The Importance of Social and Emotional Intelligence

 Information Provided by Robert Field, Ph.D.,

Founder/Director of Quest Therapeutic Camps,

 the original Quest Camp in the San Francisco area since 1990. 

 

There has been much excitement about emotional and social intelligence in recent years.  This is in large part due to research that has shown that emotional and social intelligence are more predictive of later success than IQ and academic achievement. Emotional strength and social abilities, which includes logic, emotional stability and morality, have been highlighted as key areas for success in life.[1] 

 

Emotional intelligence has been defined as:

  1. The ability to take risks that are logically sound but may fail.
  2. The ability to handle failure without loss of self-esteem.
  3. The ability to learn from mistakes and develop further actions.
  4. The ability to accept that life is not fair and too bad!
  5. Resiliency-the ability to come back and try again.

Social Intelligence includes:

  1. Social cues- the ability to read others' actions, words and nonverbal cues.
  2. Social interaction- the ability to interact successfully with others, understand communications and articulate well.
  3. Social understanding- the ability to observe, relate and understand the results of these interactions.

Daniel Goleman is considered to be one of the main experts regarding emotional intelligence.  He has postulated that social neuroscience details how multiple lanes of knowing and doing spring into action as we engage with others.  Goleman focuses on abilities like social cognition, as well as synchrony and attunement, social intuition and empathic concern, and the ability to demonstrate compassion. He describes these abilities as non-verbal and intuitive, noting that they occur in the span of micro-seconds, and have the power to shape the very platform for a smooth social life.[2]

 

[1] Cherniss, C. (2000). Emotional Intelligence: what it is and why it matters. Paper at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, New Orleans, LA, April 15, 2000

[2]Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.

 

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