Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who then reported on the brain and behavior for The New York Times, wrote this book in 1995 to bring a wave of new research on emotion to general readers. His argument is that how people fare in life depends on more than IQ: self-awareness, self-control, persistence, empathy and skill with other people count at least as much, and unlike IQ they can be taught.

The book has five parts. The Emotional Brain explains how the brain produces feelings and why they sometimes overrule thought. The Nature of Emotional Intelligence describes its parts, from self-awareness to handling relationships. Emotional Intelligence Applied looks at marriage, work and health. Windows of Opportunity follows how family and temperament shape us in childhood. Emotional Literacy asks what schools can do. The theory of emotional intelligence was first formulated by the psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer; Goleman made it known to the public.

Notes. This summary states the book's claims as the book makes them, and some have since been revised. Joseph LeDoux, whose work underlies the idea of the emotional hijack, later said the amygdala should not be called a fear center: it detects and responds to threats, but it is not clear that it produces the conscious feeling of fear. In 2018 Watts, Duncan and Quan re-examined the marshmallow test using data on a larger and more varied group of children, and found a link with later achievement about half as strong as in the original studies, and about two thirds weaker still once family background and early ability were taken into account. Later trials of the breast cancer support groups, including Spiegel's own repeat whose survival results were published in 2007, found that group therapy eased distress and pain but did not extend survival.