Shortform Introduction

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman is a tricky book to summarize: it clocks in at 384 pages and is packed full of interesting ideas and information, practical advice, and anecdotes.

Goleman’s career as a psychologist and New York Times reporter on the human brain and behavioral sciences gives him a lot of research to pull from, and the book is chock full of data from academic research studies. We’ve chosen to cut most of those examples due to 2 reasons:

1. This is already one of our longer summaries just based on information alone.
2. Goleman recounts most of the studies anecdotally and without rigorous supporting evidence.

Readers who revel in research should consider reading the original book to make use of Goleman’s extensive examples.

We’ve also done some reorganization for this summary: though the rough structure of our summary follows the rough structure of the book, the individual chapters in the original book sometimes meandered or jumped around in ways that could cause a reader to get lost. Much of the useful content in Emotional Intelligence is either scientific information or practical advice, and we’ve generally used that distinction to organize this summary.

Introduction to the Book

IQ might reflect how smart we are, but it has nothing to do with how we handle our emotional lives. Passions and impulses can derail even those with the highest IQs.

• In the 1940s, a study followed 95 Harvard students into middle-age. Men with higher IQ test scores were not more successful than students with lower test scores in terms of productivity, status, or salary in their field. And they did not have more life satisfaction than other students either, in regards to personal relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners.

IQ determines how well we can handle cognitive demands -- that’s why it’s good for predicting what job you might be suited for. But, for example, if a company employs a handful of experts within any given field, IQ will not help determine which of those experts will be the most successful. Data suggests that IQ only accounts for about 20% of success in life, with the remaining 80% being made up by other factors, emotional intelligence included.

Emotional intelligence has one major benefit over IQ: IQ is fixed -- what we’re born with is what remains throughout our lives. But emotional intelligence can be taught and learned -- we have the ability to improve upon our emotional intelligence throughout our lives. This is the major factor that makes emotional intelligence potentially more important for success than IQ: it’s within our control.

Corporations report that emotional intelligence determines which employees will be better leadership material. Emotional intelligence programs in schools also show definite positive results:

• Children improve their achievement scores and grade-point averages.
• Disciplinary incidents decrease, as do necessary punishments.
• Attendance rates and positive behavior increase.

But research on emotions is sparse, so most people don’t have a good understanding of what’s going on when they have an emotional reaction, or how they can work to control their response to that emotional reaction.

In this summary, we’ll first explore emotions, what they are, and where they come from. Then we’ll delve into emotional intelligence and its benefits. Finally, we’ll look at using emotional intelligence in specific categories.