[altonzheng]

I felt like the attack on "traditional" emotional intelligence in the beginning was contrived and not really thought through.

Yes, it's true that we assume we can approximate the emotional experience of others, but I think a critical piece the author left is the verbal part of emotional intelligence - the words someone says that convey nuances that facial expressions/non verbal cues don't. And I'm not saying what a person says is what they really mean. You need to be cognizant of both to hear the "real message". That's at the heart of emotional intelligence. I feel like the beginning was just a contrived critique made to draw the reader into the meat of the article. Can't we just examine the existing literature and add our own thoughts without suggesting some grand "rewrite"?

Also internal and external emotional intelligence are very different, I feel like somewhere the author conflated the two without making a clear distinction although maybe I just didn't read it deeply enough.

That said, the discussion on emotional granularity is very interesting and I will definitely be reading more into it.

[wpietri]

Yeah. That initial attack seems like a huge straw man to me. The author's cartoon version of "emotional intelligence" isn't much like my understanding of the concept.

[woodandsteel]

I agree. What the author had to say about emotional granularity was new to me and very interesting. As for the idea that rational thought can't influence emotions, what about cognitive behavioral therapy? Research shows it can be very successful in dealing with emotion of anxiety, instilling confidence, and so on.

Also, part of emotional intelligence is not just identifying emotions in others, but also having good social skills for dealing with them.

[vanderZwan]

> but I think a critical piece the author left is the verbal part of emotional intelligence

The entire last half of the article is about expanding your emotional vocabulary, so I don't think so.

[imcoconut]

> Can't we just examine the existing literature and add our own thoughts without suggesting some grand "rewrite"?