
Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught? - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/magazine/can-emotional-intelligence-be-taught.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0
======
jerf
(Despite pulling a quote from the beginning, I did read the whole thing.)

I'm not intrinsically against the idea, but if you're going to teach children
this sort of skill, the teachers themselves are going to have to be a bit more
brutally honest with themselves about what the children actually deal with, or
it really will just be one more feel-good exercise of no value.

    
    
        Recollecting himself, Reedhom sat up straight. “Mommy,
        I don’t like it when you scream at me,” he announced
        firmly.
    
        “Good,” Wade said. “And maybe your mommy will say: ‘I’m
        sorry, Reedhom. I had to go somewhere in a hurry, and I
        got a little mad. I’m sorry.’ ” 
    

Let me tell you what the kid is hearing here, or at least what a lot of the
kids are hearing: "If I say 'Mommy, I don't like it when you scream at me'
Mommy will just stop screaming and I can get away with whatever it is I may
have done to trigger it." Or, Mommy might just as well scream back "DON'T YOU
TALK BACK TO ME LIKE THAT." and keep on going; what then? If you're not going
to address either of those issues, you're just adding another place to the
curriculum where the children will learn to parrot back at you what you want
to hear without actually changing anything about their lives. Honestly, we
have enough of those.

If this is going to work, the teachers are going to have to step out of the
fuzzy-wuzzy bubble of school and address the real world interactions the
children might actually experience, and not slant the coverage, so to speak.

~~~
DanBC
It is acceptable to teach children "emotional intelligence" and to say that
children are poorly behaved and need to be medicated[1] or sent for
reprogramming or need behaviour modification plans. For some reason it's not
acceptable to suggest that some parents need parenting lessons.

Thus, we teach children to say "Mommy, I don't like it when you scream at me",
and we don't teach parents how to deal with children so they don't get to the
point of screaming at them so often.

And while that's going on we have children being raped and murdered by their
parents. About 5 children per day die in the US because of abuse or neglect.
([http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics/](http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics/))

([https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/fatality.cfm](https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/fatality.cfm))

([http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/childmaltreatment/data...](http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/childmaltreatment/datasources.html))

([http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cm_datasheet2012-a...](http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cm_datasheet2012-a.pdf))

> _In 2010, an estimated 1,560 children died from child maltreatment(rate of
> 2.1per 100,000 children)_

> _Of the children who died from maltreatment in 2010, 40.8% experienced
> multiple maltreatment types, 32.6% experienced neglect only, and 22.9%
> experienced physical abuse only._

> _Of child maltreatment fatalities in 2010, 79.4% occurred among children
> younger than age 4; 11.1% among 4-7 year olds; 3.6% among 8-11 year-olds;
> 3.8% among 12-15 year olds; and 1.8% among 16-17 year-olds_

[1] Obviously some children do need to be medicated. But there's a worrying
amount of over-prescribing of strong psychoactive meds among young people
without much evidence of efficacy or need.

~~~
bolder88
Sometimes, children _need_ to be screamed at. It's good for them.

~~~
DanBC
Assuming for the moment that you're correct: How often is acceptable?

How about every day for a child less than a year old?

How about more than four times a day for an eight year old?

How about more screaming than talking for a fourteen your old?

But I reject your statement. Children almost never need to be screamed at, and
it is not good for them.

~~~
pfortuny
You reject his statement but then you say that children "almost never
need...", so you accept that sometimes they might need?

I am lost.

Why is screaming almost intrinsically "bad"?

