Understanding humans is a challenge. Psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, therapists, anthropologists, and even economists all study aspects of human behavior related to their distinct fields. This means there are many different angles to approach understanding human behavior.
In less academic settings, people who benefit from knowing human behavior include conversationalists, salespeople, customer service representatives, teachers, public speakers, filmmakers, content creators, healthcare workers, and more!
Emotional intelligence (aka “Emotional Quotient” or EQ) is simply being aware of human emotions, how to express them, how to interpret them, and having empathy.
Every single relationship or interaction you have with another person -or yourself- can only be improved with increased EQ!
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is not just one idea or skill. It encompasses many different concepts that, all together, equal the subject of emotional intelligence.
There are five components to EQ, as described by Daniel Goleman, the psychologist who coined the term in the 90’s. The five types of emotional intelligence are:
1. Self-Awareness
Introspection, self-knowledge, and self-awareness are the same idea: you are able to observe your own behaviors and make sense of them.
It takes time to learn this skill, especially since we are bombarded with outside influences from all directions all the time.
Being self-aware means being able to recognize thoughts and emotions in your own psyche, as well as what inspires them.
Check in by asking yourself…
- What are my triggers for feeling intense emotion (good or bad)?
- What are my motivations in this conversation/this relationship/life?
2. Self-Regulation
Although people can certainly do things that inspire emotions in you, how you respond to those things is entirely your responsibility. If you are unable to control your reactions, you have low self-regulation. It’s as simple as that.
When you begin to regularly check in and become aware of your inner workings, you gain control over your reactions. You will know your true emotions under the surface, and you will be able to act the ways you truly want to, and not allow your subconscious to dominate your decisions.
Self-regulation is the ability to recognize when your reactions do not match with the circumstances, and you can reduce or increase your reactions as needed. You can keep your cool in tough situations and step up in difficult scenarios.
Check in by asking yourself…
- Why do I respond with anger, sadness, fear, jealousy, or withdrawal to a certain situation?
- How can I begin to reduce the power that these emotions have over me?
- Can I begin to love and accept myself so I can allow myself to be receptive instead of reactive?
3. Motivation
When you have motivation in the EQ sense, it means you are not aimless in life. You feel able to strive for realistic goals that match your ability and interests. Additionally, you want to achieve these goals for the sake of self-development, not only for fame, wealth, or anything else. You truly want to develop your character.
When you have motivation, you are also able to motivate others to reach individual or team goals.
You also know that setbacks are to be expected, and you can still learn valuable lessons from failure. When things don’t go your way, you adjust and adapt, but you do not give up if you don’t need to.
Healthy motivation also takes into account that some things are not meant to be striven for. If your goal causes you or others harm or is simply impossible, and would be detrimental if you failed, you know to reevaluate and even give up if necessary.
Check-in by asking yourself:
- Why do I want to achieve this thing? Is it for a superficial reason, or do I want to grow from this experience?
- Why do I want to encourage others to achieve this thing? Is it selfish or superficial, or does it provide an opportunity of growth for us all?
- When something goes wrong, do I give up and call myself a failure? How can I learn to think differently when things don’t go well?
“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”
Walt Whitman
4. Empathy
A direct result of increased EQ is an increased understanding for others. Just like self-knowledge, when you have empathy you can better understand the workings of another person’s mind.
It’s important to note that sympathy and empathy are different. Sympathy is your judgment, reaction, or feelings about someone else’s situation. It is usually a shallow interaction either because the two parties don’t know each other well or because the listener is uncomfortable with emotions.
Sympathy is an important part of human interaction, but it is very surface-level, which is why it is not part of the EQ components.
Empathy is really caring about how the other person is feeling. It is being a shoulder to cry on, not out of obligation, but out of compassion.
Having empathy is recognizing that other people have as rich of inner and outer life as you do, and they require other people to care about them. In times of distress, you can recognize that a person is asking for help. In times of joy, you genuinely feel happy that another person is experiencing good things.
