What is your EQ?

Dr. Sarfaraz K Niazi (e-mail: niazi@niazi.com)

Success in life has long been considered dependent on intelligence. But when we consider the statistics that only 20% of those with high IQ reach their full success potential in life, we begin to wonder what it is in life that really matters—to be successful. Psychologists and socio-biologists have long debated the issue without reaching any consensus until recently when a bold book, an instant best-seller, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam) by Daniel Goleman was published. This treatise written by a famous Harvard-trained psychologist took ten years to write and brings one of the most hotly debated topic to almost an end (there are still some skeptics). This tome concludes that it is no longer sufficient to have high intelligence but also to have a personality that allows you to exploit your intellectual potential optimally. And there is no assurance that you will have both. Whereas Emotional Intelligence has stirred the readers worldwide, its findings are directly applicable to our society and culture and we should examine the reasons why our society is withering away and what, if anything, can be done to turn the tables, borrowing from the many suggestions made in Emotional Intelligence.

An interesting experiment that formed the core of Goleman’s conclusions involves measuring emotional temptation of children. Four-year-old children were given a marshmallow and asked to wait while the researcher returned after running a short errand; if they could wait they get another marshmallow. Some grabbed the marshmallow as soon as the researcher left the room, others agonized over briefly and then grabbed it but some children did wait though fretting, some had to beat themselves and others even fell asleep. Sure, those who waited reaped the reward. Years later, "those children that exercised emotional restraint grew up to be better adjusted, more popular, adventurous, confident and dependable teenagers," observed Goleman. They also scored better in their SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test for entrance to US colleges). The children who gave in quickly to temptation were more likely to be lonely, easily frustrated and stubborn. So, there is something in our personality that we receive either in our genes or through societal conditioning that makes us better prepared to survive. The ability to delay gratification is now considered a master skill—a triumph of the reasoning brain over impulsive one—a sign of emotional intelligence and a new phrase in the jargon of social scientists. Now we can see why the smartest kids in the class do not end up becoming the richest, why we like some people and distrust others, why some survive the worst of troubles while others sink, why some, borrowing the American slang, "come out smelling like rose from a heap of shit."

What is emotional intelligence, how can it be measured and then put to use? Socio-biologists fret over these questions because what we call emotional intelligence are such amorphous traits as character, "people skills," civility that can not be quantitated like we measure intelligence (though that’s also debatable). Regardless of the debate, however, one thing is surely established that these characteristics do improve our behaviour on the streets and in the communal settings; they also help us achieve our life goals—job performance, success of our marriage and our socio-economic status.

Scientists would love to measure our emotional intelligence and give us marks on EQ—emotional quotient. And then tell us how to improve it to improve our lives. If measuring EQ is difficult, we find that applying it to good use is even more difficult. It is because the relationship of EQ to success is not straightforward. And we need to understand something about human emotions before we embark on the road to apply this new science to our daily lives.

Emotions are typical human traits. As humans evolved they needed a lot of emotions to survive: fear driving blood into the large muscles, making it easier to run; surprise triggering eyebrows to rise to widen eyes to gather more information; disgust wrinkling up the face and closing the nostrils to keep out foul smells; maternal love to help offspring survive and a lot more that we are still learning about. The cortex and neocortex of the brain that creates emotions have developed remarkably well to give Homo Sapiens an excellent surviving chance. (Reptiles like snakes without the neocortex eat their off-springs). These emotions, hundreds of them, have given us an uncanny ability to associate our observations with survival threats making us a resilient species. Cockroaches have survived dinosaurs not because of their higher IQs but because of their extremely sensitive tentacles; they can feel the threat well before we raise our foot to stamp them. Those of us who can sense how other people will react to our behaviour do well in life; those who do not, end up jumbled at the bottom of life’s totem pole—intelligence or no intelligence. Such is the close and clear relationship between our emotions and our survival.

The connection between the reasoning brain and the emotional brain is what makes the difference in how we respond to various situations of life. And it’s all summed up in what we call self-awareness—awareness about our own emotions. Most of us remain unaware of our everyday emotions, anger, anxiety, worry, sadness, discouragement, etc. and display them without regard to their impact on ourselves and on those around us. But those with high EQs have the knack of displaying them properly. Getting angry is easy but as Aristotle said, it is getting angry with the right person, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not easy. Anger, an emotion that primes us to action, is the hardest to control and the common advise to let it out now seems to be outdated for repeated anger accentuates its power, the new science tells us now. Anxiety serves a similar useful purpose as anger. Worrying blocks our thinking and precipitates the dreaded failure. Sadness and discouragement are "low arousal" states and more difficult to come out of than anger or anxiety that respond better to relaxation. But why do some people snap out of these emotional states more readily than others? Perhaps a hardwiring of our brain that gives us a better self-awareness of our emotions.

Similarly, people who have better "people skills" like empathy, graciousness and the ability to read social situations, fare much better in life. Empathy is an innate quality shaped by experience. (Even infants of three months old show empathy towards younger infants crying.) In the corporate world we know that it is the IQ that gets you hired but it the EQ that gets you promoted. People who rise the corporate ladder aren’t necessarily the brightest but certainly they are good charmers—people like them, feel confident with them and best of all trust them. The classical fatal flaws in corporate careers include some of the worst emotional traits: poor working relationships, being authoritarian, or too ambitious, and having conflict with upper management. People who succeed always pay attention to what others think of them and consequently they always weigh their actions putting other people’s opinion ahead of theirs as to what they would think of this action. My mother’s frequent recitation, " zabane khalq ko naqqarae khuda samjho," seems to have a scientific validity now.

