Why is Emotional Intelligence Important?
Researchers investigated dimensions of emotional intelligence (EI) by measuring related concepts, such as social skills, interpersonal competence, psychological maturity and emotional awareness, long before the term “emotional intelligence” came into use. Grade school teachers have been teaching the rudiments of emotional intelligence since 1978, with the development of the Self Science Curriculum and the teaching of classes such as “social development,” “social and emotional learning,” and “personal intelligence,” all aimed at “raise[ing] the level of social and emotional competence” (Goleman, 1995: 262). Social scientists are just beginning to uncover the relationship of EI to other phenomenon, e.g., leadership (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995), group performance (Williams & Sternberg, 1988), individual performance, interpersonal/social exchange, managing change, and conducting performance evaluations (Goleman, 1995). And according to Goleman (1995: 160), “Emotional intelligence, the ski
