What is emotional intelligence? A definition

Traditionally, it has been assumed that the way we assess a situation and know what to do is a logical process, based on rationally analyzing the situation.

This is a very nice way to structure a business document. But this is not the way the human mind works.

The human mind is not a computer. Of course, it has been very helpful to use the metaphor of computer processes to explain how the mind stores and processes information. But comparing the mind to a computer has also allowed us to understand how incredibly different it is from a computer.

For one thing, we do not store information the way a computer does, i.e. in a neutral database. In the human mind, all information is immediately coded according to emotion.

Think of it as something somewhat similar to the way movies are categorized: When you go see a Rom Com, you expect to experience different feelings than when you go see a thriller or a horror movie.

You could say this is no different from, say, the way a library keeps its books: They're all coded by categories. When you have a vast amount of information, some degree of coding is necessary to make information retrieval easier.

The difference between a computer database and the human mind is that the coding is based on emotion. So a more fitting metaphor would be the way movies are coded: with a rating that describes who they are appropriate for.

In this article, I am talking about a way of understanding a situation, and figuring out what to do.

Traditionally, we assume that knowing something means being able to put a label on it. "This is a table". Now that you've found a category to put this in, it's a known quantity, you can move on.

We get to know and understand things by analyzing them. Analyze, explain, put a lable on it.

There's another way of knowing that is more intuitive. Getting a sense of a situation. Something akin to grasping the whole of it, as opposed to cutting it into pieces, so to speak, in analyzing it.

The phrase "emotional intelligence" may seem like a paradox:
- We define "intelligence" as the faculty of thought and reason; something that we associate with our mind.
- And we define emotions as subjective; something that comes from our heart, literally or figuratively.

However, the notion of "emotional intelligence" has been around for three decades.

Reuven Bar-On, a psychologist, came up with the notion of "emotional quotient" in 1980. Ten years later, two researchers, John Mayer and Peter Salovey, talked about "emotional intelligence". The defined it as "the ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and action." And Daniel Goleman's book brought "emotional intelligence" into the culture at large.

These days, even economists no longer believe that emotions and reason are unrelated.
- Nobel Economics laureate Herbert Simon has pointed out that traditional economics is misguided in ignoring the role of human emotions in its assumptions about how people make decisions.
- Roberta Muramatsu and Yaniv Hanoch were inspired by his remarks to study the "functional role of emotions within the human decision machinery" (Journal of Economic Psychology, 2004). Essentially, they conclude that, not only do emotions help people make smart judgments... but also that suppressing emotions impairs our ability to make smart judgments.

In practice, you have probably had many occasions to notice how emotion and reason are inter-related. Our emotions often affect our "logical" thinking. And our feelings often stem from thoughts we have more or less consciously.

As you become more conscious of these processes, you are better able to distinguish your emotional intelligence from your logical thinking.

There is a double benefit to this:
- you sharpen your logical thinking, as it is less intertwined with your emotions,
- you get fuller access to the clarity and visceral power of your emotional intelligence.

This is especially useful when you're making changes in your life. As you make more use of your emotional intelligence, you experience things at a deeper level - not just words, something really meaningful. And you see how you can use your emotions as a drive to action, instead of a block.

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