What is Emotional Intelligence?

Keith Lee2 said:The link between EQ and IQ.
Just my two cents here—speculating a bit.
From what I can tell, IQ really comes down to perception and how fast you process what you see.
Basically, your brain looks at everything around you and flags it as either familiar or unknown,
and then decides if it’s dangerous or safe. If it picks up too many signals
that feel unknown or risky, it triggers fear—ranging from just a little
unease to full-on panic—just to get you away from "danger" as fast as possible.

Now, picture someone who perceives *everything* (super high sensitivity),
but doesn't have a fast enough processing speed to keep up.
That person is basically living in a state of constant anxiety.
On the flip side, someone who doesn't notice much but processes things lightning-fast
is going to be pretty chill, even in a "scary" environment.

So, the sheer amount of data you can process—that's IQ.
But the ratio between how much you perceive versus how much you process? That's EQ.

People who are highly perceptive are forced to develop higher intelligence just to cope,
basically leveling up their IQ to balance out the perception
and reach a sense of equilibrium—or, you know, actual happiness.

It's common knowledge that marijuana spikes dopamine levels, which in turn heightens perception. Are you suggesting that people who smoke are actually more emotionally intelligent? 🙏

Gerald Rivera60 said:That brings up the question of how we process abstract concepts.
The bulk of information we receive arrives via language. Someone speaks, and that audio hits the primary auditory cortex for basic sensory processing. From there, those tones are synthesized into meaningful phonemes and sent deeper into the brain, where the vocal sequence is translated into a series of connected concepts. It then integrates into an existing semantic network, accounting for context and everything else.
At this stage, the processing of raw percepts is lost. When I say "I need to buy bread," I am not working with mental images or simulating the act of purchasing; I am operating with concepts. Everything stays at a symbolic level. This allows us to handle massive amounts of data. In fact, if we had to operate using raw mental representations, we would be much slower. Instead, we swap them for concepts—using a semantic network to perform our mental data processing.
We only rely on mental imagery when we lack specific skills or when we are learning something new and need to visualize it.
In most cases, perception acts merely as a trigger for processes within semantic networks.
(We need more "hard" cognitive psychology topics on this subforum)

Heh... interesting theory.
The pathway for processing emotional information is different from other types of data. Ultimately, the cortical regions handling that processing are distinct.
Take prosopagnosia, for example. It’s a specific disorder caused by a lesion in a certain part of the cortex, resulting in an inability to recognize faces despite having perfectly intact perception of everything else. A person with prosopagnosia can see a nose, eyes, and individual facial features, but they cannot synthesize them into a cohesive whole. Otherwise, their perception remains normal, no matter the complexity. This proves we have a dedicated center in the brain for this task. Evolution likely favored individuals who were better at recognizing faces—and the expressions on them—as it improved survival and reproduction.
(But now we're drifting into evolutionary biology... that's a topic for another day. Still, it's fascinating how evolution, emotion, perception, semantic networks, language, and social context all intertwine. It reminds me of how a French historian might say there is no history of France, only the history of Europe, and no history of Europe, only the history of the world)

See, when I say "I need to grab some bread," I'm definitely working with mental imagery.
Those three little words act like a trigger that pulls up every single image my brain has stored.
I can already see the whole loaf—maybe a half, maybe a chunk—and whether it’s soft or crusty.
I can almost smell the fresh bread, picture the walk to the corner store, see the cashier's face,
think about the cash I need to carry, what I'm having with it, and a million other tiny details.
Only after my brain processes all that does it set the stage for me to actually leave.
It kind of explains that "automatic no" thing too.
When someone asks you for a favor, your first instinct is often just "NO,"
mostly because your brain just needs enough time to run through all those generated images.

So, I'd argue abstract concepts are just triggers to find
and link together everything we've already perceived.

