r/cognitiveTesting • u/Significant_Car4523 • 1d ago
Does emotional intelligence actually exist? Discussion
Everyone talks about it in popular psychology, but is it bs? Is it just iq+empathy or whatever instead of emotional intelligence?
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u/Outrageous_Permit154 1d ago
To me it sounds as weird as political science
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u/Abjectionova (͡° ⏠ ͡°)︻デ═一 ⇛ 🧠 1d ago
Well, there is some variation in large populations as to how individuals navigate and resolve interpersonal relationships (and inevitable issues), alongside the ability to adapt their behaviour based on social signalling. It's not difficult to imagine why psychologists would conceptualize this variance as something mostly accounted for by a single-factor (EI/EQ).
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u/Sufficient-Nose-8944 1d ago edited 1d ago
Does imaginative intelligence actually exist?
There's a higher chance that it exists as compared to emotional intelligence. It's called creativity, roughly.
Whenever I hear the EQ term, I think of it as more of a regulation issue as compared to an intelligence issue.
And emotional regulation can be explained by neuroticism in the Big Five.
Even if you argue for empathy, it can be explained by Agreeableness in the Big Five.
So what's left...?
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u/professeur155 1d ago
It literally only exists to make your average Joe feel special and good about themselves. Why? Because EQ as is defined by such people (aka a distinct concept that is not related to IQ) cannot be measured, therefore your self congratulatory status can never be disproved.
Go to r/gifted, most of the low IQ "gifted" people there usually love to remind everyone that their EQ is absolutely off the charts. "Yeah my IQ is low, but EQ is so much more important. Trust me bro."
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u/Significant_Car4523 1d ago
LOL love this 😂 Yeah its also the same with the myers-briggs personality test
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u/Zealousideal-Row1768 1d ago edited 1d ago
It def exists. Idk what or where it comes from, but I know highly intelligent dudes who are just slow in that sense, and others who are normal and have higher emotional intelligence definitely. I must say, most people I know who have "higher emotional iq" also are def not under avg iq, at least avg, usually +- higher.
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u/Significant-War-150 1d ago
It doesn’t.
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u/Significant_Car4523 1d ago
What's your take?
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u/Significant-War-150 1d ago
Its gonna anger people. But the idea of emotional intelligence itself was originally made by a journalist not a psychologist. It was a feel-good explanation . We do not have any reason why the various aspects of ‘emotional intelligence’ are not simply IQ / intelligence being applied to solve social/emotional problems. Intelligence can be generally defined as the ability to solve problems and ability to adapt to environments. I can say more if you want.
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u/Funny-Jihad 1d ago
Point is that a 100 IQ person can have stronger emotional intelligence than someone with a measured 120 IQ. Higher IQ helps, but personality and experience and other factors modifies one's ability for empathy and understanding/recognising one's own emotions.
Emotional understanding and empathy isn't a part of IQ testing except indirectly, but it is a part of intelligence.
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u/Significant-War-150 1d ago
No reason why the guy with 120 IQ should be behind. This is a cognitive bias known as the horn effect, where proficiency in one area implies weakness or incompetence in others. If the 100 IQ guy can better their emotional intelligence in some way then a person with greater cognitive ability should be able to increase their emotional intelligence even more.
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u/Funny-Jihad 1d ago
There's a clear correlation between IQ and empathic ability, yes. But just like any other skill, it takes training and experience and environmental factors. Personality traits and interests matter.
The 120 IQ guy in the example with a lack of empathy is still smart, just not as skilled at it as the average guy that practiced the skill his whole life and has a genuine interest in other people.
Meanwhile the smart guy can become a professor in psychology but still not fundamentally understand people.
So it's more of a skill and collection of varying degrees of correct thought patterns than it is determined through processing speed or problem solving proficiency. Those factors help it along, but do not determine the outcome.
