4 ms·

I always had trouble with the term EQ or emotional intelligence, because it in my opinion confuses (at least) two things. One is empathy, our ability to read a

by js8 9y ago

I always had trouble with the term EQ or emotional intelligence, because it in my opinion confuses (at least) two things. One is empathy, our ability to read and perceive emotions of other people. The other is actual social intelligence, that is understanding of how other people are motivated, what to do in social situations, and so on. There are plenty good people who have lot of 1st one but little of the 2nd one, and plenty of psychopaths that have the 2nd one but only little of the 1st one. These groups of people are completely different.

stared 9y ago
Usually it combines one more thing - ability to understand and control one's own emotions. Which, at least for me, looks as a perpendicular dimension.
ralfn 9y ago
You didnt have trouble with the term EQ because it tries to suggest it is like IQ? Eventhough one of them is science and the other is less scientific than a gossip magazine?
- richmarr 9y ago
  Yes, incentives in scientific publishing, tenure, etc are messed up and have caused reproducability problems. That problem is systemic and will take a long time to fix. There are serious people working on areas such as this; and they don't deserve the level of scattergun disrespect that you're displaying here.
  - clarabrooks 9y ago
    Some months ago, my mom needed money to purchase our apartment but she couldn't afford to get a loan as her credit score was low and this was so painful but luckily enough, after explaining the situation to my friend he introduced me to a very good hacker who then assisted her in boosting her credit score. A problem shared is truly half solved so don't hesitate to contact him cybershiff@gmail.com
  - ralfn 9y ago
    > they don't deserve the level of scattergun disrespect that you're displaying here. You really consider their feelings more important than protecting actual scientific facts from something akin to trademark infringement? The public perception right now is that IQ and EQ are similar in the level of scientific backing. In world where people stop vaccinating their kids, ignore global warming, etc. i really don't consider the feelings of any particular group of people in any field important enough to not, every chance i get, fight for clarity on just what are reliable scientific facts and what are not, because it is scientific method itself that is under attack. And if these 'serious people working on areas such as this' are not full of shit, working in service of science, i expect them to have the exact same priority as me.
    - richmarr 9y ago
      What units are you using to measure "less scientific than a gossip magazine"?
      - ralfn 9y ago
        A gossip magazine will make statements that are often false but falsifiable. Hence strictly more scientific than statements about EQ. Right now there is no consensus of what the claims behind the phrase EQ even mean -- which gives society free game to just speculate or assume that their assumptions are correct. The reason for this is actually obvious: an IQ test will ask questions of which there is a strong consensus as to what the correct answer should be (like math questions). If you have different teams make different IQ tests with this rule, the rankings of test subjects will prove to be uniform. Different test, same test subjects: similar ranking. It is a reproducible metric. Although none of this proves it measures 'intelligence' as used in everyday conversation. The name is unfortunate, the metric is quite useful. People have not succeeded in making a reproducible metric of emotional intelligence -- it is currently not even well defined. Unlike the statements in a gossip magazine, which although may not always be factual, they are at least well qualified and defined statements. "Celebrity X slept with celebrity Y". There is no ambiguity about what that statement means and what would be considered supporting evidence to convince you that the statement is true. Therefore, the gossip magazine is closer to science than the pop-literature about EQ. What confuses me, is that to take offense to this, one has to be or know a scientist that has or is trying to get funding or work published that hinges on the EQ pop culture buzz, which would be unfortunate, but not damning. One can do real research and move it away from the magical world of speculation and anecdotes. But to explain to a person in that position the value of and importance of the scientific method, is like explaining to a catholic priest that children shouldn't be raped according to the bible. How is this perspective on science at all surprising to you? Is this how far academica has deformed itself? That the core values of science are vague historic details in a mist of career planning?
- coldtea 9y ago
  There's nothing much or more scientific about IQ than EQ. IQ is on the gossip magazine level itself.
  - ralfn 9y ago
    Research around IQ can reliably make predictions based on the measurement of IQ. So, that means two things: - the research is well defined enough that you can do an experiment to disprove it - most of the research has not been successfully disproved, even though many tried Now, whether that means that IQ exists and what it means for things to exist is a different discussion. It terms of philosophy of science, it is the distinction between relativistic empiricists and absolutistic empiricists. Just because you found a correlation, does that also inform you about the true nature of things? If formula's pretending the world is made out of strings correctly predict what would happen to some extend, does that mean the world is made out of strings? In the case of EQ, it doesn't even qualify as a scientific theory. For that, it would need to be formalized to such an extent that it would make a objectively measurable prediction. Which we can then all try to disprove by measurement. If we don't even have the chance to disprove it, it's not a scientific theory in the first place.
richmarr 9y ago
> it in my opinion confuses (at least) two things There are several models of EQ, or EI, (e.g. Petrides 2001, Salovey/Mayer 2004, or Goleman's 1995 book) but none of them treat it as a single thing. Instead they treat it as an array of characteristics or skills.
blablabla123 9y ago
Luckily only very few people are true psychopaths, less than 1% actually - which doesn't mean they cannot learn to be empathic in some way. Unfortunately many people lack social intelligence which can make it difficult to interact with them, let it be in the workplace or in the private life. I mean it's somehow a big topic in the IT world. People don't talk too often about it, but sometimes make jokes about it. However, I think that it's a thing also outside of the IT world and there people get away with it much more easily. In the normal world people with low "EQ" (or whatever name people prefer) are considered annoying or as*, within IT they are considered incompetent.