You know that other people have their own levels of emotional intelligence, so you understand if they struggle with their self-awareness and self-regulation, and you accept them for it.
Check in by asking yourself:
- Do I genuinely care about other people?
- Can I put myself in their shoes and understand how they are feeling?
- Am I able to treat others the way I would like to be treated?
5. Social Skills
Social skills are a collection of behaviors that humans generally possess in order to live together in society. We humans are actually a tribal, social, community-oriented species. So, it’s important that we know how to get along with other people in order to “survive.” In this day and age, we are more likely to make it on our own, but in the past, it was a much safer bet to be in a close-knit group.
Though we may have fewer instances of life-and-death based on how well we get along with others, our interactions are still really important for relationships with friends, neighbors, loved ones, and even strangers.
These skills include awareness of how another person is feeling. You can sense the “vibe” in a room, and you know how to adjust your behavior appropriately. Politeness, adhering to cultural norms, and a desire to respect other people’s boundaries are good social skills.
Other communication tools like eye contact, signs of respect (like hand shakes or a bow), body language and gestures, and active listening are also important.
Check in by asking yourself:
- Am I able to make appropriate eye contact and use appropriate body language when I talk to someone?
- Do I know what is expected of me in different settings, and can I do those things?
- Do I really listen to people, or do I just wait for my turn to talk?
Examples of Emotional Quotient (EQ)
There are many different ways to have or not have EQ, but here are some examples of both for clarity.
Self-Awareness
Situation: Your teacher gives you a bad grade on a test you didn’t study for.
High EQ: You understand why you received a bad grade, and although you feel upset, you gracefully accept the grade. You think that maybe you can ask to retake the test or do extra credit work. Either way, you know you will study next time.
Low EQ: You get angry and break your pencil. You think “It’s their fault my pencil is broken because they made me so angry!”
Self-Regulation
Situation: You receive a really expensive gift from your family that you have been wanting for a long time.
High EQ: You are very happy and excited and make sure everyone knows how much it means to you. You thank everyone and give them hugs and kisses, or whatever is appropriate in your family. You treasure the gift and use it well.
Low EQ: You scream or shout in a way that alarms everyone else because they don’t understand your reaction. You feel over-elated and unable to express your feelings in a way that makes sense. You can’t help but make a jab at your sister because she didn’t get a gift and you did.
Motivation
Situation: You have been working at your job for 3 years, and you just got promoted. You work in your field of study and although you get aggravated with your work and your coworkers sometimes, you overall like the job and it provides a good life for you and your family. You find a new activity that you really enjoy, and you want to spend more time doing it, but you don’t have any more free time available.
High EQ: You slowly begin setting aside more time for this hobby. It enriches your life but it doesn’t interfere with your job or your relationships. You know that you like your life and you want to keep working at the job you like to provide for your family, whom you love. This new hobby helps you relieve stress, learn something new, and express your creativity in a healthy way.
Low EQ: You become obsessed with your new hobby. You begin to believe that since you have things in your job you don’t like, you may as well quit and try to make your hobby into your new career. You lose sight of what you’ve built and the goals you were on track for in favor of something that hasn’t yet caused you distress. You spend too much money and time on the hobby, your work suffers, and you do not spend time with your family.
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
Ernest Hemingway
Empathy
Situation: Someone is telling you the story of when their nephew was born and how touched they were to become an uncle. You don’t know this person very well, and you’ve never met any of the people they are talking about.
High EQ: Even though you don’t have anything to do with this family, you can still appreciate that this person feels such joy by being involved in their expanding family. You feel happy that this person is happy, and you allow them to tell you more. You feel honored that they want to share this special story with you.
Low EQ: You act disinterested and bored because you are. You don’t care what they are talking about and they can tell. You walk away feeling like they wasted your time, and they walk away feeling rejected and silly.