You are trying to quantize behaviour and, sorry, it cannot be done. Would you
ask how many times it is good to kiss one's mother? One? Ten? One hundred?
Every time the child leaves? Just once? Uhu?

~~~
nitrogen
Perhaps you've never been _screamed_ at. Where by " _screamed_ at" I mean "the
recipient of uncontrolled, unfiltered, absolute maximum strength, irrational,
untempered, terrifying rage." I don't believe that's ever appropriate.

------
unoti
Emotional control can, most certainly, be taught. But it rarely is in our
society.

When I was a kid, I learned from observing my father that being a "real man"
means shaping the world according to your view of how it should be-- taking
control, avenging wrongs, showing strength. In my 30's and 40's I've been
totally reshaping my ideal of what a real man does, and it involves the
opposite in many ways: making people feel safe, having excellent self control,
and outstanding control of my emotions and attitude. The shocking thing to me
is how often the behaviors I know as right according to my new ideals make me
behave in ways that my father would see as pathetic and weak.

But it's completely possible to re-train one's own emotional composition and
approach to life. That's what Stoicism is all about. I wish someone had taught
me about this when I was young. A few things I wish I'd known about when I was
a kid:

1\. The No Complaining bracelet challenge[1]. This was life changing to me,
because through this exercise I learned that "letting it all out" doesn't
really help much, and what really helps is reshaping your own mind. I'm still
doing this challenge today, as a life habit, even after several years.

2\. Stop worrying and stop living[2]. You can boil this book down to a few
pages, with a lot of stories that help you understand why and how. I did this
book on audio during a long car trip. Also life changing for me.

3\. Stoicism. Reading Letters from a Stoic[3] taught me that there was an
entirely different way to look at friendship that I'd never considered. And it
taught me that there are people who constantly practice controlling their
emotions in a positive way, the way a martial artist constantly practices how
to move his body.

[1] [http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/](http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Worrying-Start-
Living/dp/0671...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Worrying-Start-
Living/dp/0671733354)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Penguin-Classics-Lucius-
Annaeu...](http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Penguin-Classics-Lucius-
Annaeus/dp/0140442103/)

~~~
rfnslyr
Whenever I'm faced with a decision, I just ask myself what my parents would
do, then I do the opposite.

------
baldfat
Giving children a voice. Being a Heat Start teacher I can tell you that it is
EXTREMELY important. Instead of just making sounds or cry when Billy kicked or
pushed him the child says, "Stop I don't like that." Changes a person from
being a victim to being an advocate for themselves. If everyone could learn
how to express their emotions into words we would never have Jerry Springer
Show.

Words are better than fists.

~~~
GrinningFool
This - and the article itself - doesn't seem to address the other half of
that.

"Stop I don't like that."

"Too bad." Shove.

"Stop I don't like it when you yell at me."

"TOO BAD! NEXT TIME DON'T DO SOMETHING TO DESERVE IT!"

A child can't control teh reaction to advocating for himself. And if he does
so and the reaction is negative, he will quickly learn not to do so.

I don't have a solution, but I know that simply teaching this more appropriate
method of self-advocacy isn't enough. And depending on the circumstances, it
can easily backfire.

~~~
misuba
Any half-decent emotional curriculum will teach that you can't control other
people's emotions. (And that there's a lot you can't know for sure about those
emotions - which kids are shown as picking up in the article.)

------
robg
See also: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_self-
regulation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_self-regulation)

Prefrontal cortex is still developing through our early twenties. Mitigating
the effects of emotional responses takes work, just like any other discipline.
That work grows synapses and it's the reason mental health therapies change
connectivity patterns in the brain. Leaving the word 'emotion' out (which some
here seem to have strong reactions to), self-regulation is well-understood.

~~~
pinion247
That's different than Goleman's pseudoscience of Emotional Intelligence, but
maybe that's what NYTimes meant?

