Customer Reviews

What We Know about Emotional Intelligence: How It Affects Learning, Work, Relationships, and Our Mental Health

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I am a workplace educator who has an interest in Emotional Intelligence. I have read much of Goleman's work, but I had a persistant feeling that I was not getting the whole story behind EI. A professor recommended this book to me and described it as the "science" behind EI. She was not kidding. The book quickly lays out the working definitions of EI and compares Goleman's work to that of Salovey-Mayer. Goleman fans will find their hero being beat up from time to time. This book also lays out the foundational constructs of EI (Meta-Cognition and accurate emotion labeling). The authors quickly point out that much of the current reseach on EI is based on self-report studies which have a dubious track record in this arena. But because self-reports are the only studies to rely on at this time the authors then spend the rest of the book summarizing what little we can discern from them, particularly as they relate to the workplace, stress and therpy.

As a practitioner I am glad I read this book. Due to its textbookish nature I feel I have a firm understanding of the science behind EI and its basic construct, but after the first 100 pages I really did not learn anything new that I can take to the EI bank. The final chapter leaves the reader feeling that the book would be more accurately titled, "We don't know much about EI." Regardless I recommend the book as a Ying to Goleman's Yang.

For what it is worth I think any future endeavours should include the perspectives of a broad range of pyschological research. Noticibly absent from the book was any mention from the field of neuroscience (which started the whole EI thing in the 90s if I am not mistaken.).