If I said "I need to buy brenk," then you're just messing with words that mean nothing
until your brain scans its memory to find something familiar.
That's basically the brain's job—filtering through info—and you can't really stop it from happening consciously.

urbannomad12 said:It's common knowledge that marijuana spikes dopamine levels, which in turn heightens perception. Are you suggesting that people who smoke are actually more emotionally intelligent? 🙏

If it just heightens perception, then "no."
If it also boosts how you process what you see, then "yes"
But hey, if I wanted to be super precise about it, I'd have to test it out on myself first.
Still haven't gotten around to that though.

Keith Lee2 said:See, when I say "I need to grab some bread," I'm definitely working with mental imagery.
Those three little words act like a trigger that pulls up every single image my brain has stored.
I can already see the whole loaf—maybe a half, maybe a chunk—and whether it’s soft or crusty.
I can almost smell the fresh bread, picture the walk to the corner store, see the cashier's face,
think about the cash I need to carry, what I'm having with it, and a million other tiny details.
Only after my brain processes all that does it set the stage for me to actually leave.
It kind of explains that "automatic no" thing too.
When someone asks you for a favor, your first instinct is often just "NO,"
mostly because your brain just needs enough time to run through all those generated images.

So, I'd argue abstract concepts are just triggers to find
and link together everything we've already perceived.

If I said "I need to buy brenk," then you're just messing with words that mean nothing
until your brain scans its memory to find something familiar.
That's basically the brain's job—filtering through info—and you can't really stop it from happening consciously.

Well, we disagree there. I think it would be far too slow if the brain always operated through perception. Most of the time, I believe it operates via abstract concepts.
For instance, if I say, "Bobby and Ruda are friends." How do you process that? Do you visualize imaginary characters, or how do you conceptualize "friend"?
I don't have those mental images; they are quite rare for me. When I think about things or people—say, "I need to call John tomorrow and ask to borrow his lawnmower"—there isn't a single image in my head. It stays entirely on a linguistic-symbolic level.
Here is a concrete example: I'm hungry right now. First, the thought arises: "I am hungry," then "what should I eat?" No imagery involved, just an internal monologue: "I'll make some pasta." I get to the fridge and there's no sauce. "I know I bought it." Everything is still purely symbolic.
But then... "where did I leave that sauce?" That's when the imagery kicks in. I try to visualize where I put it yesterday after getting back from the supermarket.
In my experience, imagery only shows up when the symbolic level fails or when you intentionally want to visualize something to relive a sensation, like a pretty girl you saw on the subway. 😁
I suspect the human perceptual analyzer would simply be overwhelmed if it had to "think" by visualizing while simultaneously analyzing current sensory input.
The way it works now, perceptual analysis is reserved for processing real-time stimuli, while thinking is handled by other parts of the brain that have translated those perceptions into a different language. It's like how I don't draw a car; I just write the word.

Gerald Rivera60 said:Well, we disagree there. I think it would be far too slow if the brain always operated through perception. Most of the time, I believe it operates via abstract concepts.
For instance, if I say, "Bobby and Ruda are friends." How do you process that? Do you visualize imaginary characters, or how do you conceptualize "friend"?
I don't have those mental images; they are quite rare for me. When I think about things or people—say, "I need to call John tomorrow and ask to borrow his lawnmower"—there isn't a single image in my head. It stays entirely on a linguistic-symbolic level.
Here is a concrete example: I'm hungry right now. First, the thought arises: "I am hungry," then "what should I eat?" No imagery involved, just an internal monologue: "I'll make some pasta." I get to the fridge and there's no sauce. "I know I bought it." Everything is still purely symbolic.
But then... "where did I leave that sauce?" That's when the imagery kicks in. I try to visualize where I put it yesterday after getting back from the supermarket.
In my experience, imagery only shows up when the symbolic level fails or when you intentionally want to visualize something to relive a sensation, like a pretty girl you saw on the subway. 😁
I suspect the human perceptual analyzer would simply be overwhelmed if it had to "think" by visualizing while simultaneously analyzing current sensory input.
The way it works now, perceptual analysis is reserved for processing real-time stimuli, while thinking is handled by other parts of the brain that have translated those perceptions into a different language. It's like how I don't draw a car; I just write the word.

