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News & Views - Dec,
1995 Issue #37
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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Why it can matter more than IQ
by: Daniel Goleman
NY:Bantam Book:October 1995
review by: Lon Woodbury
This best selling book is essentially a summary of the latest scientific research on an
old subject, the importance of character. As the author puts it on page 285, "There is an old-fashioned word for the body of skills
that emotional intelligence represents: character."
With many references to studies mapping the functioning of the brain, he makes the case
that EQ has a greater relationship to people achieving life satisfaction and success than does IQ. Intuitively , this makes a certain
amount of sense, especially to professionals working in and with emotional growth schools and programs. Helping young people learn
how to "handle frustrations, control emotions and get on with other people" is what these schools and programs are about. A child's
failure in these skills is what brings their parents to look for a highly structured placement that is capable of teaching these skills.
This book can be considered as the latest in a line of thinking over the last few decades
that has been challenging what has been referred to as the "Age of Reason." This challenge from what seems to be part of the "post-modernism"
construct is that the age of reason had gone to extremes and given us massive bureaucracies, centralized planning, impersonal medicine,
and other institutions which have lost the "human touch." Goleman at one point claims that EQ is "what makes us human." To be sure,
the reaction to "reason" has its own extreme found in educators who claim it is far more important to help children learn to "express
themselves" than it is to help them learn to discipline either their minds or their emotions. Goleman seems to be saying we need a
balance between the rational mind and our emotions. He seems to be saying that we are emotional beings, that we should accept and
understand what that means, and teach children to control and discipline their unruly emotions. He seems to be saying that this is
the ticket to success in life.
The book has a number of gems, such as a review of the "marshmallow challenge". (Yuichi
Shoda, Walter Mischel, and Philip K. Peake, "Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Self-regulatory Competencies From Preschool Delay
of Gratification," Developmental Psychology, 26, 6 (1990)). In this test, four-year-olds were left in a room with a marshmallow, and
told if they waited until the experimenter returned, they would get two marshmallows. These children were later tracked down when
they were adolescents. Those who had waited for the two marshmallows were compared with those who had grabbed the one. The differences
were dramatic. "Those who had resisted temptation at four were now, as adolescents, more socially competent: personally effective,
self-assertive, and better able to cope with the frustrations of life."
Or, on page 222, some speculation as to "Why should firmness lead to a reduction in fearfulness?"
And, on page 251, a study that indicated "how popular a child was in third grade has been shown to be a better predictor of mental-health
problems at age eighteen than anything else...."
On page 295 the author discusses his conclusions that "the emotional mind is childlike...."
i.e. "categorical thinking, where everything is in black and white....", "personalized thinking, with events perceived with a bias
centering on oneself....", and "self-confirming, suppressing or ignoring memories or facts that would undermine its beliefs and seizing
on those that support it." This description seems to be a good description of the typical student enrolling in emotional growth schools
and programs.
Chapter 16 described how some of the ideas of the author are being carried out in a few
day schools. If the author is seriously interested, I could suggest several dozen residential schools and programs which are currently
implementing programs for adolescents who would have flunked the marshmallow test, and are now getting a second chance to learn those
early lessons. These are the emotional growth schools and programs that is the focus of this newsletter and my Directory, Places for
Struggling Teens.
Copyright © 1995, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
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