How to Cultivate "EQ" 背景知识(background info)

1. EQ: The expression “emotional intelligence” is used to indicate a kind of intelligence that involves the ability to perceive, assess and positively influence one's own and other people's emotions. 
    Intelligence is the “ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new one”. According to this definition, being intelligent entails much more than having strong cognitive abilities — the kind of abilities that are typically measured by an intelligence test. 
    To address some of the further abilities possessed by intelligent people, Elliot Solloway coined the term emotional intelligence. He considered that being able to direct one's emotions, as well as being able to understand and influence other people's emotional responses, went a long way towards effective adaptation to an environment. The term was picked up in 1995 by Daniel Goleman in his best-seller book of the same title: Emotional Intelligence (cf. the relevant background information below). 
    For a more detailed introduction about the concept, check out the web page at http://www.eiconsortium.org/research/what_is_emotional_intelligence.htm. The websites at http://www.eiconsortium.org/index.htm and http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/gallery/young/emotion.htm provide more extensive information on the subject.


2. Daniel Goleman: A psychologist who for many years reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times, Dr. Goleman previously was a visiting faculty member at Harvard.
    Dr. Goleman's 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books), argues that human competencies like self-awareness, self-discipline, persistence and empathy are of greater consequence than IQ in much of life, that we ignore the decline in these competencies at our peril, and that children can — and should — be taught these abilities. 
    To learn more about Goleman, check out the web page at http://www.eiconsortium.org/members/goleman.htm. Highlights of the book can be found at http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/learning/emot.htm. The web page at http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/emotional_intelligence.asp provides a list of questions that can be used for your classroom discussion on the topic. To read about different opinions about Goleman and his works, check out the web page at http://eqi.org/gole.htm.


3. IQ: IQ is an abbreviation for “intelligence quotient”, a measure of a person's intellectual ability in relation to that of the rest of the population. It is expressed as the ratio of mental age to actual age, multiplied by 100, and is based on the scores achieved in an intelligence test. The two most important scales for measuring IQ are the Standford-Binet test and the Weschler test. The distribution of IQ scores is more-or-less Gaussian, that is to say that it follows the bell curve. 
    Modern ability tests produce scores for different areas (e.g. language fluency, three-dimensional thinking, etc.), with the summary score being the most meaningless. It is much more useful to know which are the strengths and weaknesses of a person than to know that he or she beats n percent of the populace in some “general intelligence” measure. Two persons with vastly different ability profiles may score the same IQ, but may exhibit different affinity to a given task, or may not be valued equally intelligent by other people. 
    IQ scores are sometimes taken as an objective measure of intelligence, and since intelligence is notoriously difficult to define, the definition “intelligence is what the IQ test measures” has been seriously proposed. However, IQ tests encode their creator’s beliefs about what constitutes intelligence. What various cultures dub “intelligence” differs. Most people also think that creativity plays a significant role in intelligence; creativity is almost unmeasurable by tests. 
    The modern field of intelligence testing began with the Stanford-Binet test. It is worth noting that Alfred Binet, who created the IQ test in 1904, was aiming to identify students who could benefit from extra help in school: his assumption was that lower IQ indicated the need for more teaching, not an inability to learn. 
    The following numbers apply to IQ scales. Scores between 90 and 110 are considered average — so a person scoring 95 is simply average, not below-average. For children scoring below 80 special schooling is encouraged, children above 125 are “highly gifted”. In previous years, scores below 90 were divided into ranges labeled moron, imbecile and idiot, while scores above 150 were labeled genius. Some writers say that such scores outside the range 55 to 145 are essentially meaningless because there are not enough people to make statistically sound statements. 
    To learn more about IQ, please visit http://www.iqtest.com/scoreexplain.html and http://www.psyonline.nl/en-iq.htm. The websites at http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/psychology/IQ/index.html and http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/ provide more extensive information on the subject of intelligence. You can also try a few IQ tests at, for example, http://www.jobshejobs.com/htm/career/test/note.htm.