Unit IV: Intelligence: Definition. Intelligence as a process: Piaget.

Structure of intelligence: Approaches of Spearman, Thurstone, Cattell.

Triarchic approach. Multiple intelligences. Concept of IQ. Evolution of
intelligence testing: Stanford-Binet, Wechsler scales. Extremes of
intelligence: Mental retardation and giftedness. Determiners of
intelligence: heredity and environment. Emotional intelligence.
Unit IV: Intelligence: Definition.
the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or
have opinions that are based on reason.
Intelligence as a process: Piaget.

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move

through four different stages of learning. His theory focuses not only on
understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding
the nature of intelligence.1 Piaget's stages are:

 Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years

 Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7
 Concrete operational stage: Ages 7 to 11
 Formal operational stage: Ages 12 and up

Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process,
acting much like little scientists as they perform experiments, make
observations, and learn about the world. As kids interact with the world
around them, they continually add new knowledge, build upon existing
knowledge, and adapt previously held ideas to accommodate new
information.

History of Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget was born in Switzerland in the late 1800s and was a precocious
student, publishing his first scientific paper when he was just 11 years old.
His early exposure to the intellectual development of children came when
he worked as an assistant to Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon as they
worked to standardize their famous IQ test.

Piaget vs. Vygotsky

Piaget's theory differs in important ways from those of Lev Vygotsky,

another influential figure in the field of child development. Vygotsky

1
acknowledged the roles that curiosity and active involvement play in
learning, but placed greater emphasis on society and culture.

Piaget felt that development is largely fueled from within, while Vygotsky
believed that external factors (such as culture) and people (such as parents,
caregivers, and peers) play a more significant role.

Much of Piaget's interest in the cognitive development of children was

inspired by his observations of his own nephew and daughter. These
observations reinforced his budding hypothesis that children's minds were
not merely smaller versions of adult minds.

Until this point in history, children were largely treated simply as smaller
versions of adults. Piaget was one of the first to identify that the way that
children think is different from the way adults think.

Piaget proposed that intelligence grows and develops through a series of

stages. Older children do not just think more quickly than younger
children. Instead, there are both qualitative and quantitative differences
between the thinking of young children versus older children.

Based on his observations, he concluded that children were not less

intelligent than adults—they simply think differently. Albert Einstein
called Piaget's discovery "so simple only a genius could have thought of
it."

Piaget's stage theory describes the cognitive development of

children. Cognitive development involves changes in cognitive process
and abilities.2 In Piaget's view, early cognitive development involves
processes based upon actions and later progresses to changes in mental
operations.

The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers

acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects.
A child's entire experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs
through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

Birth to 2 Years

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

2
  Know the world through movements and sensations
 Learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking,
grasping, looking, and listening
 Learn that things continue to exist even when they cannot be seen
(object permanence)
 Realize that they are separate beings from the people and objects
around them
 Realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world
around them

During the sensorimotor stage, children go through a period of dramatic

growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they
continually make new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over
a relatively short time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not
only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking;
they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom
they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down into substages. Early
representational thought emerges during the final part of the sensorimotor
stage.

Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy,

the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be
seen, was an important element at this point of development.

By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they
have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children
are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the
previous stage, but the emergence of language is one of the major
hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development.3

2 to 7 Years

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

3
  Begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to
represent objects
 Tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective
of others
 Getting better with language and thinking, but still tend to think in
very concrete terms

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic
and taking the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with
understanding the idea of constancy.

Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of
development, yet they continue to think very concretely about the world
around them.

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two
equal pieces, and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay
to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other
is smashed into a flat pancake shape. Because the flat shape looks larger,
the preoperational child will likely choose that piece, even though the two
pieces are exactly the same size.

The Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this
point in development, they become much more adept at using logic.2 The
egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become
better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

7 to 11 Years

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

 Begin to think logically about concrete events

 Begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of
liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for
example
 Thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very
concrete
 Begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information
to a general principle
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While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete
operational state, it can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in
development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think
about how other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete
operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to
them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings,
and opinions.

The Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability
to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas.3 At this
point, adolescents and young adults become capable of seeing multiple
potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the
world around them.

Age 12 and Up

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this time:

 Begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems

 Begins to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and
political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning
 Begins to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle
to specific information

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key
hallmark of the formal operational stage of cognitive development. The
ability to systematically plan for the future and reason about hypothetical
situations are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage.

