Intelligence versus emotional intelligence: comparative analysis

Emotional Intelligence

Intelligence has become a controversial, even politically-charged issue in educational and psychological circles. The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) not only became a standardized means to assess human mental prowess but also a way to track students in schools, influence career aspirations and goals, and even impact immigration admissions to the United States (BBC 2004). According to the BBC (2004), "IQ depends on your culture, class and gender because of the way tests are written." Similarly, Machek (2003) notes that "IQ tests are not guided by a plausible theory of how the brain actually operates and do not accurately measure more contemporary ideas of what 'intelligence' actually is." Recent theories about human intelligence focus on a multifaceted model that includes what is known as emotional intelligence.

Like generalized intelligence, emotional intelligence has garnered controversy and criticism. Defined as the "innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember, learn from, manage and understand emotions," emotional intelligence also resembles at least one of Gardner's dimensions of multiple intelligences (Hein 2005). Specifically, Gardner posited that interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence indicated a person's ability to navigate through the tricky world of social interactions and to understand and manage feelings, moods, and states of mind. Emotional intelligence is difficult to quantify but so, too, is the type of spatial intelligence that IQ tests attempt to map.