So when I read "Bobby and Ruda are friends," my brain's first instinct
was actually thinking of "Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy"—it took me a second to realize I was talking about someone else.
It makes me think that if your first thought when you hear "bread" is "knife," then your brain
is definitely processing in images.
But if you hear "bread" and immediately think "circle," then you're probably more of a verbal processor.
Basically, we’ve got visual types and verbal types.
The visual ones are usually guys, and the verbal ones are usually women.

Here's something that's pretty tough to process purely verbally:
"Predator is stronger than Alien, and Hulk is stronger than both of them.
If you're a strictly verbal thinker, you'll probably just get stuck on the typos.😁

Keith Lee2 said:So when I read "Bobby and Ruda are friends," my brain's first instinct
was actually thinking of "Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy"—it took me a second to realize I was talking about someone else.
It makes me think that if your first thought when you hear "bread" is "knife," then your brain
is definitely processing in images.
But if you hear "bread" and immediately think "circle," then you're probably more of a verbal processor.
Basically, we’ve got visual types and verbal types.
The visual ones are usually guys, and the verbal ones are usually women.

Here's something that's pretty tough to process purely verbally:
"Predator is stronger than Alien, and Hulk is stronger than both of them.
If you're a strictly verbal thinker, you'll probably just get stuck on the typos.😁

Sure, but reading your sentence didn't trigger any mental images of the Predator, Hulk, or Alien. I don't see them as pictures, even though I can tell you Hulk is a green giant.
In fact, I’d have to make a conscious effort to visualize an Alien or a Predator. Instead of percepts, my brain encodes them as abstract concepts within a semantic network. I’ve encoded the Alien as a headed monster with acid for blood that is highly dangerous. I don't have a mental image, nor can I conjure one; I’d recognize him if I saw him, and that’s it. I suspect this is a mechanism for preserving memory—instead of storing images, you store names and core, relevant traits.
Those bread-knife or circle-circle associations you mentioned aren't about percepts; they belong to semantic links and networks.
Networks of abstract concepts, not percepts.
How, then, do you visualize something like derivation, integrals, or a thought? What kind of percept exists there?
Here is an example of semantic networks... this is a massive simplification because there are far more associations, and connections exist between the primary associations of terms. All of this exists in multiple dimensions, not just two...

I really feel like success is such a subjective concept, isn't it?
Because you can look like a huge success to everyone around you, while internally feeling like a complete failure—or at least, just not successful at all.
Think about it: if someone lacks the basic awareness to realize they aren't grasping reality, yet they're convinced they're doing great, they’ll be perceived as highly successful. Doesn't that make their IQ seem incredibly high by default?
On the flip side, you have people who are masters at selling snake oil. They can achieve massive success because, let's face it, people love buying into illusions.
But that kind of success is fragile. Once they hit a wall of reality—some event that finally shines a light on the truth—everything collapses. It turns into a total disaster and a massive failure. Suddenly, that person who was supposedly so high in IQ turns out to have a miserable score.
Of course, that doesn't always happen; some might stay successful until the day they die.
Take history, for example. There have been absolute geniuses who were wildly successful despite being completely socially inept and having zero social intelligence.
That’s why I honestly think this whole focus on IQ is just nonsense—it's all smoke and mirrors.
It’s actually quite frustrating to see the little revolution happening here in America right now, where corporate recruiters and psychologists are obsessed with testing for this specific IQ metric during hiring processes.
It’s an unmeasurable, hazy concept, yet it has the power to decide whether or not a person gets a job and how their entire life unfolds.
Let me give you another example.
For a significant portion of my life, I was extremely outgoing and sociable.
And for another significant part of my life, I wasn't nearly as social at all.
It all feels very murky, like a losing battle against something untouchable. But hey, maybe people will eventually realize how futile this is if they keep obsessing over it.
Personally, though, I’m more inclined to believe that the real answers lie somewhere else entirely—deep in our genetics.