Important Cognitive Development Concepts

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual

development as a quantitative process. That is, kids do not just add more
information and knowledge to their existing knowledge as they get older.

Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children

think as they gradually process through these four stages.4 At age 7,

5
children don't just have more information about the world than they did at
age 2; there is a fundamental change in how they think about the world.

Piaget suggested several factors that influence how children learn and
grow.

Schemas

A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in

understanding and knowing. Schemas are categories of knowledge that
help us to interpret and understand the world.

In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the

process of obtaining that knowledge.3 As experiences happen, this new
information is used to modify, add to, or change previously existing
schemas.

For example, a child may have a schema about a type of animal, such as a
dog. If the child's sole experience has been with small dogs, a child might
believe that all dogs are small, furry, and have four legs. Suppose then that
the child encounters an enormous dog. The child will take in this new
information, modifying the previously existing schema to include these
new observations.

Assimilation

The process of taking in new information into our already existing

schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective
because we tend to modify experiences and information slightly to fit in
with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and
labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog
schema.

Accommodation

Another part of adaptation is the ability to change existing schemas in

light of new information; this process is known as accommodation.5 New
schemas may also be developed during this process.

Equilibration

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As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is
important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge
(assimilation) and changing behavior to account for new knowledge
(accommodation).

Piaget believed that all children try to strike a balance between

assimilation and accommodation using a mechanism he called
equilibration. Equilibration helps explain how children can move from one
stage of thought to the next

Structure of intelligence: Approaches of Spearman,

Charles Spearman, an English psychologist, established the two-factor
theory of intelligence back in 1904 (Spearman, 1904). To arrive at this
theory, Spearman used a technique known as factor analysis.

Factor analysis is a procedure through which the correlation of related

variables is evaluated to find an underlying factor that explains this
correlation.

In the case of intelligence, Spearman noticed that those who did well in
one area of intelligence tests (for example, mathematics) also did well in
other areas (such as distinguishing pitch; Kalat, 2014).

In other words, there was a strong correlation between performing well in

math and music, and Spearman then attributed this relationship to a central
factor, that of general intelligence (g).

Spearman concluded that there is a single g-factor that represents an

individual’s general intelligence across multiple abilities and that a second
factor, s, refers to an individual’s specific ability in one particular area
(Spearman, as cited in Thomson, 1947).

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Together, these two main factors compose Spearman’s two-factor theory.

Thurstone,
Thurstone (1938) challenged the concept of a g-factor. After analyzing
data from 56 different tests of mental abilities, he identified a number of
primary mental abilities that comprise intelligence as opposed to one
general factor.

The seven primary mental abilities in Thurstone’s model are verbal

comprehension, verbal fluency, number facility, spatial visualization,
perceptual speed, memory, and inductive reasoning (Thurstone, as cited in
Sternberg, 2003).

Mental Ability Description

Word Fluency Ability to use words quickly and fluency

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 Mental Ability Description

in performing such tasks as rhyming,

solving anagrams, and doing crossword
puzzles.

Verbal Ability to understand the meaning of

Comprehension words, concepts, and ideas.

Numerical Ability to use numbers to quickly

Ability compute answers to problems.

Spatial Ability to visualize and manipulate

Visualization patterns and forms in space.

Ability to grasp perceptual details

quickly and accurately and to determine
Perceptual Speed
similarities and differences between
stimuli.

Ability to recall information such as lists

Memory or words, mathematical formulas, and
definitions.

Ability to derive general rules and

Inductive
principles from the presented
Reasoning
information.

Although Thurstone did not reject Spearman’s idea of general intelligence

altogether, he instead theorized that intelligence consists of both general
ability and a number of specific abilities, paving the way for future
research that examined the different forms of intelligence.

Cattell.
9
Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence

Raymond Cattell (1963) first proposed the concepts of fluid and

crystallized intelligence and further developed the theory with John Horn.

Fluid intelligence is the ability to problem solve in novel situations

without referencing prior knowledge, but rather through the use of logic
and abstract thinking. Fluid intelligence can be applied to any novel
problem because no specific prior knowledge is required (Cattell, 1963).
As you grow older fluid increases and then starts to decrease in the late
20s.
Crystallized intelligence refers to the use of previously-acquired
knowledge, such as specific facts learned in school or specific motor skills
or muscle memory (Cattell, 1963). As you grow older and accumulate
knowledge, crystallized intelligence increases.