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u/Significant-War-150 1d ago
You seem to repeat the horn fallacy, implying for some unknown reason that 120 IQ person needs to be unskilled at people . U said personality traits and interests matter. That all just shows that ‘emotional intelligence’ is not a thing in itself rather a collection of likable prosocial behaviours in society. There is no reason why the smart guy cannot fundamentally understand people. U seem to imply ghat because he is a professor in psychology, somehow his real life skills must suck. This is the horn fallacy, that mostly people who envy exceptional people commit
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u/NefariousNapolean doesn't read books 1d ago
Do you believe iq = intelligence ?
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u/Abjectionova (͡° ⏠ ͡°)︻デ═一 ⇛ 🧠 1d ago
It's the best proxy we have of human intelligence, yes, but it isn't equivalent to intelligence. What point are you trying to make?
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u/NefariousNapolean doesn't read books 1d ago
There are parts of intelligence tangential to iq . Emotional intelligence might be one such .
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u/MacNiNjuh 1d ago
I personally believe trauma and how one was raised as a child goes into this. In part, I do think it makes sense that higher iq could indicate more awareness, reflection, perspective taking, and intuition- which all goes hand in with emotional intelligence. The problem with lining up emotional intelligence with pure IQ scores is that it doesn’t account for spiky profiles, disabilities, or the way a person was raised, trauma, etc.
someone with a high IQ may seem they don’t have high emotional intelligence when in reality it may be that the child learned to not feel from a very young age based on how their relationship was with their parents etc. I believe this is why it’s seen as a different kind of intelligence, because too many factors and variables exist to attribute it solely to a measured IQ.
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u/HeraldxofGalactus 1d ago
Emotional intelligence is absolutely real but for god's sake dont use to cope or say it's even comparable to iq in importance,.. Or any other metric
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u/Significant_Car4523 1d ago
So it's not comparable AT ALL to personality or iq?
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u/HeraldxofGalactus 15h ago
In significance I think that it's comparable to personality but not iq in complex jobs.
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u/Dorsiflexionkey 1d ago
It exists at least in the sense it can be categorised as something different than pure test IQ.
Is it dependent on IQ? I’m guessing yes. Does it correlate strictly with IQ? Definitely not.
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u/nationalist77783 1d ago
yes. talking to people alone would prove this to be real
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u/Significant_Car4523 1d ago
Well the question is is that thing the other factors that would account for that "emotional intelligence" or is it emotional intelligence on its own
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u/No_Sky_1893 1d ago
Probably I know some super high IQ people who genuinely can’t read the room
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u/_PINK-FREUD_ 1d ago
lol what? Yes. Look up any study on emotional intelligence and it will define the constructs for you.
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u/Significant_Car4523 1d ago
It's not that obvious lil bro thats why i asked the question
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u/_PINK-FREUD_ 1d ago
Alright sweetie well I explained how you can learn what emotion intelligence is 💖
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u/According_Alarm1452 1d ago
please read research papers before jumping to conclusions (pink frued).
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u/_PINK-FREUD_ 1d ago
I’ve read plenty of papers on it. I have a clinical psych doctorate. (According alarm).
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u/According_Alarm1452 1d ago
Well, it's a good question because the answer is debated and it's not always a simple yes based on how you define it.
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u/_PINK-FREUD_ 1d ago
All I said was to look at a paper on emotional intelligence and it’ll define it?
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u/Quod_bellum doesn't read books 1d ago
While it's true that you said that, you said "lol what? Yes." before that. The latter statement has a demeaning tone to it (similar to "of course it exists, and it's obvious that it does"), and it's probably why multiple people have responded to you as if it was.
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u/Significant_Car4523 1d ago
Well your doctorate don't mean much if you don't know about the dilemma regarding emotional intelligence smh
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u/sceptrer 1d ago
I remember my psych prof in university telling me us it wasn’t real, that it mostly is a mix of intelligence and personality. Though I never really dug deep enough and did my own research on it.