emotional intelligence

Schools are good at teaching and measuring intelligence, so that’s what people tend to value and aspire to. But in almost any field, smarts is what gets rewarded long term.

You cannot measure empathy like you can SAT scores, so it’s not surprising that one is given more weight on resumes. But who is more likely to succeed in life – a person whose... See more

Let’s say someone has both a high-functioning theory of mind and an overflowing well of compassion. What then? Well, this is what Hoffman calls “empathic over-arousal.” A person will feel so worn down by the intensity of other people’s emotions that it wears them down — it turns their distress into my actual distress. This might not seem like a bad... See more