Richards - Emotional intelligence : how to increase EQ, interpersonal skills, communication skills and achieve success

Chapter One

Historical Roots

I t was not until the 20th century that people beganto understand that intelligence did not necessarily only mean cognitivefunctions like problem solving, memory, and learning. There was more tointelligence than that. Scientists began to realize that there werenoncognitive aspects of intelligence that existed and played a great role inpeoples way of being in the world.

To understand thenature of emotional intelligence, its important to distinguish it fromspecific personality quirks or traits. More than just a cheery disposition, or niceness, emotionalintelligence is about having the ability to approach others with anunderstanding of their emotional state, at any given time. The ability to discern internal turmoil,sadness, or anger, for example, are hallmarks of emotional intelligence. This ability points to an empathic naturethat is sensitive to other people.

Emotionalintelligence can mean you are the calm in the eye of the storm; able to slowdown long enough to assess the situation. It also means you are open to the emotional landscape of other peopleand able to effectively approach them in order to mitigate, lead and feelwith them.

E. L. Thorndike , an Americanpsychologist, is known as one of the most frequently cited psychologists of the20th Century. His pioneeringwork in the field of education at Columbia University forms the foundation ofwhat is now known as modern education psychology. It was Thorndike who, in 1920, identified aparticular type of intelligence, called social intelligence, which helpedpeople understand and manage those around them. In 1940 David Wechsler identified the notion of noncognitiveintelligence. He argued that you could not define intelligence until youdefined the various aspects of that intelligence unrelated to any cognitive skillthat could be measured.

Inventor of theWechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), this psychologist contended thatintelligence was actually a combination of influences which were not allgoverned by cognitive processes. In1940, he distinguished non-intellective from intellective factors in humanintelligence. In this way, he created anentirely new column of intellectual attributes, including emotions and theinfluence of social environments. Wechsler believed that these newly defined non-intellective elementswere strong predictors of a persons ability to succeed in life and work. It was with this distinction that theemotional life of the human being became an important factor in determiningglobal intelligence. In essence,Wechslers work paved the way for an understanding of a holistic (or total)intelligence that invited empathy to the party.

It was in 1983 thatHoward Gardner in his book, Frames ofMind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences stated that people havemultiple intelligences. In defining the concept, Gardeners model rested oneight types of ability. These were: musical, spatial, linguistic, mathematical,physical, relational (inter and intrapersonal), natural/realistic. To these, Gardner later posited that moralintelligence should be added. Gardenerbelieved that each person featured a highly individualized combination of allthese abilities in varying degrees.