What is intelligence?
In all cultures, intelligence refers to the ability to use one’s knowledge to adjust to new surroundings, resolve issues, and discover from experiences.
This also entails an individual’s ability to reason and understand abstract concepts. Definitions of intelligence are many and varied because they originate from different scholars. The most important aspect is one’s ability to interact with the environment and manipulate it. In this context, the environment covers physical areas, surroundings, and social relations like families, colleagues, and friends among others.
Contemporary developments in neuroscience have led to issues of locating and measuring intelligence in the brain. In addition, other questions whether intelligence consists of ability or abilities. Overall, they concur that intelligence consist of aspects like intellectual speed, ingenuity, recall, problem-solving skills, broad knowledge, and concrete thinking. All these factors have significant roles in measuring intelligence. Thus, it is a broad concept that accounts for most mental abilities. There are also cases of extreme intelligence like that of Sho Yano.
How to measure intelligence has also attracted controversy just like the definition. Most scales have developed various methods of measuring intelligence. However, the most common and widely used approach is the measure of one’s intelligence quotient (IQ).
A number of tests, which have focused on various abilities like reasoning, arithmetical, oral, and recall, have shown that intelligence assumes the typical ‘bell-shape’ distribution. Such results have originated from a representative samples. Hence, one can conclude that majorities have average intelligence, but there are extreme cases at both ends of the curve. These could result from extreme mental retardation or extreme intelligence.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Over the recent few years, the concept of emotional intelligence has gained a great recognition. It reflects the ability to understand and control one’s own emotions and others’ emotions too. It is useful for adaptation and survival. Emotional intelligence focuses on non-cognitive elements.
Researchers in this field have believed that the concept of intelligence cannot be complete without understanding other non-intelligence factors. Consequently, there are a number of intelligence models, which include social intelligence, interpersonal relations, assessing one’s own emotions, fears, and motivations.
People should learn how to perceive, understand, manage, and use their emotions. Despite criticisms of various definitions of emotional intelligence, emotions have become important elements for understanding people’s social environments. In addition, people have various ways of demonstrating competencies in the core components of emotional intelligence.
Is our ability to empathize with others and manage our emotions a form of intelligence?
In most cases, we fail to understand situations, feelings, and emotions of others. Research has shown that empathy has become an important skill for success in life. In this context, emotional intelligence is more important than intelligence. People who have attained emotional intelligence have also created effective communications in families, workplaces, and with friends. They can relate with other people without the fear of subjectivity or captivity in a situation.
Such people also allow others to express their feelings, express themselves, and they can engage in mutual negotiations and avoid any attempts of negative expressions or emotions. In fact, empathy has gained recognition in most professions, and communication as served an important tool in facilitating emotional intelligence.
Therefore, empathy and emotional intelligence are other forms of intelligence, which could be important than intelligence alone because they may influence success in one’s life.