I agree that we shouldn't blindly apply methods or tests that haven't been fully validated yet.
However, IBM isn't a metric for personal happiness or success. It measures how proficient someone is at "reading" emotions—both in others and themselves—and the extent to which they can regulate and leverage those emotions in various interpersonal settings.
In that sense, you could view it as just another facet of intelligence.
Provided, of course, that the data holds up.
Here is an example of the type of questions found in the MSCEIT test.


As you can see, the questions focus more on emotional knowledge and experience. The first task involves identifying emotions based on facial expressions, while the second and third tasks deal with determining the appropriateness or likelihood of certain emotions arising in specific situations.
(These sample questions are drawn from a recent article in Scientific American; the author notes that while these aren't the exact questions used in the questionnaire, they are very similar.)

Thomas Martinez67 said:I really feel like success is such a subjective concept, isn't it?
Because you can look like a huge success to everyone around you, while internally feeling like a complete failure—or at least, just not successful at all.
Think about it: if someone lacks the basic awareness to realize they aren't grasping reality, yet they're convinced they're doing great, they’ll be perceived as highly successful. Doesn't that make their IQ seem incredibly high by default?
On the flip side, you have people who are masters at selling snake oil. They can achieve massive success because, let's face it, people love buying into illusions.
But that kind of success is fragile. Once they hit a wall of reality—some event that finally shines a light on the truth—everything collapses. It turns into a total disaster and a massive failure. Suddenly, that person who was supposedly so high in IQ turns out to have a miserable score.
Of course, that doesn't always happen; some might stay successful until the day they die.
Take history, for example. There have been absolute geniuses who were wildly successful despite being completely socially inept and having zero social intelligence.
That’s why I honestly think this whole focus on IQ is just nonsense—it's all smoke and mirrors.
It’s actually quite frustrating to see the little revolution happening here in America right now, where corporate recruiters and psychologists are obsessed with testing for this specific IQ metric during hiring processes.
It’s an unmeasurable, hazy concept, yet it has the power to decide whether or not a person gets a job and how their entire life unfolds.
Let me give you another example.
For a significant portion of my life, I was extremely outgoing and sociable.
And for another significant part of my life, I wasn't nearly as social at all.
It all feels very murky, like a losing battle against something untouchable. But hey, maybe people will eventually realize how futile this is if they keep obsessing over it.
Personally, though, I’m more inclined to believe that the real answers lie somewhere else entirely—deep in our genetics.

Look, maybe EQ itself is a made-up metric, but emotional intelligence is definitely a real thing. In my view, you can't measure it with some arbitrary score; it's more like a spectrum. You see it in how people actually interact with one another, or how someone manages to climb the ladder in a job that relies more on people skills than raw technical expertise.

Gerald Rivera60 said:Sure, but reading your sentence didn't trigger any mental images of the Predator, Hulk, or Alien. I don't see them as pictures, even though I can tell you Hulk is a green giant.
In fact, I’d have to make a conscious effort to visualize an Alien or a Predator. Instead of percepts, my brain encodes them as abstract concepts within a semantic network. I’ve encoded the Alien as a headed monster with acid for blood that is highly dangerous. I don't have a mental image, nor can I conjure one; I’d recognize him if I saw him, and that’s it. I suspect this is a mechanism for preserving memory—instead of storing images, you store names and core, relevant traits.
Those bread-knife or circle-circle associations you mentioned aren't about percepts; they belong to semantic links and networks.
Networks of abstract concepts, not percepts.
How, then, do you visualize something like derivation, integrals, or a thought? What kind of percept exists there?
Here is an example of semantic networks... this is a massive simplification because there are far more associations, and connections exist between the primary associations of terms. All of this exists in multiple dimensions, not just two...

My first vibe when thinking about derivatives or integrals—it's like being in a lecture hall, surrounded by people,
staring at chalkboards covered in random symbols... just pure fear of the unknown,
that knot in your stomach, total discomfort—(straight up PTSD vibes)—and still nothing, just a complete
mental block.
As for a thought? It's like a white mist—kind of like a ghost drifting through a huge empty space.
Quincy:

I don't have a visual in my head, and I can't really conjure one up (though I'd recognize it if I saw it), and I think it's just a way our brains protect our memory—instead of storing images, we just store names and the basic, necessary details.