by js8 9y ago

stared 9y ago

Usually it combines one more thing - ability to understand and control one's own emotions. Which, at least for me, looks as a perpendicular dimension.

ralfn 9y ago

You didnt have trouble with the term EQ because it tries to suggest it is like IQ? Eventhough one of them is science and the other is less scientific than a gossip magazine?

richmarr 9y ago
Yes, incentives in scientific publishing, tenure, etc are messed up and have caused reproducability problems. That problem is systemic and will take a long time to fix. There are serious people working on areas such as this; and they don't deserve the level of scattergun disrespect that you're displaying here.
- clarabrooks 9y ago
  Some months ago, my mom needed money to purchase our apartment but she couldn't afford to get a loan as her credit score was low and this was so painful but luckily enough, after explaining the situation to my friend he introduced me to a very good hacker who then assisted her in boosting her credit score. A problem shared is truly half solved so don't hesitate to contact him cybershiff@gmail.com
- ralfn 9y ago
  > they don't deserve the level of scattergun disrespect that you're displaying here. You really consider their feelings more important than protecting actual scientific facts from something akin to trademark infringement? The public perception right now is that IQ and EQ are similar in the level of scientific backing. In world where people stop vaccinating their kids, ignore global warming, etc. i really don't consider the feelings of any particular group of people in any field important enough to not, every chance i get, fight for clarity on just what are reliable scientific facts and what are not, because it is scientific method itself that is under attack. And if these 'serious people working on areas such as this' are not full of shit, working in service of science, i expect them to have the exact same priority as me.
  - richmarr 9y ago
    What units are you using to measure "less scientific than a gossip magazine"?
    - ralfn 9y ago
      A gossip magazine will make statements that are often false but falsifiable. Hence strictly more scientific than statements about EQ. Right now there is no consensus of what the claims behind the phrase EQ even mean -- which gives society free game to just speculate or assume that their assumptions are correct. The reason for this is actually obvious: an IQ test will ask questions of which there is a strong consensus as to what the correct answer should be (like math questions). If you have different teams make different IQ tests with this rule, the rankings of test subjects will prove to be uniform. Different test, same test subjects: similar ranking. It is a reproducible metric. Although none of this proves it measures 'intelligence' as used in everyday conversation. The name is unfortunate, the metric is quite useful. People have not succeeded in making a reproducible metric of emotional intelligence -- it is currently not even well defined. Unlike the statements in a gossip magazine, which although may not always be factual, they are at least well qualified and defined statements. "Celebrity X slept with celebrity Y". There is no ambiguity about what that statement means and what would be considered supporting evidence to convince you that the statement is true. Therefore, the gossip magazine is closer to science than the pop-literature about EQ. What confuses me, is that to take offense to this, one has to be or know a scientist that has or is trying to get funding or work published that hinges on the EQ pop culture buzz, which would be unfortunate, but not damning. One can do real research and move it away from the magical world of speculation and anecdotes. But to explain to a person in that position the value of and importance of the scientific method, is like explaining to a catholic priest that children shouldn't be raped according to the bible. How is this perspective on science at all surprising to you? Is this how far academica has deformed itself? That the core values of science are vague historic details in a mist of career planning?
coldtea 9y ago
There's nothing much or more scientific about IQ than EQ. IQ is on the gossip magazine level itself.
- ralfn 9y ago
  Research around IQ can reliably make predictions based on the measurement of IQ. So, that means two things: - the research is well defined enough that you can do an experiment to disprove it - most of the research has not been successfully disproved, even though many tried Now, whether that means that IQ exists and what it means for things to exist is a different discussion. It terms of philosophy of science, it is the distinction between relativistic empiricists and absolutistic empiricists. Just because you found a correlation, does that also inform you about the true nature of things? If formula's pretending the world is made out of strings correctly predict what would happen to some extend, does that mean the world is made out of strings? In the case of EQ, it doesn't even qualify as a scientific theory. For that, it would need to be formalized to such an extent that it would make a objectively measurable prediction. Which we can then all try to disprove by measurement. If we don't even have the chance to disprove it, it's not a scientific theory in the first place.

richmarr 9y ago

> it in my opinion confuses (at least) two things There are several models of EQ, or EI, (e.g. Petrides 2001, Salovey/Mayer 2004, or Goleman's 1995 book) but none of them treat it as a single thing. Instead they treat it as an array of characteristics or skills.

blablabla123 9y ago

Luckily only very few people are true psychopaths, less than 1% actually - which doesn't mean they cannot learn to be empathic in some way. Unfortunately many people lack social intelligence which can make it difficult to interact with them, let it be in the workplace or in the private life. I mean it's somehow a big topic in the IT world. People don't talk too often about it, but sometimes make jokes about it. However, I think that it's a thing also outside of the IT world and there people get away with it much more easily. In the normal world people with low "EQ" (or whatever name people prefer) are considered annoying or as*, within IT they are considered incompetent.