What Is EQ (Emotional Intelligence)? The Science of Understanding and Managing Emotions

In 1995, a book changed the way millions of people thought about intelligence, success, and what it means to be smart.

Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence argued that the conventional view of intelligence, IQ, academic ability, logical reasoning, explained far less of the variation in people's success and wellbeing than a different kind of intelligence: the ability to understand and manage emotions.^[4]

The research since then has substantially supported and refined this argument.

Emotional Intelligence, EQ or EI, is now one of the most extensively studied constructs in applied psychology, with a substantial body of evidence linking it to outcomes in professional performance, leadership effectiveness, relationship quality, mental health, and physical wellbeing.

This article explains what EQ actually is according to the research, what its core dimensions are, how it differs from IQ, and what the CommStyle EQ Assessment measures.

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The Origins of the Concept

The term "emotional intelligence" was introduced formally by psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer in 1990.

Their definition remains foundational: EQ is the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.^[8] What made this definition significant was its framing of emotion not as a distraction from intelligence but as a form of information, something to be processed skillfully rather than suppressed or avoided.

Goleman's 1995 popularization extended and reframed the concept for a general audience, introducing the idea that EQ might matter more than IQ for life success.

This claim was stronger than the research at the time supported and has since been refined, but it catalyzed enormous research interest that has produced a much more nuanced and better-supported understanding of what EQ is and what it predicts.

Emotional Self-Awareness and Understanding Others' Emotions

The capacity to recognize your own emotional states, to know what you're feeling, when, and why, is the most foundational EQ dimension. This sounds simple but is less so in practice.

Emotions are often processed first as physical sensations or behavioral impulses before they're recognized as named emotions.

Research has found that emotional self-awareness predicts better decision-making, since emotions carry information rational analysis alone cannot provide, better regulation, since you cannot manage an emotion you haven't recognized, and better interpersonal communication.

Understanding others' emotions is the interpersonal analogue of self-awareness, the capacity to read what others feel from facial expressions, tone, and body language.

Research on empathic accuracy, how precisely people read others' emotional states, found significant individual variation and that it's one of the strongest predictors of relationship quality and interpersonal effectiveness.^[6] This isn't the same as sharing others' emotions, it's the cognitive capacity to model what others feel and why.

Empathy and Emotional Regulation

While understanding others' emotions is primarily cognitive, empathy adds an affective dimension: being genuinely moved by others' experience.

Research documented the empathy-altruism hypothesis, that genuine empathic concern reliably produces helping behavior and prosocial motivation.^[1] Empathy also includes self-empathy, holding your own emotional experience with compassion rather than judgment, which research has found associated with better emotional wellbeing and, ironically, greater accountability.^[7]

Emotional regulation is the capacity to manage your emotional states, to modulate their intensity, duration, and expression in ways that serve your goals and relationships.

Research has found significant differences in effectiveness across strategies: reappraisal, changing how you interpret a situation, is among the most effective, reducing negative emotion intensity without the costs of suppression, while suppression, inhibiting expression of an already-felt emotion, is less effective and doesn't reduce the underlying experience or physiological activation.^[5] Problem-solving, addressing the situation directly, is effective when the situation is changeable.

Emotional Use and Expression

Beyond recognizing and managing emotions, emotionally intelligent people use emotional information productively in decision-making and motivation, and express their emotions in ways that are genuine and contextually appropriate.

Research on emotion and decision-making has found that emotions carry information that pure rational analysis cannot provide — patients with damage to the emotional processing centers of the brain, despite intact cognitive function, make consistently worse decisions than neurologically typical individuals, because they lack access to the gut-level evaluative information emotions provide.^[3] Using emotions well means neither ignoring them nor being governed by them, but treating them as information worth attending to.

EQ vs. IQ: What the Research Actually Shows

The popular claim that EQ matters more than IQ for life success was overstated, but the more nuanced research finding is still practically significant.

IQ and EQ predict different things: IQ strongly predicts academic achievement, technical performance, and success in cognitively demanding tasks, while EQ predicts outcomes in domains where effective interpersonal functioning matters, relationship satisfaction, leadership effectiveness, team performance, and wellbeing.

In the domains where most people spend most of their working time, managing relationships, working in teams, leading others, navigating conflict, EQ is as important as or more important than IQ.^[2] And unlike IQ, which is relatively fixed, EQ can be developed through deliberate practice and learning.

What EQ Predicts: The Research Evidence

Multiple meta-analyses have found significant associations between EQ and leadership effectiveness, with leaders higher in EQ more effective at managing team emotions, building trust, and navigating conflict.

Research has consistently found that EQ predicts relationship satisfaction across relationship types, romantic, friendship, and professional, since people who understand emotions accurately and manage them skillfully make better partners, friends, and colleagues.

Research has found significant negative associations between EQ and rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout, with emotional regulation capacity one of the most robust predictors of mental health across populations.

In roles where interpersonal effectiveness matters, management, client service, healthcare, teaching, sales, EQ is among the strongest predictors of performance, independent of IQ and technical skill.

And research has found associations between EQ, particularly emotional regulation, and physical health outcomes, mediated partly by stress management and partly by social support quality.

What the CommStyle EQ Assessment Measures

The CommStyle EQ Assessment measures your emotional intelligence across the core dimensions described above, emotional self-awareness, understanding others' emotions, empathy, and emotional regulation, providing a profile that identifies your specific strengths and the areas where development will produce the most meaningful improvement.

The assessment was developed by a team including a Certified Clinical Psychologist, a Certified Public Psychologist, and a psychology master's graduate, drawing on the research of Salovey and Mayer, Goleman, and subsequent empirical work in the field.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is EQ and how is it different from IQ?

EQ is the capacity to perceive, understand, use, and manage emotional information, in yourself and in others. IQ measures cognitive abilities: logical reasoning, verbal comprehension, and pattern recognition.

Research finds they predict different kinds of outcomes, and a person can have high IQ and low EQ, or vice versa.

Can emotional intelligence be developed?

Yes. Research consistently documents meaningful EQ development in adulthood, particularly for the self-management and social skill components.

The most evidence-supported approaches include mindfulness-based practice for emotional awareness and regulation, active listening training for empathic accuracy, and sometimes therapeutic support for deeper pattern change.

EQ development typically requires sustained practice over months rather than short training interventions.

What are the signs of high emotional intelligence?

Research-based indicators include accurately identifying your own emotional states as they arise, managing emotional expression appropriately to context, recovering efficiently from emotional setbacks, accurately reading others' emotional states, and maintaining effective relationships under pressure.

High EQ doesn't mean not feeling strong emotions, it means having the capacity to work with emotional information productively rather than being controlled by it.