I remember seeing something years ago about the “EQ”, the test or scale of someone’s “Emotional Quotient” designed to be similar to the IQ tests.
Unfortunately, though the IQ of a person changes day to day, and hour-to-hour within the day (although it is very minor for some people), the EQ of people changes rapidly. Little things can “set people off”, changes in diet can change the chemical levels in the body and hormones can get slightly askew, etc.
The EQ seems so much harder to pin down than the intelligence. But why?
I think it goes back to the subject of my last entry: non-quantifiably of all things emotional. There is something about it that does not lend itself to being measured.
Sure you can measure the levels of the hormones or the muscular reactions, heart-rate, etc. but the essential core of emotion remains unmeasurable. It is not something you can grab hold off, pin down and get a yardstick near.
It is akin to the start of subatomic particle physics that does not allow the researcher to measure the wavelength of a particle while trying to measure a different aspect of it. Like the blind men and the elephant, you can sense a part of the puzzle but the whole will elude you.
EQ tests are good to measure you current emotional health but against what? Measuring your current emotional state against another human being does not mean much, as you may quickly change. In fact, some researchers found the tests themselves could change the EQ of the taker, either making them realize life wasn’t so bad (they got happier) or putting them into a funk.
It’s just another reason why coming up with a new way of viewing and thinking about these non-quantifiable issues might be helpful.
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Tags: emotions, mathematics, qualum theory, science
January 25, 2012 at 6:01 am |
The mathematical measure of whether you get the same result when you take the same psychological test at different times is known as reliablity and for IQ tests this measure is very high for adults so unfortunately your statement that a person’s IQ changes day to day is incorrect.
Of course emotions vary considerably and the term emotional intelligence is a complete misnomer. The variablity has nothing to do with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle. Emotions vary. However people do have temperament which is an emotional genetic predisposition and includes such factors as extraversion, agreeability, neuroticisim etc. and these can be measured although with much less reliability and validity when compared to IQ tests.
Personally I consider the best tool for understanding temperament and consequently lifting your EQ is the Humm-Wadsworth. (see my website and download my white paper for more info.)
January 26, 2012 at 12:41 am |
Chris,
Thanks for the response. It’s good to have another perspective. Genetic predisposition is an important factor in the equation and such things can never be ruled out. Though it is just a predisposition, it does seem to usually pan out for most people.
I would like to have read your paper, but the website did not seem to load. Perhaps it will next time I try.
January 25, 2012 at 9:12 am |
factsmark…
[...]Emotional Intelligence « a Different View[...]…
January 27, 2012 at 4:39 am |
Actually there are some reliable instruments out there for measuring emotional intelligence for example, the MSCEIT v 2.0 measures the four branch model of emotional intelligence and has been shown to have both high reliability and high validity.
Jim