The Cattell-Horn (1966) theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence

suggests that intelligence is composed of a number of different abilities
that interact and work together to produce overall individual intelligence.

For example, if you are taking a hard math test, you rely on your
crystallized intelligence to process the numbers and meaning of the
questions, but you may use fluid intelligence to work through the novel

10
 problem and arrive at the correct solution. It is also possible that fluid
intelligence can become crystallized intelligence.
The novel solutions you create when relying on fluid intelligence can, over
time, develop into crystallized intelligence after they are incorporated into
long-term memory.

This illustrates some of the ways in which different forms of intelligence

overlap and interact with one another, revealing its dynamic nature.

Triarchic approach.

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Just two years later, in 1985, Robert Sternberg proposed a three-category

theory of intelligence, integrating components that were lacking in
Gardner’s theory. This theory is based on the definition of intelligence as
the ability to achieve success based on your personal standards and your
sociocultural context.

According to the triarchic theory, intelligence has three aspects: analytical,

creative, and practical (Sternberg, 1985).

Analytical intelligence, also referred to as componential intelligence,

refers to intelligence that is applied to analyze or evaluate problems and
arrive at solutions. This is what a traditional IQ test measures.

Creative intelligence is the ability to go beyond what is given to create

novel and interesting ideas. This type of intelligence involves imagination,
innovation, and problem-solving.

Practical intelligence is the ability that individuals use to solve problems

faced in daily life when a person finds the best fit between themselves and
the demands of the environment.

Adapting to the demands of the environment involves either utilizing

knowledge gained from experience to purposefully change oneself to suit
the environment (adaptation), changing the environment to suit oneself
(shaping), or finding a new environment in which to work (selection).

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Multiple intelligences.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

Following the work of Thurstone, American psychologist Howard

Gardner built off the idea that there are multiple forms of intelligence.

He proposed that there is no single intelligence, but rather distinct,

independent multiple intelligences exist, each representing unique skills
and talents relevant to a certain category.

Gardner (1983, 1987) initially proposed seven multiple intelligences:

linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal, and he has since added naturalist
intelligence.

Gardner holds that most activities (such as dancing) will involve a

combination of these multiple intelligences (such as spatial and bodily-
kinesthetic intelligences). He also suggests that these multiple
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intelligences can help us understand concepts beyond intelligence, such as
creativity and leadership.

And although this theory has widely captured the attention of the
psychology community and the greater public, it does have its faults.

There have been few empirical studies that actually test this theory, and
this theory does not account for other types of intelligence beyond the
ones Gardner lists

Concept of IQ.
The concept of IQ is one of those interesting aspects that makes the
human mind extremely high functioning and unique to study. IQ, also
called the intelligence quotient, is what makes a difference in people’s
brains.
We often see a student learning things in class but incapable of
remembering that during the exam this is because of the influence of their
IQ. High and low IQ plays an important part in the functioning of our
brain.
Evolution of intelligence testing: Stanford-Binet,
When the Binet-Simon scale made its way over to the United States,
Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman adapted the test for American
students and published the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale in 1916
(Cherry, 2020).

The Stanford-Binet Scale is a contemporary assessment that measures

intelligence according to five features of cognitive ability,

including fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-

spatial processing, and working memory. Both verbal and nonverbal
responses are measured.

13
This test used a single number, referred to as the intelligence quotient
(IQ), to indicate an individual’s score.

The average score for the test is 100, and any score from 90 to 109 is
considered to be in the average intelligence range. Scores from 110 to 119
are considered to be High Average. Superior scores range from 120 to 129
and anything over 130 is considered Very Superior.

To calculate IQ, the student’s mental age is divided by his or her actual (or
chronological) age, and this result is multiplied by 100. If your mental age
is equal to your chronological age, you will have an IQ of 100, or average.
If your mental age is 12, but your chronological age is only 10, you will
have an above-average IQ of 120.

Wechsler scales.

WISC and WAIS

Just as theories of intelligence build off one another, intelligence tests do

too. After Terman created Stanford-Binet test, American psychologist
David Wechsler developed a new tool due to his dissatisfaction with the
limitations of the Stanford-Binet test (Cherry, 2020).

Like Thurstone, Gardner, and Sternberg, Wechsler believed intelligence

involved many different mental abilities and felt that the Stanford-Binet
scale too closely reflected the idea of one general intelligence.

Because of this, Wechsler created the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

Children (WISC) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in
1955, with the most up-to-date version being the WAIS-IV (Cherry,
2020).