~~~
robg
From the article here:

 _It may also make children smarter. Davidson notes that because social-
emotional training develops the prefrontal cortex, it can also enhance
academically important skills like impulse control, abstract reasoning, long-
term planning and working memory. Though it’s not clear how significant this
effect is, a 2011 meta-analysis found that K-12 students who received social-
emotional instruction scored an average of 11 percentile points higher on
standardized achievement tests. A similar study found a nearly 20 percent
decrease in violent or delinquent behavior._

Goleman isn't mentioned.

~~~
fleitz
The big problem is that SATs are a good predictor of grades and not success in
life.

------
vicbrooker
My startup is indirectly dealing with this - some schools are currently
testing out app that helps children (and teachers for that matter) identify
and manage emotions.

Early signs are that children can be 'prompted' to apply empathetic reasoning
with the right interfaces, and this can be more effective than average
teacher-guided instruction.

It's really tricky stuff to get right but there's definitely potential for
improvement in this area. There has been (in Australia at least) a focus for
the last few decades on teaching the definition of emotions - this is what
sadness is, this is what anger is - and hoping that students get enough out of
that to learn how to apply it in day to day like. Focusing on context and
leaving it open enough for children to work it out for themselves seems to be
more effective. Really tricky to actually pull that off in a classroom though.

------
kordless
My daughter goes to middle school in Moraga, CA. In the last 6 years since my
son was in a nearby school, they've introduced a concept for making it easier
for the children to tap into school counseling resources. Kids can visit the
school's psychologist by pulling out a "Felt" card and giving it to the
teacher. It serves as an emotional opt-out for whatever happens to be causing
stress at the time and allowing the child to go talk about it to someone who
has the skills and time to listen.

I asked her, "I wonder how many of those get used during dodgeball
tournaments?".

------
JonnyRoger
A complicated answer to a not focused enough question about a TL;DR Article.
The social skills like how to say you dissatisfied by someone's action or
reaction is. But is that intelligence ? Affect regulation is closer in my view
to emotional intelligence and can be acquiered to some extent but is more akin
to language - the earlier the better. And the traits are very dependent on
attachment patterns - relationship with caregiver.

------
makerops
"In the years since, a number of studies have supported this view. So-called
noncognitive skills — attributes like self-restraint, persistence and self-
awareness — might actually be better predictors of a person’s life trajectory
than standard academic measures."

Only after practicing did I achieved some success in the above abilities, late
in my 20s, and it has a huge impact on general well being, career trajectory
etc.

------
pinion247
Can emotional intelligence be proven to exist?

~~~
theorique
Can cognitive intelligence be proved to exist?

The thing that we call IQ (or g) is a set of cognitive abilities in pattern
recognition, problem solving, puzzles, symbol manipulation, and so forth.
Insofar as "something" is measured by these kinds of tests, then IQ/g can be
said to exist.

Similarly, the set of traits and behaviors collected under the umbrella of
"emotional intelligence" are a grab bag of self-regulation, resilience,
emotional self-control, insight into one's own mind, ability to form a working
model of the emotions of others, ability to "read" the emotions of others, and
so forth. These are less well defined than the abilities grouped under IQ/g
but insofar as they could be measured through well-designed tests, then
emotional intelligence can be said to exist.

Alternatively, there could be a functional or "effectiveness based" definition
of emotional intelligence, even if it were less quantitative than IQ/g.

------
dnautics
I can answer this question without reading the article: Yes. And it has to be,
for most people. Except some people, who are incapable of it for physiological
reasons. And there are some people who are so naturally charming and can read
what others want that (but on a superficial level) that they become
pyschopaths.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
> And there are some people who are so naturally charming and can read what
> others want that (but on a superficial level) that they become pyschopaths.

That's not the definition of psychopathic trait (or disorder, or anti-social
behavior) though. What characterizes it is diminished empathy and remorse, so
in fact, it's a _lack_ of emotional intelligence.

The point is that if you're free from remorse but still have a working mental
model of other's emotions (like most humans), you can better manipulate
other's intentions without guilty or other thoughts influencing your
decisions.