Man, what you're saying really trips me out—makes me wonder how someone born blind would "shape" their perception.

Keith Lee2 said:My first vibe when thinking about derivatives or integrals—it's like being in a lecture hall, surrounded by people,
staring at chalkboards covered in random symbols... just pure fear of the unknown,
that knot in your stomach, total discomfort—(straight up PTSD vibes)—and still nothing, just a complete
mental block.
As for a thought? It's like a white mist—kind of like a ghost drifting through a huge empty space.
Quincy:

I don't have a visual in my head, and I can't really conjure one up (though I'd recognize it if I saw it), and I think it's just a way our brains protect our memory—instead of storing images, we just store names and the basic, necessary details.

Man, what you're saying really trips me out—makes me wonder how someone born blind would "shape" their perception.

That’s always been the question for me... much like how those who are deaf-mute develop language symbols and grasp abstract concepts.
We’ve drifted quite far off-topic here. I’m thinking about moving these posts to a dedicated thread—it would be useful to have a specific cognitive psychology topic on this subforum.

So, what are these tests actually made of?
They’re basically just a series of questions where there isn't really one "correct" answer, yet we're all expected to provide the perfect response.
Sure, we could just lie our way through them, but let's be honest—what happens when we actually try to be sincere?
Isn't it often the case that we just answer based on who we *wish* we were?
You know, projecting this idealized version of ourselves that doesn't even exist?
That’s why I think these tests, at least the way they've been designed up until now, are pretty much useless.
I mean, once we find a way to measure these things objectively, then maybe I'll buy into it. Until then, it feels like a lot of guesswork. We know where we want to end up, but since we don't know the path to get there, we just skip straight to the destination we think we should have reached.
With an IQ test, the whole point is that the answers are unambiguous and you can't really cheat your way through.
I'm not saying there isn't some merit to these personality assessments, but beyond the measurement issues, you have to deal with personal perception and the massive influence of our surroundings and life events—both past and present.
The worst part of it all is that despite being so imprecise, these tests are still treated as the gold standard for hiring.
And that has a massive, real-world impact on people's lives.
Honestly, that's the biggest absurdity that gets under my skin.
Otherwise, I wouldn't care about these little psychological games.
In most places, people are moving away from this stuff, but here in America, it seems to be the big trend right now.

wiredbison92 said:I honestly don't quite get why some potentially great discussions have to be completely derailed by people acting all high and mighty and getting into these petty arguments,

it’s funny how people usually act as a mirror for us,
where we end up venting about our own flaws
while we just sit back and admire their virtues,

so I suppose you might as well just vent at yourselves and admire your own greatness instead,

and regarding EI, I’ve never really been a huge fan of the term itself, because I tend to think that how we treat others and how we learn to recognize what someone else is feeling is more of a skill you pick up through life experience,
whereas intelligence feels like something more innate, you know, like a raw potential we're born with that we just have to work on developing over time...

Daniel Goleman argues that IQ pretty much peaks by age ten, while your EQ can actually keep growing well into adulthood

I’ve already gone through 'Working with Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman
and right now I’m working my way through his main 'Emotional Intelligence' book

I heard there’s actually a third one in this trilogy about EQ, but I can't seem to track it down anywhere—does anyone happen to know the title?

Look, I’m no psychologist, so I don't really know how the academic experts view Goleman's work, but personally, I think he's great because he made the concepts accessible without stripping away the intellectual depth. I truly believe we wouldn't deal with nearly as much frustration when a plumber turns out to be sharper than a PhD holder, if only we understood that it all comes down to EQ.

Wouldn't you say emotional intelligence is essentially just a fancy term for intuition?

I have that book sitting here, but I honestly can't find a single reason to pick it up. It’s nothing but mindless platitudes from the very first page, and frankly, it's exhausting.

I honestly think intuition is pretty much hitting the nail on the head, that's really what it boils down to...