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), developed by

David Wechsler, is an IQ test designed to measure intelligence and
cognitive ability in children between the ages of 6 and 16. It is currently in
its fourth edition (WISC-V) released in 2014 by Pearson.

14
Above Image: WISC-IV Sample Test Question

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is an IQ test designed to

measure cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents, including

verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and

processing speed.

The latest version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV)

was standardized on 2,200 healthy people between the ages of 16 and 90
years (Brooks et al., 2011).

The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of people

of different ages to compute the average score on the test at each age level.

The overall IQ score combines the test takers’ performance in all four
categories (Cherry, 2020). And rather than calculating this number based
on mental and chronological age, the WAIS compares the individual’s
score to the average score at that level, as calculated by the standardization
process.

Extremes of Intelligence: Intellectual Disability and Giftedness

The results of studies assessing the measurement of intelligence show that

IQ is distributed in the population in the form of a Normal
Distribution (or bell curve), which is the pattern of scores usually
observed in a variable that clusters around its average. In a normal
distribution, the bulk of the scores fall toward the middle, with many
fewer scores falling at the extremes. The normal distribution of
intelligence shows that on IQ tests, as well as on most other measures, the
majority of people cluster around the average (in this case, where IQ =
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100), and fewer are either very smart or very dull (see Figure 5.13).
Because the standard deviation of an IQ test is about 15, this means that
about 2% of people score above an IQ of 130, often considered the
threshold for giftedness, and about the same percentage score below an IQ
of 70, often being considered the threshold for an intellectual disability.

Although Figure 5.13 presents a single distribution, the actual IQ

distribution varies by sex such that the distribution for men is more spread
out than is the distribution for women. These sex differences mean that
about 20% more men than women fall in the extreme (very smart or very
dull) ends of the distribution (Johnson, Carothers, & Deary, 2009). Boys
are about five times more likely to be diagnosed with the reading disability
dyslexia than are girls (Halpern, 1992), and are also more likely to be
classified as having an intellectual disability. However, boys are also
about 20% more highly represented in the upper end of the IQ distribution.

Figure 5.13 Distribution of IQ Scores in the General PopulationThe

normal distribution of IQ scores in the general population shows that most
people have about average intelligence, while very few have extremely
high or extremely low intelligence.

One end of the distribution of intelligence scores is defined by people with

very low IQ. Intellectual disability (or intellectual developmental
disorder) is assessed based on cognitive capacity (IQ) and adaptive
functioning. The severity of the disability is based on adaptive
functioning, or how well the person handles everyday life tasks. About 1%
of the United States population, most of them males, fulfill the criteria for
intellectual developmental disorder, but some children who are given this
diagnosis lose the classification as they get older and better learn to
function in society. A particular vulnerability of people with low IQ is that
they may be taken advantage of by others, and this is an important aspect
of the definition of intellectual developmental .

16
One cause of intellectual developmental disorder is Down syndrome, a
chromosomal disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra
21st chromosome. The incidence of Down syndrome is estimated at
approximately 1 per 700 births, and the prevalence increases as the
mother’s age increases (CDC, 2014a). People with Down syndrome
typically exhibit a distinctive pattern of physical features, including a flat
nose, upwardly slanted eyes, a protruding tongue, and a short neck.

Fortunately, societal attitudes toward individuals with intellectual

disabilities have changed over the past decades. We no longer use terms
such as “retarded,” “moron,” “idiot,” or “imbecile” to describe people
with intellectual deficits, although these were the official psychological
terms used to describe degrees of what was referred to as mental
retardation in the past. Laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) have made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of mental and
physical disability, and there has been a trend to bring people with mental
disabilities out of institutions and into our workplaces and schools.

Giftedness refers to children who have an IQ of 130 or higher (Lally &

Valentine-French, 2015). Having extremely high IQ is clearly less of a
problem than having extremely low IQ, but there may also be challenges
to being particularly smart. It is often assumed that schoolchildren who are
labeled as “gifted” may have adjustment problems that make it more
difficult for them to create social relationships. To study gifted children,
Lewis Terman and his colleagues (Terman & Oden, 1959) selected about
1,500 high school students who scored in the top 1% on the Stanford-
Binet and similar IQ tests (i.e., who had IQs of about 135 or higher), and
tracked them for more than seven decades (the children became known as
the “termites” and are still being studied today). This study found that
these students were not unhealthy or poorly adjusted, but rather were
above average in physical health and were taller and heavier than
individuals in the general population. The students also had above average
social relationships and were less likely to divorce than the average person
(Seagoe, 1975).

