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There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

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Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#41

Post by jwdunne »

Well, if you're a dick, there's gonna be an upper limit on how far you go with your intelligence. I don't think there's value in quantifying that with some hokey quotient.

Take, for example, Shkreli. Major dick but pretty clever by the looks of it. Now found guilty of fraud.

Bill Gates was a major dick. Made tonnes of money but yet reviled and found himself in the dock because of it.

Steve Jobs. Really intelligent but still booted out of Apple due to sheer dickheadery.

Now they all found major success, hence why EQ means fuck all. It seems they, or some, found out they had to do some serious thinking. Bill Gates is arguably the most redemptive.

Imagine you had average intelligence or just above and you were a major dick? People like that get asked to leave more often than not.

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#42

Post by js8 »

I always had trouble with the term EQ or emotional intelligence, because it in my opinion confuses (at least) two things.

One is empathy, our ability to read and perceive emotions of other people.

The other is actual social intelligence, that is understanding of how other people are motivated, what to do in social situations, and so on.

There are plenty good people who have lot of 1st one but little of the 2nd one, and plenty of psychopaths that have the 2nd one but only little of the 1st one.

These groups of people are completely different.

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#43

Post by oskarth »

jwdunne wrote: post #41

Well, if you're a dick, there's gonna be an upper limit on how far you go with your intelligence. I don't think there's value in quantifying that with some hokey quotient. Take, for example, Shkreli. Major dick but pretty clever by the looks of it. Now found guilty of fraud. Bill Gates was a major dick. Made tonnes of money but yet reviled and found himself in the dock because of it. Steve Jobs. Really intelligent bu…

Have you ever actually met any of these people in real life? Reading headlines about famous people doesn't mean you actually know them.

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#44

Post by ZenoArrow »

factsaresacred wrote: post #11
ZenoArrow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept there's no EQ then why not apply the same logic to IQ? They're both based on the same false assumption that you can describe mental capacity with a number. It's not the same with BMI, which is about setting out guidelines for a healthy weight. That is something that's more appropriate to describe numerically.

> They're both based on the same false assumption that you can describe mental capacity with a number. IQ doesn't purport to "describe mental capacity". It assesses mental capacity and allocates a score. This score is information that can be used to deduce ability, and to the end it serves its purpose perfectly. Decisions based on IQ is another thing entirely.

What's the point of deducing something if you're not going to do anything with that information?

Beyond that, labels are hard for people to get rid of, even those we assign to ourselves. In the effort to categorise everything we grossly limit the potential of the individual. As Kierkegaard put it; "Once you label me you negate me.".

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#45

Post by jwdunne »

oskarth wrote: post #43
jwdunne wrote: post #41

Well, if you're a dick, there's gonna be an upper limit on how far you go with your intelligence. I don't think there's value in quantifying that with some hokey quotient. Take, for example, Shkreli. Major dick but pretty clever by the looks of it. Now found guilty of fraud. Bill Gates was a major dick. Made tonnes of money but yet reviled and found himself in the dock because of it. Steve Jobs. Really intelligent bu…

Have you ever actually met any of these people in real life? Reading headlines about famous people doesn't mean you actually know them.

There is enough evidence out there to show they treated people they worked with less than well. Are you saying that Steve Jobs wasn't a dick to his staff and to the board? Are you saying that trying to stage a coup in the workplace isn't a dickhead move?

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#46

Post by fpig »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #35
mpweiher wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm...you realize that he (a) explains ad nauseam and (b) cites relevant research. So how is this "blind acceptance"? Whereas you don't appear to be an authority, made a fairly broad claim ("so much wrong..."), explained nothing and cited...crickets.

If we're going to do proof by paper (always dangerous in psychology, but never mind), consider this about IQ: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557354/ The evidence that IQ predicts success is dubious, and certainly not settled. I also consider him wrong about EQ, although for more anecdotal reasons: I have known people who can read individuals and social situations with extraordinary skill, make astonish…

We have no reason to believe there exists a trait like intelligence for emotional/social skills, all we have is people establishing its existence post-facto like you are doing here (from seeing some people are good at multiple social skills and assuming the existence of a common root trait).

It's like seeing some people are on average better at sports than others and saying there must be a "sportiness" trait that determines how good you are at sports. Instead we know it's a combination of various different things, many of which are independent of each other.

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#48

Post by [deleted] »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #39
MichaelBurge wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of reminds me of how it's actually impossible to accurately value real estate. If you measure square footage, people will just fill the building with superfluous Hilbert curves. If you try to measure number of bathrooms or number of bedrooms, people will just make apartment complexes filled with dollhouses. If you try to measure profit(directly or from imputed rent), people will set up fake corporations and pay…

> it's actually impossible to accurately value real estate. Do you mean measure it accurately based on a single metric?

[deleted]

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#49

Post by stared »

js8 wrote: post #42

I always had trouble with the term EQ or emotional intelligence, because it in my opinion confuses (at least) two things. One is empathy, our ability to read and perceive emotions of other people. The other is actual social intelligence, that is understanding of how other people are motivated, what to do in social situations, and so on. There are plenty good people who have lot of 1st one but little of the 2nd one, a…

Usually it combines one more thing - ability to understand and control one's own emotions. Which, at least for me, looks as a perpendicular dimension.

Re: There is no such thing as EQ (2016)

#50

Post by c06n »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #40
c06n wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you accept there's no EQ then why not apply the same logic to IQ? But that has been done, over and over again. By the established standard of "how to measure mental things", IQ is a very useful concept, while EQ is not. The argument Peterson (and a few others) are making is that there is no incremental validity of EQ compared to other personality traits. That just means that EQ cannot explain more variance than…

> "You can test it yourself: Read 2 random digits. Immediately repeat them. Then do that for 3, 4, and so on. There will be a number (typically between 5 and 7) when you cannot repeat the sequence without error anymore. There you have it: A measure for mental capacity." Not really. Almost anyone can get better at games like that without expanding their mental capacity. Here's a selection of well established tricks fo…

You seem to be confused about what a measurement is. It is defined as mapping numbers on empirical phenomena. This is not a matter of Psychology, this is the definition everyone uses.

So, yes, "memory span" is a measurement of mental capacity: Following a clear procedure, it assigns numbers to a construct we call "short term memory capacity".

What you argue against is the validity of the measurement, which is another matter. I see your point about "IQ being about capacity", but your original claim was that it is a "false assumption that you can describe mental capacity with a number". A measurement is essentially a model of something, so by definition it reduces something complex to something more simple so that we can study it.

EQ was the work of a journalist who did not have the background in Psychology to understand that there never was a shortfall to begin with. Differential and personality psychology has been working for decades on these topics. EQ has added no insights.

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