A
Review of
by Joseph Ciarrochi, Joseph P. Forgas,
and John D. Mayer
Emotional
Intelligence In
ÊEveryday Life
Psychology Press, 2001
By Sunshine
March 19, 2001
ÊÊ
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ This book is a collection of articles
that all focus on the idea of Emotional Intelligence in relation to everyday
life and situations.Ê Emotional
Intelligence is one of the fastest growing concepts in psychology today and
this book is a closer look at how emotional intelligence and its importance to
everyday life.Ê The main topics and
ideas include:
¬ Emotional Intelligence and social
functioning:Ê which is how emotional
intelligence plays a role in the way individuals interact and maintain
relationships with others.
¬ Emotional Intelligence and
learning:Ê which is the idea of
integrating emotional intelligence into the school systems to teach children
and even adults how to be successful in life.
¬ Emotional Intelligence and the work
force:Ê which is the concept of
emotional intelligence as a basis for success job performance and productivity.
¬ Emotional Intelligence and
mental/physical health:Ê which is the
importance of being emotionally intelligent in order to live a healthy life
free from sickness.
The chapters in the book are divided
into 3 parts.Ê Part I focuses on Fundamental
Issues, such as describing what emotional intelligence is, how itâs
measured, and explaining the importance of feelings in cognitive functioning
and behavior.Ê Part II is on Applications
of Emotional Intelligence research to everyday life, such areas as mental
illness, self-actualization, intimate relationships, empathy, and
education.Ê Part III is the Integration
and Conclusions which they talk about how intelligence is the basis of
emotional intelligence.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ ÊThe concept of emotional intelligence as an essential role to the
success of life in different aspects has been overshadowed by other ideas of
intelligence.Ê Why is this so?Ê This could be because the history of
psychology has shown that people have been debating over issues of cognitive
and affective abilities and not really settling for one explanation for
individuals to live healthy and successful lives.Ê The idea was if youâre a genius, then youâll do well in
life.Ê Not until now are we able to see
that the not only does brains matter but also the thoughts and feelings that go
along with it.Ê This book offers studies
and results proving that being highly emotionally intelligent would make you a
productive worker, healthy, more understanding with intimate relationships and
an overall asset to society.Ê
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ This book focuses on topics that
contribute to the growth of Emotional Intelligence in psychology.Ê The concept of emotional intelligence is neatly
applied to different aspects of an individualâs life, which include social, personal,
and academics.Ê It is difficult to
convince people that emotional intelligence is an important contributor to
success in life.Ê To be able to have
people understand the significance of emotional intelligence in everyday life
is what this book challenges and is successful in doing so with the evidence
that they introduce throughout the literature.Ê
They provide current research and discussions that help people
understand the underlying concepts and ideas of emotional intelligence.
Another problem that the book discusses
that I found important was the different measures that are available for
emotional intelligence.Ê To be able to
measure such as thing is difficult within itself, but trying to explain the
idea to people who are not familiar with it is much more difficult.Ê I think that the book did a great job in
trying to execute the problem by giving excessive information on each measure
that is available today.Ê Even though
there arenât any examples of the different tests used to measure emotional
intelligence, they are detailed with the explanations of each.
An everyday issue that was introduced
in the book was health and emotional intelligence.Ê This topic evoked discussion of a particular health disorder
called Alexithymia which is when an individual has difficult time expression
his or her emotions and thus leaving them feeling depressed, etc.Ê This idea helps the reader understand how
emotions play a huge role in their well-being.Ê
Among this discussion of health is also the idea of stress and how
emotional intelligence is important in handling stress.Ê They talk about how being emotional
intelligence can reduce the risk of high stress and make it less likely that
you will be put under stressful situations that you arenât able to handle.Ê A person with high emotional intelligence is
able to deal with a problem of any level in a less stressful way.