Terman’s study also found that many of these students went on to achieve
high levels of education and entered prestigious professions, including
medicine, law, and science. Of the sample, 7% earned doctoral degrees,
4% earned medical degrees, and 6% earned law degrees. These numbers
are all considerably higher than what would have been expected from a
17
more general population. Another study of young adolescents who had
even higher IQs found that these students ended up attending graduate
school at a rate more than 50 times higher than that in the general
population (Lubinski & Benbow, 2006).

As you might expect based on our discussion of intelligence, kids who are
gifted have higher scores on general intelligence “g”, but there are also
different types of giftedness. Some children are particularly good at math
or science, some at automobile repair or carpentry, some at music or art,
some at sports or leadership, and so on. There is a lively debate among
scholars about whether it is appropriate or beneficial to label some
children as “gifted and talented” in school and to provide them with
accelerated special classes and other programs that are not available to
everyone. Although doing so may help the gifted kids (Colangelo &
Assouline, 2009), it also may isolate them from their peers and make such
provisions unavailable to those who are not classified as “gifted.”

Determiners of intelligence: heredity and environment.

All traits are heritable, with intelligence being one of the most researched.
If genetics were the only factor to consider when predicting intelligence,
we would expect identical twins to have identical IQ scores. The research
shows:

 Studies show that IQ scores of identical twins are strongly

correlated, and are more similar than those of fraternal
twins.1 Identical twins' test scores also correlate highly when given
assessments that measure reading, mathematics, and language skills.3
 Siblings who were raised together in the same environment have
more similar IQs than those of unrelated adopted children who were
brought up in the same household.1

In addition to inherited characteristics, other biological factors such as

maternal age, prenatal exposure to harmful substances, and prenatal
malnutrition may also influence intelligence.

Evidence of Environmental Influences on Intelligence

Historically, some theorists believed humans are born with a blank slate,
and capable of becoming any type of person with any type of career,
influence, and social status.4 The research shows:
18
  Identical twins who were raised separately have less similar IQs than
those of identical twins who grew up in the same household.5
 School attendance has an impact on IQ scores.6
 Children who were breastfed for 12 months or longer had a higher
IQ (about 3.7 points) at age 30.7
 Vitamin and nutrient deficiencies are linked with lower IQ.8

In one example, studies have found that first-born children tend to have
higher IQs than later-born siblings.9 Why? Many experts believe that this
is because first-born children receive more attention from their parents.
Research also suggests that parents expect older children to perform better
on a variety of tasks, whereas later-born siblings face less task-focused
expectations.

Emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize, understand, and
manage your own and other’s emotions. People who are high in EI tend to
have more satisfying personal and professional relationships, as well as
greater levels of psychological well-being.
Also known as emotional quotient (EQ), researchers have studied EI for
decades. Many companies want their employees, especially executive
leadership, to have high EQ. Some universities even offer courses on how
to improve emotional intelligence.
Here’s a breakdown of the basics of emotional intelligence.

Components of Emotional Intelligence

Emotions are a mix of things that influence your behavior: thoughts,

feelings, bodily sensations.
Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that help you use all that mind-
body information to achieve your goals, whether the aim is to:

 Manage stress or anxiety

 Have supportive relationships
 Be a good parent
 Perform better at work or school

The core parts to emotional intelligence include the following:

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Self-awareness. You can be self-aware about lots of things, like if you’re
cold or hot right now. But emotional intelligence is specifically being
aware of your emotions, what behaviors those feelings trigger, and how
your actions may affect other people.
Self-regulation. You stop to think about what to do with your feelings
instead of letting your emotions control your behavior.
Self-motivation. Your emotions don’t distract from your short or long-
term goals, even if you’re stressed or face other challenges that might pull
your attention elsewhere.
Social skills. You can pick up on other people’s emotions and change
your behavior appropriately to address how they’re feeling or acting. You
can inspire others, nudge people toward a common goal, and maintain
strong relationships.
Social awareness. A big part of social awareness is empathy, or when you
can understand or relate to what someone else is feeling. Social awareness
also involves doing something with your empathy to make someone’s
situation better or to help them achieve their goals.

Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important?

Researchers have found that emotional intelligence is associated with

better mental and physical health and predicts success in many areas of
life.

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