Understanding Emotional Intelligence and Learning

Conventionally, the formal educational focuses on cognitive and psychomotor skills learning. Academic success is based on intelligence measured by Intelligence Quotient using standardised tests. However, the use of this is limited within the workplaces, which often use aptitude tests now days. Recent researches emphasise on a need to develop and focus on affective learning, that is, emotional intelligence. Emotional health is fundamental to effective learning according to research into brain based learning, for happy people are more apt to retain information and do so more effectively than unhappy people. 

Emotional intelligence becomes even more vital as knowledge is rapidly expanding and this leads to change in all spheres of life. Individuals have to be therefore able to learn and adapt equally rapidly. For Goleman (1998, pp 4) states that ‘the concept of a ‘job’ is rapidly being replaced by ‘portable skills’ for they ‘are prime qualities that make and keep us employable’. So success in life is no longer ensured by just possessing knowledge but by the ability to learn, by understanding how to learn.

According to Ruisel (1992) there are three types of intelligence –

• Abstract intelligence, which relates to the individual’s ability to understand and manipulate with verbal and mathematical symbols.
• Concrete intelligence, which relates to the individual’s ability to understand and manipulate with objects.
• Social intelligence, which relates to an individual’s ability to understand and relate to people.

Intelligence                                     Related to

•           Abstract                              Symbols

•           Concrete                            Objects

•           Social                                  People

Figure 1  - Types of Intelligence

Goleman (1995) states that only 20% of factors relating to success in life are related to IQ, while the rest 80% can be attributed to emotional intelligence. Mayer and Salovey (1993, pp.433) propose that Emotional Intelligence is ‘a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions’. It subsumes inter- and intra-personal intelligences, which were seen to be the main components of social intelligence. Interpersonal intelligence is the individual’s ability to understand other people and intrapersonal intelligence is a correlative ability that allows a person to form an accurate and true model of oneself, as well as the capacity to use that model to operate effectively in life. 

Goleman (1995, pp.80) states that ‘emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them.’ This encompasses five domains –

• Self-awareness – to know oneself and one’s emotions, to recognise feeling as it happens, as well as ability to discriminate between feelings.
• Mood management – handling emotions/feelings appropriately, understand what is behind a feeling, discovering ways of managing fears, anxiety, anger and sadness.
• Self-motivation – channelling and directing emotions towards achievement of goals, overcome self-doubt, inertia and impulsiveness. Delaying gratification and having emotional self-control.
•  Empathy – recognises other people’s feelings and emotions and to understanding their perspective, tuning into their verbal and nonverbal cues, appreciate the difference in how people feel
• Managing relationships – handling interpersonal relationship, conflict resolution and negotiation, social competence and social skills.

Domains of Emotional Intelligence

•           Self Awareness

•           Mood Management

•           Self Motivation

•           Empathy

•           Management of Relationships

Figure 2

These skills help people harmonise and are becoming increasingly valued in the workplace. Emotional intelligence is related to concepts like leadership (Ashforth & Humphrey 1995), group performance (Williams & Sternberg 1988), individual performance, interpersonal / social exchange, managing change and conducting performance evaluation (Goleman 1995). However, Goleman (1998) points out that emotional intelligence is not about being nice but rather about confronting issues appropriately. It is not about giving into all feelings and emotions but to manage them and express them appropriately and effectively, so that people can work together. The greatest advantage is that emotional intelligence can develop throughout life and learning from experience unlike IQ which does not change much after teenage. This can be seen in some of the learning theories discussed in future blogs.

Interestingly, Langford (1969) opines that learning should be considered neither as a way of life nor as a means of examining it, but as an activity that, in varied ways, helps achieve the diverse goals of human existence. (see figure 3) Consequently learning seems to the activity of a person, the intention of which is the attainment of some particular end. The argument seems to be that, learning may be a belief, a skill, an attitude or some other complex object that characterises this end. It is important to note that the end achievements of learning new states of the person and, ultimately, these differ radically from each other. The idea of being under a perpetual temptation to think that all learning results in knowledge should therefore be avoided.

But these are opinions, and Hume (1927) suggests that all such opinions and notions of things, to which we have been accustomed to from infancy, take such deep roots that it is impossible for us by all the powers of reason and experience to eradicate them as belief one learnt during early socialisation from parents. From this discussion it would seem appropriate to suggest that one may learn by trial and error, by conditioning, by discovery or observation, by instructions and many other means. But if there are many different activities of learning, what makes them cases of learning? As Wittgenstein urges one would not just look at the intention of the activities concerned but critically think about their nature. The aim of learning it seems is to be always some specific achievement or end state, for instance, believing something which one did not believe, knowing something that one did not know before, or being able to do something that one could not so before. This goes to show that despite not being in the forefront, emotional intelligence was always considered to be an aspect of learning. The nature of learning has philosophical as well as other aspects to it. But as always, it is in the application of philosophical thinking that accepted wisdom is questioned and the blindingly true acertations are subjected to the most rigorous intellectual examinations.

 Figure 3