Social Skills
Situation: Two friends are arguing over something inconsequential, but they are getting very heated.
High EQ: You step in and are able to calm them down with your words, tone of voice, body language, and reason. They realize you are right and agree to stop fighting. The rest of the day is pleasant.
Low EQ: You tell them to stop it because they are annoying. They resentfully stop talking but there is tension between all three of you for the rest of the day.
Benefits of Having High Emotional Intelligence
When you take the time to really learn more about EQ, you can make every aspect of your life better.
Boundaries
With healthy emotional intelligence skills, you can set and hold boundaries for yourself. This means that you can keep others from taking advantage of your time or energy. You can also recognize other people’s boundaries and you know how to keep them, too. People feel safer with you because you don’t push them in harmful ways.
Less Stress
When you know your triggers for stress as well as how to calm yourself down, you can almost immediately reduce your stress. You know how to control your emotions in a healthy way, and you can let go of the things in your mind that are amplifying stress, leaving you more time for action.
Increased Confidence
When you know yourself and where you stand, and you know that nobody else can get under your skin or make you doubt your motivation, you become ultra-confident. You know that even if someone intentionally tries to make you upset that you have the tools to stay calm and collected, so you don’t need to fear speaking up.
Professional Skills
With empathy, social skills, and motivation, you can become a stupendous leader. You can foster teamwork, camaraderie, and synergy. With your self-awareness and regulation, you overcome difficulties with grace and leadership.
Conflict Resolution and Deescalation
Since you understand what it feels like to overreact and not know how to stop it from inside, you know how to help soothe tension from your end. With your empathy and social skills, you can calmly reduce tensions and create a dialogue where everyone can talk about the problems at hand in a rational way.
Relationship Management
Relationships with your family, friends, and significant other require awareness to be successful. When you develop as a person, you help the relationships grow stronger. When you can see from the other person’s point of view, it makes you a better listener and partner in the relationship.
Whether you speak with someone for one minute or have a lifelong relationship with them, increased EQ will allow you to have more meaningful discussions.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence
There are many resources you can use to learn how to develop your EQ. Since these skills are helpful in all aspects of life, there are many different approaches to learning!
Read Articles and Books
For this particular subject, you can gain a lot of knowledge simply from reading. I bet you learned something new in this very blog post!
You can find emotional intelligence books that are focused on relationships, business and entrepreneurship, schooling, and more. Check out out recommendations for the best books about emotional intelligence!
Many websites can tell you not only about EQ, but give you resources, like an emotional intelligence test, to evaluate your current level of understanding.
Watch YouTube
YouTube is always a valuable resource for learning skills. Find reputable creators who can give examples of emotional intelligence and how to apply the knowledge to real-life situations.
Practice with a Coach
A surefire way to learn EQ is to have someone teach it to you directly. You can find coaches who specialize in different applications of emotional intelligence, but many of them have a background in psychology.
If you find emotional intelligence to be extremely difficult, using a coach for personalized help is the best way to go.
Search for communication and emotional intelligence coaches on Superprof!
Observe Daily Interactions
Be sure to always check in with yourself before, during, and after interactions with others as often as possible. You can identify your motivations, where you need to develop your self-awareness and regulation, evaluate your empathy, and measure your overall social skills.
You can also observe other people’s interactions and see if you notice any errors they are making. Or, if they handle a situation well, you can learn a great tip!
What type of motivation is critical for emotional intelligence
is critical for emotional intelligence as it relates to the drive to engage in activities for their own sake rather than for external rewards. Emotionally intelligent individuals are driven to understand and manage their own emotions and the emotions of others, which requires a deep interest and investment in the task at hand. Extrinsic motivation, such as rewards or punishment, may have a limited effect on emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is an all-encompassing skill that can only help you. From your everyday interactions with family to a once-in-a-lifetime chance to talk to a famous celebrity, each conversation can be extraordinary when you have good EQ!
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