideas into practice.

Besides the main message, there were other interesting things I take away from the book. One of them is the potential role of emotion as a driver of decision making. Due to a tumor, a patient lost connections between a part of the brain generating emotion, and a part in charge of rational decision making. The person was still just as able cognitively, but was unable to make decisions about the most basic things. One of the researchers studying him concluded that emotion may have an important function driving quick decision making. This is a single case, so it could be all retrospective as far as I understand. But I hadn't heard this thought before and it changed the way I look at things. Like this case study, there are other interesting case studies and experiments scattered through the book and I found them quite interesting. Do note that this particular thread is not explored further in this book, but is delved into in others.

One problem I have with the book is that I got most of the message in the first 150 pages. The second half of the book was not nearly as interesting to me. Towards the end, the book takes a turn into promoting the application of these ideas to the school context. Some of it seems to be purely speculative. My impression is that 20 years later, neither the revolution he anticipated if his recommendations are taken, nor the apocalypse he predicted if people kept ignoring it have come to happen.

Another problem I have with the book is that I found it hard to keep it clear in my head what was actually known and what was his interpretation of an experimental outcome. How far would the researchers themselves take the conclusions of their work? Would it be as far as Goleman takes them? ( )
  orm_tmr | Mar 16, 2022 |
This book was not an easy read. I had higher expectations for it which explains at least some of the difficulty. Parts I and II were better than III. That didn’t help either. Strange for a book on emotional intelligence to be so coldly intellectual. Felt more like an education on the science of the emotions than an resource for improving emotional intelligence so I guess now I know? ( )
  nrfaris | Dec 23, 2021 |
Goleman explores an aspect of personal development that is sorely lacking in a "me" generation that lives for instant gratification and constant reinforcement that they are wonderful and special and perfect as is. The world is a tough place where we face tragedy and obstacles. Emotional intelligence is often what separates those who succeed in life from those who whine, blame others, and cannot control their tempers. ( )
  JoniMFisher | Oct 5, 2021 |
Yeah, nah. I’m not going past page 34 with a book that thinks IQ is a valid measurement of someone’s intelligence and gives “primary importance” props to the damn Bell Curve. Hard pass.
  sarahlh | Mar 6, 2021 |
This was a really interesting book. I felt the latter parts could've maybe used a bit more editing, although it might've been also my tired state of mind. But I really loved the first part about the science of it. ( )
  RankkaApina | Feb 22, 2021 |
I found this book too long and quite dull. There are too many 'imaginary person' anecdotes and not enough detail. Could have covered the same information in a much shorter book. There were also parts where the theory was out of date, neurology being quite a new and fast moving field (so far as I can tell).

I recently read Intelligence in the flesh by Guy Claxton (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24945500-intelligence-in-the-flesh) which covered pretty much the same material in a much more interesting way. If you are thinking about reading Emotional Intelligence, don't, read Intelligence in the flesh instead. ( )
  mjhunt | Jan 22, 2021 |
Very clearly articulated and compelling case for attending to the emotional development of our children (and ourselves). At one level, all this is obvious and surely not new. Being intelligent in itself is no guarantee of success or happiness. What matters at least as much is our ability to deal with other people, understand then, connect with them, influence them, form relationships. But I would suggest that Daniel Goleman's assertion early on that we make huge efforts to try to improve the quality of teaching and learning in maths and english/native tongue, but we put less focus on emotional development. My own experience, from UK primary education, is that there is now some attention paid to the social development of each child (friendship groups and conflicts are discussed with parents) as an integral part of considering the child, but it does feel like it falls a little short of what this book is telling us.

This is not a difficult read, but it is a rewarding one. ( )
  peterjt | Feb 20, 2020 |
Not practical.

Basically just some notes on emotional intelligence. Eg telling us to send children on emotional literacy course without telling us what the course is about, telling us to get people to open up but not telling us how to.

1) The ventilation fallacy
2) Distract yourself when you are sad
3) The artful critique
4) Emotional contagion ( )
  Wendy_Wang | Sep 28, 2019 |
Un passionnant voyage au pays des émotions pour découvrir des sentiments inexplorés
La conception traditionnelle de l'intelligence néglige une part essentielle du comportement humain: les réactions émotionnelles.

Le QI n'est pas le seul critère; il existe une autre forme d'intelligence, l'intelligence émotionnelle, que l'on peut stimuler et développer dès l'enfance.

Refuser d'écouter ses émotions peut entraîner une instabilité générale, alors que maîtrise de soi, motivation, respect d'autrui sont autant de qualités pour réussir.

Daniel Goleman nous invite à accepter nos émotions, pour développer une nouvelle forme d'intelligence
  Haijavivi | Jun 11, 2019 |
He references many good works , like Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery , to build a strong case for neuroplasticity and lifelong learning, and even undoing previous or childhood traumas, as a lifelong task. ( )
  FourFreedoms | May 17, 2019 |
He references many good works , like Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery , to build a strong case for neuroplasticity and lifelong learning, and even undoing previous or childhood traumas, as a lifelong task. ( )
  ShiraDest | Mar 6, 2019 |
I first heard of this book back in 2000 from a psychology student who turned into a successful psychiatrist. This self awareness book ( )
  soontobefree | Jan 10, 2019 |
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