We all fall somewhere inside an empathy spectrum, only the ones that fall at
one extreme are characterized as bearer of psychopathic disorder, while the
functional ones live normal (or almost normal) lives. There's a big chance you
work for one actually, these people tend to be successful in leadership
positions.

~~~
dnautics
well, if they're charming, they clearly have some level of emotional
intelligence that far supercedes what most of us have. Saying that they lack
emotional intelligence is like categorically saying that you "lack scientific
intelligence" because even though you are smashing at physics - because you
couldn't find your way a periodic table.

------
mathattack
Intuitively it would seem that if the desire is there, it can be taught. If
someone doesn't want to learn, they won't. But if someone has an open mind,
they can learn. There are many socially awkward people who bloom in college,
or in leadership roles.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Open mind isn't enough. There are no clear unequivocal paths to improve social
skills.

I suspect that lack of situational awareness and lack of concentration
power/endurance is at the heart of most of these problems.

Knowing what to do isn't enough, you need to do it. But improving awareness
and endurance of your awareness is only possible through months or years of
training, especially meditation and trying to find more awareness in social
situations.

------
boothead
I went through the book "The whole brain child" with my five yr old daughter
recently. She absolutely lapped it up. I highly recommend it and the authors
other books if you want to explore your children's (or your own) emotional
landscape.

------
3838
an interesting bbc post here by director adam curtis:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/the_curse_of_tin...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/the_curse_of_tina_part_two)

all about how a lot of the need for emotional expression was invented at the
esalean institute in the 60's and is also a type of conformity.

------
arcosdev
How can you teach something that's total bullshit.

~~~
warfangle
Hi there, where did you receive your advanced degree in psychology, education
and/or psychiatry?

Please leave your pedantic quips on reddit.

~~~
arcosdev
_" [Goleman] exemplifies more clearly than most the fundamental absurdity of
the tendency to class almost any type of behaviour as an 'intelligence'... If
these five 'abilities' define 'emotional intelligence', we would expect some
evidence that they are highly correlated; Goleman admits that they might be
quite uncorrelated, and in any case if we cannot measure them, how do we know
they are related? So the whole theory is built on quicksand: there is no sound
scientific basis."_[1]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence#Cannot_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence#Cannot_be_recognized_as_form_of_intelligence)

~~~
warfangle
So it's a pedantic argument over the usage of the word intelligence. Sort of
like your original quip, no?

Locke suggests the use of the word skill instead; however the definition of
intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge and skills.

Given that the NICHD is pushing for consensus, and that I am not (and neither
are you, given your non-primary source) qualified to determine the status of
EI, let's not dismiss it outright.

How about contributing meaningfully to the discussion instead of alternating
between trolling and non-authorative copypasta?

~~~
arcosdev
I'll dismiss anything outright that is being used by moronic business-school
twits that are using EI as a way to bolster their non-skills and nonsense MBA
programs.

------
goggles99
Another example of the government trying to be the parent here. How sad that
the "nanny" feels that it must get it's hands on kids so early by nurturing
them against those evil parents.

The government has largely supported things that have torn the family apart,
now as the "nanny" it is trying to pick up all the pieces and completely
replace (little by little) what is left of it.

Why? well two reasons... 1\. To maintain and gain ever larger amounts of power
and control (which requires taking more and more freedom, privacy and choices
away from the people). 2\. To rid the world of God and religion (which is
necessary for number one to even be a possibility).

The government must weaken the people and make them dependent on it. Best way
to accomplish this is to destroy what creates strong communities. Family and
faith.

------
a3voices
Belief systems matter more than emotional intelligence. For example, if you
live in the Incan empire and everyone believes you're a god, it doesn't matter
what your emotional intelligence is.

------
nwzpaperman
Sure. Nature beats it into people all the time. Some people just need more
time for nature to act on them than others.

------
Kudzu_Bob
If emotional intelligence can be taught (which it can't, because the concept
is as bogus as those Baby Einstein videos that used to be so popular, but
never mind), then smart people will be the ones to master it. Why? Because
smart people are good at learning stuff.

~~~
auctiontheory
Do you have any data that people who are smart (at learning math and computers
- I assume that's what you mean) are also good at learning to deal with
people, particularly non-math people?

If anything, I have observed a negative correlation. And I know some pretty f
__*ing smart people.

~~~
Kudzu_Bob
You shouldn't reply to comments that you haven't read.

