EQ

I had attended a workshop on Emotional Quotient (EQ) over the weekend and instructor had pointed the class to the numerous self-assessment tests there are available on the Internet. It would be interesting to learn your own profile to be aware of how you would respond in a given situation; life is in some ways a journey of self-discovery. Here's one such test.

Emotional intelligence or Quotient (EQ) is usually defined as the capacity for effectively recognizing and managing our own emotions and those of others. The first use of the term "Emotional Intelligence" is usually attributed to Wayne Payne's doctoral thesis, A study of emotion: Developing emotional intelligence from 1985. However, it also appears in many other studies.

Psychologist Reuven Bar-On (2006) developed one of the first measures of emotional intelligence that used the term "Emotion Quotient (EQ)". He defines emotional intelligence as being concerned with effectively understanding oneself and others, relating well to people, and adapting to and coping with the immediate surroundings to be more successful in dealing with environmental demands. Bar-On posits that EQ develops over time and that it can be improved through training, programming, and therapy.

Bar-On hypothesizes that those individuals with higher than average EQ are in general more successful in meeting environmental demands and pressures. He also notes that a deficiency in EQ can mean a lack of success and the existence of emotional problems. Problems in coping with one’s environment are thought to be especially common among those individuals lacking in the subscales of reality testing, problem solving, stress tolerance, and impulse control. In general, Bar-On considers emotional intelligence and cognitive intelligence to contribute equally to a person’s general intelligence, which then offers an indication of one’s potential to succeed in life.

While it may be disputed that EQ is not a good measure of intelligence, it is still a good tool in understanding more about human relationships and how you respond to the world.