The topic of emotional intelligence in
general is growing in the psychology field.Ê
There are more and more articles and websites dedicated to this
particular topic, which contributes to the growth of the idea.Ê This form of exposure will help people
understand what exactly emotional intelligence is and how they can benefit from
learning more about it and one day becoming it.Ê Here are some website articles that I suggest you look at to
better understand the topics that were introduced in this book:
3.
Emotional Health, Emotional
Intelligence, and Physical Health
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The book was put together with the
intention of making it easy for the reader to read.Ê It simply combines different articles relating to emotional
intelligence and other topics that have good transitions from one idea to the
other.Ê It is obvious that they provided
articles from authors that have strong backgrounds in the area of emotional intelligence.Ê Another thing that makes this book good is
that itâs a compilation of different perspectives as far as emotional
intelligence is concerned.Ê We can read
the different types of definitions of emotional intelligence with each
respected author and how it relates to their particular topic, which I think
made it interesting.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ On the other hand the editors of this
book could have looked for articles that werenât so hard to read.Ê They picked articles that had hard words to
read and terms that Iâve never heard before and needed a dictionary to
interpret certain words.Ê Iâm sure that
there were some authors that werenât put into this book that explained
emotional intelligence and itâs relation to everyday life in more lament
terms.Ê They shouldâve accommodated the
readers that are clueless to the concept of emotional intelligence.Ê This would have made the book easier to
read.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ This book relates to me as a
psychology in so many ways.Ê I can use
this book as a guide to understanding different issues that I discuss from personality
psychology, developmental psychology, and social psychology by comparing the
different theories from each field and how emotional intelligence can either be
applied or challenge a particular theory.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ This book gave me an in depth
description of what emotional intelligence is and how it relates to my daily
life. ÊBefore reading this book, I had
no idea what emotional intelligence was and had a hard time trying to
understand it.Ê After reviewing the
book, I was able to truly grasp the concept and figured out that itâs a pretty
simple idea.Ê The only difficult thing
about the whole emotional intelligence thing is being emotional
intelligent.Ê If thereâs one thing I
learned from this book, itâs that I have a lot of work to do on myself to get
where I want to be emotionally, mentally, and physically.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The topic that I enjoyed most about
this book was the chapter on emotional intelligence and intimate
relationships.Ê Like many other people,
I love to talk and learn about anything that deals with relationships and
marriage.Ê One quote from the chapter
that I found interesting was ãA perceiver can become more empathically accurate
by getting to know the target better (although there are limits to the
acquaintanceship effect), and by obtaining feedback about the targetâs thoughts
and feelings.ä (pg. 132)Ê I know this
passage seems straight forward, but it was until I read this in the book that I
understood how important it is to pay close attention to the way your
significant other is feeling, rather than getting so caught up in your own
feelings and thoughts.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ
Ê
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ People that are new to the theory of
emotional intelligence would definitely benefit from this book the most because
like I mentioned earlier, it gives the reader an in depth explanation of what
emotional intelligence is from definition, to applying it to everyday life
issues such as school, work, health, and personal relationships with others.Ê After going through this book, the reader
will have a much better understanding of how important emotional intelligence
is in everyday life and will be able to compare this theory to other theories
that involve the different aspects of an individualâs life.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Unfortunately, the book does not
provide any types of exercises or tests that the reader could engage in.Ê I think it would have improved the book more
if the book were more interactive with the one reading so that they would have
a much better understanding of what emotional intelligence was about.Ê There should have been some sample emotional
quotient tests or at least website links to where a sample would be available.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The book does although provide
conclusions at the end of each chapter which was really helpful in condensing
the information that was given in the particular chapter in a brief paragraph
or two.Ê It was a great way to review
what was just read in each chapter.Ê
There also is a reference section at the end of the book, which is
useful for those that want to do more research about this particular topic or
any other relevant to it.Ê There are
also authors and subject indexes, which are great for students in particular to
look for a specific idea that they could look up that, may be in the book.Ê They also could use the author index to
search for authors that they have read before in the past that may have
contributed to this book.
Here are some
book reviews that I found online:
1.
Amazon.com
3.
UNH Magazine