A few years back, I actually tried reading this stuff, but I just couldn't get into it, it felt so incredibly tedious and draining. But then life happened, and I went through enough experiences where I just couldn't wrap my head around why I was acting the way I was... so I attended this seminar where they talked about the absolute necessity of mastering your own emotions... and that's what finally drove me back to the library.

That book was a total game changer for me! It basically explains how emotions are this massive, overwhelming force backed by our entire physiology that can completely hijack your rational thought. They stem from the ancient, evolutionary parts of the brain, while the rational center is part of the newer cortex that developed later on. For thousands of years, the brain evolved so that emotions were the primary driver for survival—like if you're suddenly staring down a mountain lion, your body gets flooded with hormones that kick you into this intense "fight or flight" state before your rational mind even has a chance to process whether you're about to be eaten or if you can take it down. Back in the day, the guy who sat there overthinking his options didn't live long enough to regret it...

Emotions can just totally drown you, and your logic doesn't have much of a say in the matter. But it's not entirely hopeless: you actually can SEND SIGNALS to that primal brain. You can send warnings or messages like, "Hey, take it easy, calm down, let's think this through..." But the problem is the old brain can't "think," it just reacts instantly. That’s why it’s so vital to visualize potential situations ahead of time, so your modern brain has time to map out a strategy.

And man, there is so much more to it—for instance, emotions and motivation actually share the exact same root —they act as motors, providing the drive to move, so at its core, an emotion is just an impulse calling you to action. IQ matters, sure, but if you want to actually succeed in life, you need EQ, and the best part is that it's something you can actually develop...

This book definitely gave me the answers to everything I was wondering...

EI is arguably the most vital factor in every area of life—whether it's your home life, your career, or just hanging out with friends. Daniel Goleman really brought this to the mainstream, and he presents the whole concept with such clarity 🙏
It's almost like a master key for understanding so much of what goes wrong in the world—wars, constant conflict, alcoholism, violence. It usually boils down to emotions completely overwhelming a person (that classic amygdala hijack!) and taking the wheel before reason can even step in.

But I suppose there's a massive gap between theoretically grasping the concept and actually doing the hard work of applying it.

Sure, you’ll find plenty of books claiming that EI matters more than cognitive intelligence. In my view, that’s a bit of a premature conclusion. It’s true that people with high EI tend to be more satisfied with life, possess better self-esteem, navigate social waters more effectively, and manage their emotions with ease... and so on and so forth. But does having a high EI quotient actually mean we can just toss cognitive intelligence out the window? Does emotional intelligence somehow compensate for a lack of raw intellect? Not quite.

Even Salovey suggests that within certain professional environments, individuals have essentially already been screened based on their intellectual capacity. Therefore, it stands to reason that once you're through that door, other factors take center stage, and EI becomes the focus. When everyone in the room possesses a high IQ, it isn't the differentiator anymore; success starts to hinge on something else entirely... and that something could very well be EI.

Essentially, my point is this: we should probably view EI as its own distinct form of intelligence, something entirely orthogonal to cognitive IQ. It plays a vital role in certain dimensions of how we function as humans, sure, but I don't see why we need to hyper-inflate its importance beyond reason.

gentlewolf10 said:Essentially, my point is this: we should probably view EI as its own distinct form of intelligence, something entirely orthogonal to cognitive IQ. It plays a vital role in certain dimensions of how we function as humans, sure, but I don't see why we need to hyper-inflate its importance beyond reason.

Exactly, so the end result would be a vector sum.
In my view, regarding how much it actually matters—the wider the angle between that resultant vector and the IQ vector, the higher the quality of life. 😉

rustydrifter7 said:Exactly, so the end result would be a vector sum.
In my view, regarding how much it actually matters—the wider the angle between that resultant vector and the IQ vector, the higher the quality of life. 😉

I can't speak to "quality of life," but if my memory serves me right, the correlation between intelligence and general life satisfaction is incredibly low. It basically means that people with high or low IQs can all be equally satisfied or dissatisfied with their existence—it’s a wash.
What exactly did you mean by quality of life?