Anyone with a good dose of self-awareness and people’s skills scores well on EQ. But does high EQ make a better person. Not quite. Emotional intelligence is a neutral trait; like IQ, and it can be put to right or wrong use. A genius instead of finding a cure for cancer can develop a deadly virus; a person with high EQ may end up exploiting people because they fall for him. The political history of mankind is filled with examples of exploitation by leaders who were dearly loved by their populace. In every day life a charmer can be a very dangerous person. So, it is just not enough to have a high EQ but to have a sense of direction to put it to right use—just like the IQ.

Bringing Goleman’s observations home we find that not only we are a people with low EQ, those who have high EQs mostly end up abusing it. Let me bring back our marshmallow experiment. How many of our children will fall for quick gratification? And for that matter, how many adults would. We are a nation that loves instant gratification: getting rich overnight is not considered shameful. And if you really want to witness a remarkable experiment in socio-biology, look at our streets and places where people follow through as groups. Our traffic that can be best described as a jungle represents the psyche of our people—to get ahead of others regardless of how we violate all laws and usurp the rights of others. This psyche is a hallmark of both the illiterate "coach" drivers and those with Harvard bumper stickers on their Mercs and Pajeros. An American friend of mine visiting Karachi put it quite succinctly, "in Karachi a queue is a circle." An instant awareness of our lack of civility also emerges as soon as the plane lands: people rushing to collect their hand bags even though they will have to wait for another half an hour for their checked baggage to arrive. Why such impatience? Is it something hard-wired in our brains or is it something that emerges from our lowly economic status? Whereas scientists suggest that about half of it may come from genetic traits, the rest is developed emulating personality models. And yes, there is little connection with our economic well being. Poor can be very courteous and those filthy rich may trample down every one around them. Much has been written on the topic relating behaviour of people to environment, climate, dietary habits, per capita income, and religious convictions. Myths abound telling us that meat eaters and those belonging to Gengis Khan’s lineage have warmer blood and thus shorter tempers than the populace of our neighbouring vegetarian country; people living in warmer climate are easily aroused. Climates and environmental conditions do affect our behaviour but they can not change our basic genetic traits, not at least in the short run.

Morality and honesty, the quintessential qualities of high EQ people, are rare traits of our populace. Anyone who goes through the trauma of reading Ardeshir Cowasjee every week knows it well. We indeed are a nation with very low EQ because we do not realize that the immoral and dishonest acts, mostly caused by our desire for instant gratification, do not make us successful in the long run (without even evoking the theological connotation). One of the most important trait of a high EQ person is that he pays attention to what others think of his action. And that’s where we display our single digit EQ scores. Other criteria given to assess EQ include civility, courteousness and consideration of others. We fail good on these accounts too. Failing to give others right of way, showing little courtesies to customers, polluting environment, defacing walls with graffiti and justifying our acts of injustice in the name of justice are just some of the examples of behaviour that glaringly display our low EQ.

The leaders of Pakistan, the policy makers of Pakistan, the chief executives of businesses, the prominent clergy and all others who matter are clearly the men and women with high EQ perhaps combined with a high IQ also. But just like a mad scientist with a high IQ hell bent on creating a organism that will annihilate the universe, these imprint makers of Pakistan have their priorities well carved out. Absolutely shameless behaviour of these people is perhaps a living example of the Goleman’s theory that it is not enough to have high EQ but to have it properly guided.

Can we do anything to turn the vicious cycle of poor EQs breeding poorer EQs? Certainly, claims Goleman. We need to begin with our children—to give them a role model to emulate. And that’s the most difficult job to do in our environs. When we cheat on our taxes, tell children to inform the caller that we are not home, throw plastic bags out of the car window, readily bribe the policemen, drive on the wrong side of the road to save a few hundred yards of detour, park in no parking slots, cut into queues and lanes, always find some "connection" to get things done, help our children cheat on their home work, look the other way when children cheat on their exams, pay little heed to poor and destitute, cheat on our prayers, usurp the rights of others, violate building codes, consider bribe a part of social contract, sell out the trust placed with us, use our position to make illegal gains, look down upon other ethnic groups, treat servants like animals, and a wide variation of these permanent habits, how can we provide a role model. The Goleman’s proposal falls flat here. What the scientists intended was to alter the schooling environment of children so they can achieve the highest EQ possible within the allowance made by their genes. We have a different dilemma at hand. Before we can begin with children we need to change our adults and that includes the school teachers. And that’s one challenge that is not addressed in Emotional Intelligence.

Whatever little hope there was to use religion to alter the course of this fast spiral down of EQ in Pakistan is fast evaporating. Our religion clearly and unambiguously teaches us to achieve the highest EQs possible. But in a land where huqooqul ibad takes back seat to huqooqe Allah, one begins to wonder what can give in? Perhaps we are doomed? This is one eventuality, I am sure, Goleman did not consider in his thesis, Emotional Intelligence. When nations begin to whither away, so goes their EQ.