Intelligenza emotiva (1995)

p 66

I've been meaning to read this for ten years or so - it's a little out of date but still relevant. In the midst of all of our hand-wringing about gun violence and the wilding of young people, here's a proposal to cultivate (officially, and in public schools) this thing known to the ancient Greeks as "character." The thesis here is that emotional management skills can be taught and can ward off depression and anxiety and reduce rates of violence, crime, drug abuse, etc. The question is, can we all agree that this sort of thing falls under the purview of the public school? ( )

There are a lot of books in the self-help bestseller category out there. On one side, there are a lot of readers wanting to be better and maybe richer and, I presume that on the other side there are authors wanting the same. Hence, so many books on the same topics. So what makes this book different? This book stands out because Goleman is himself a trained researcher in psychology, and also, he seems to have spent a long time sifting through a wide array of research literature and interviewing some of prominent researchers themselves. He distilled these studies into the book, and some of them are very interesting. To be fair, he also seemed to add a bunch of filler. Hence my three star rating. Still, the good parts of the book made it worth reading.

The main messages I got from the book are:

a) A basic background in the neural basis for the origin and modulation of emotion.
b) That we have some ability to introspect, identify and reason about our own emotions, hopefully soon after they happen.
c) That this practice relates to our ability to express them constructively to other people and also to our ability to be perceptive of other people's emotions when we interact with them.
e) That these two abilities hold a stronger influence in the quality of our life than most people think, and are not strongly correlated with IQ. Hence the subtitle.

Contrary to what you may expect, the book does not spend too long debating on whether intelligence is the right word to describe these skills or whether it really matters more than IQ. The author does address these topics and clarifies IQ is still the stronger predictor out there, but that a lot of variation in outcomes is still left unexplained by IQ. Other skills such as emotional skills and self control tend to also have good predictive power and furthermore are independent of IQ, so they are worth exploring.

The book did give me plenty of food for thought. The main thing the book is missing is more concrete suggestions on how to put some of these ideas into practice.

Besides the main message, there were other interesting things I take away from the book. One of them is the potential role of emotion as a driver of decision making. Due to a tumor, a patient lost connections between a part of the brain generating emotion, and a part in charge of rational decision making. The person was still just as able cognitively, but was unable to make decisions about the most basic things. One of the researchers studying him concluded that emotion may have an important function driving quick decision making. This is a single case, so it could be all retrospective as far as I understand. But I hadn't heard this thought before and it changed the way I look at things. Like this case study, there are other interesting case studies and experiments scattered through the book and I found them quite interesting. Do note that this particular thread is not explored further in this book, but is delved into in others.

One problem I have with the book is that I got most of the message in the first 150 pages. The second half of the book was not nearly as interesting to me. Towards the end, the book takes a turn into promoting the application of these ideas to the school context. Some of it seems to be purely speculative. My impression is that 20 years later, neither the revolution he anticipated if his recommendations are taken, nor the apocalypse he predicted if people kept ignoring it have come to happen.

Another problem I have with the book is that I found it hard to keep it clear in my head what was actually known and what was his interpretation of an experimental outcome. How far would the researchers themselves take the conclusions of their work? Would it be as far as Goleman takes them? ( )

This book was not an easy read. I had higher expectations for it which explains at least some of the difficulty. Parts I and II were better than III. That didn’t help either. Strange for a book on emotional intelligence to be so coldly intellectual. Felt more like an education on the science of the emotions than an resource for improving emotional intelligence so I guess now I know? ( )

Goleman explores an aspect of personal development that is sorely lacking in a "me" generation that lives for instant gratification and constant reinforcement that they are wonderful and special and perfect as is. The world is a tough place where we face tragedy and obstacles. Emotional intelligence is often what separates those who succeed in life from those who whine, blame others, and cannot control their tempers. ( )