Book Review: Emotional Intelligence

The subject of this book review is Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, a good book despite its flaws when looked at from a Christian perspective.

My wife introduced me to this book.  She had read it a number of years ago (it was first published in 1995), and one day as she was perusing a collection of second-hand books she found a copy and gave it to me because 1) she knows that I like to read and 2) she loves me.  I found it quite interesting although I had to read it through a filter of sorts, but more on that later.

The basic premise of the book is the our concept of human intelligence is flawed, or at least incomplete. Goleman stressed that we put too much emphasis on the type of intelligence that can be measured with an IQ test.  He places more of an emphasis on what he likes to call emotional intelligence which incorporates certain aspects such as self-discipline and compassion.  The two types of intelligence must go together in order to have a complete picture of the individual.

This book introduced me to some new concepts, or at least gave me a name for them and told me how they happen.  The one that I remember the most is the concept of a "emotional hijacking".  An emotional hijacking is when the emotional centers of the brain override the rational/cognitive centers.  You, no doubt, have experienced this in one way or another, such as when you got so angry/sad/excited that you ended up doing and/or saying things that you know cognitively that you should not do and/or say.  A very simple way to put it is that it's like being drunk without the liver damage.

There are a lot of positive aspects to this book, but its main downfall for me is that it comes from a very humanistic approach.  Evolutionary concepts are found throughout the book, mainly connected to how the human brain formed and why it functions the way it does.  He also heavily espouses the idea that people can be changed if given the correct education.

I, obviously, do not have the same world view as Goleman does, but that did not prevent me from learning a lot on how people, myself included, function in regards to our emotions.  So if you are interested in a good read and are able to tolerate the author's perspective, search around and pick up this book.  You'll feel more intelligent when you're done.