What is Emotional Intelligence for?

Emotional Intelligence helps us to choose the correct path in the face of a problem or situation and to find the best way. It helps us assess and weigh different options to reach our end.

Emotional intelligence gives us the ability to understand and analyze information and use it more assertively. By emotional, it is also understood as that belonging to the emotions and the emotional, and how each person reacts to any of the emotions of the human being.

• Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is people's ability to recognize their own emotions, those of others, and differentiate between different feelings and emotions, being able to order and catalog them, as well as being able to modify or change an emotion or feeling, when necessary, depending on the circumstances.

We can say that an emotionally intelligent person is capable of satisfactorily managing emotions consciously, to achieve positive results in your interpellation of what other people feel and one same.

The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) was developed by psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer. But Daniel goleman, an American psychologist, journalist and writer, was the one who made Emotional Intelligence world famous, with the publication of his book Emotional intelligence in 1995.

For Goleman, Emotional Intelligence consists of five capacities:

• Discover your own emotions and feelings
• Recognize them
• Handle them
• Create your own motivation and
• Manage personal relationships

On the other hand, Goleman describes it through five principles or elements of Emotional Intelligence:

• Emotional self-awareness
• Emotional self-regulation
• Motivation
• Empathy
• Social skills

And then he divides it into two areas: intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence.

Two groups of Emotional Intelligence

In the scientific literature there are two large groups of emotional intelligence:

• Mixed model, the union of emotional abilities with elements of the personality.
• Skill model: it is the emotional processing of information obtained from the environment, or from introspection.

Within the scientific world, the skill model is much more appreciated.

What is it for?

People with high Emotional Intelligence manage to establish more positive and enriching relationships in their lives. They are people who create empathy and who they like to be with.

With its fame, the concept of Emotional Intelligence motivated the appearance of numerous tests designed to know and compare the Emotional Intelligence among people, although most of these assessment tools are not approved scientific

Emotional Intelligence plays a fundamental role in the success or failure of all types of human relationships, from those of friends, sentimental and family to work ties

Empathy, emotional self-control and motivation can condition teamwork, which is why these elements, which are indicators of Emotional Intelligence, they are increasingly taken into account in the process of personnel selection for the Business.

It has been shown that a person with Emotional Intelligence, in addition to knowing how to take the right path, has previously valued her decision and has arguments to defend her position. Has control over emotions, is empathetic with peers and usually generates enthusiasm He is someone who creates a good work environment and helps build teams.

Nowadays Emotional Intelligence is a value that is very taken into account when choosing the candidate in personnel selection processes, because it considerably improves the profits of the company and the well-being of the employees.

How Emotional Intelligence is acquired

It is believed that Emotional Intelligence is a skill that we all have, but that it does not show itself if it is not trained. On the other hand, there are people who for various reasons have it much more developed than others the average of the population. The education that the person has had and the level of self-esteem of her has a lot to do with it.

Fortunately, there are exercises to develop Emotional Intelligence, and those who put them into practice show signs of maturity in most aspects of their lives.