You May Have a High IQ, but What’s Your EQ?
Everyone has heard of the term IQ, short for intelligence quotient, but can you define the term EQ, emotional quotient, or more commonly emotional intelligence?
Salovey and Mayer define it as “… a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one’s life.”
I consider myself to have a fairly high EQ, especially for my age (23 in case you were wondering). I give credit to the fact that the military made me “grow up” (mentally) really fast, the fact that I have gone to counseling on and off since I was a little kid, and I have tried my fair share of journaling, yoga, and meditating in order to work on myself and grow. I also practice self-reflection alot and try to always be mindful. I am eager and desperately want to keep growing and working on myself until I can hopefully, one day, have the mind of a monk (like Jay Shetty). I even went to a wellness retreat for my birthday, which I think shows tremendous growth on my part compared to how I used to want to go out and drink.
In fact, my metaphorical “third eye” has been “opened” in recent months, further expanding my “intelligence,” with many thanks to Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. As a result, I have been having more deep, dialectic, thoughtful, and theoretic conversations and thoughts lately. However, I have found it harder to find, connect, and talk with such like-minded people. Which got me thinking, is there a difference between how men and women, and individuals of different ages think and perceive such topics of emotional intelligence and insight. I will be blunt and say that as a woman who was in the military, I have a biased view of the world and of how men and women compare mentally and emotionally, and across different ages and generations.
To confirm and/or challenge my predetermined outlook, I decided to video interview males and females of similar ages and across different generations. The medium of choice, video interview, serves to show the raw vulnerability, emotions, and humanity in a more visible light; one can even see my father tearing up in the video and his voice cracking. In an effort to bring back humanity and emotions that are always living inside every individual, interviewing my family/close friend proved to bring the most vulnerability and openness. The inspiration behind this project came when I was talking to a coworker at work and somehow we got on the topic of therapy. One thing led to another and he said “I go to the gun range to take out my anger.” This answer really surprised me because it is a violent way to take out one’s emotions and it got me thinking how differently a female would probably answer.
Below are three videos, three females and three males, from five different generations:
Things I learned:
- People want to work on showing their emotions more. Everyone believes it’s human to have emotions and that it shows more humanity if we do. Everyone except for the younger generation admits to wanting to be more affectionate/show their “humanity.” However, some, including women, still feel like they have/had to “act tough” and not show their true emotions, for that is a sign of weakness. In the older generation, emotions were “hidden” and not discussed; it wasn’t socially acceptable at that time.
- Most people use entertainment, (in the form of their phone, watching television, et cetera) to get over, relax, unwind, and take their mind off pestering problems. I myself do this sometimes as well! For it is easier to “distract” yourself and instantaneously change your negative mood to a more positive one if you watch a funny TikTok or comedy movie. This kind of behavior shows how much people, including myself, find it hard to “wallow in” and feel their emotions; it is much easier and faster to distract oneself. Distractions (in the form of reading, video games, hanging out with friends, cell phones, et cetera) are a common method for people to deal with their emotions. However, are they really “dealt” with if they are merely dismissed and not fully explored?
- People should be more self-reflective and practice it, like one practices how to ride a bike. Overall, not many people practice self reflection, however if they did, it was because of the fact that they were not proud of how they reacted to a situation. Self-reflection in the form of “going back to” and analyzing behavior, especially negative behavior such as taking out your anger on someone else or snapping at the littlest thing. Serious thought about one’s actions, character, behavior, thoughts, motives, et cetera will help people grow and build better relationships/communications with our fellow humans.
- Men don’t feel like they can talk about their emotions with other men; it is seen as weak and a “pussy” thing to do. Men have to be “macho” in order to be respected by other men. Toxic masculinity and gender roles play a fundamental part in the persistence of this kind of behavior. I would have more respect for men if they were more emotionally intelligent/aware and could talk about their emotions. Even my mother and I felt like we had to act tough and macho. Although we are women, we too felt the pressures of toxic masculinity and didn’t want to be considered a “stereotypical” woman. Overall, this kind of attitude is true across all generations of men. In the older generations though, they just felt like they couldn’t even talk about nor acknowledge their emotions. Men internalize their emotions more, and don’t often have a healthy process to overcome them. They “move on” with their day and don’t dwell on things, while women take longer to get over emotions.
- When it comes to empathy, women are more nurturing, while men show that they care through their words and conversations. Women are more likely to show they care through acts of service and physical touch, while men will lend an ear and talk things through with their friends.
- The older generation reported that compared to when they grew up, when emotions were not acknowledged nor talked about, in today’s society it is “all about their emotions” and it is more socially acceptable to talk about one’s problems and feelings.
- Anger and frustration are two of the hardest emotions to control/regulate because when those emotions arise, it feels like they lose control like in a blackout. My dad and his dad both commented on how they were still working on that, even though they have been working on it since they were way younger too.
- Women, on average, are more open to and do more self-reflection than men. They do so by revisiting previous situations where they did not act their best and think about what they could have done differently. They are more likely to implement their mindfulness to similar situations that arise. Across generations, women tend to be more calm than men when negative/challenging situations arise.
- Everyone is accepting of people who go to therapy. Not one interviewee had anything negative to say about people who go to therapy. These answers made me happy with how far we have progressed since the Baby Boomers generation where they did not even talk about/acknowledge emotions and basically only went to therapy for PTSD. This shows an increase in emotional intelligence across generations and amongst men and women; and further proof that we can continue expanding our knowledge.
- No matter the age, people are still learning, growing, and working on themselves. People are self-aware about their certain personality quirks that are a problem and they need to work on. This looks like the beginning of self-reflection and expansion of emotional intelligence in men and women across all generations. It shows that no matter the age, our brains can still learn and grow.
Work Cited
Salovey, Peter, and John D. Mayer. “Emotional Intelligence.” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, vol. 9, no. 3, Mar. 1990, pp. 185–211.
