CAN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE BE LEARNED?
Can emotional intelligence be enhanced and learned? Yes, we certainly think so.
But perhaps this question best answered by the originators of the theory of emotional intelligence, John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire, and Peter Salovey of Yale University.
Mayer views EI as a psychological capacity for making sense of and using emotional information. As individuals, we all have different capacities for doing this -- some of us may be fair or average, while others of us may be expert. According to Mayer, part of this capacity is innate, while part is what we learn from experience in life. And it is this latter part which we may improve on through effort, practice, and experience.
Salovey expands on Mayer's view that many of the skills that are a part of emotional intelligence can be learned. Salovey believes that EI is a set of skills and competencies that can be both taught and learned, such that a person could become better educated emotionally.
So the answer is that, with sufficient motivation and effort, there are many things you can do to acquire the skills and develop the competencies that are part of emotional intelligence.
We believe that you can learn more about emotions and increase your emotional knowledge. We believe that psychotherapy, counseling and coaching are ways in which we can enhance our emotional intelligence skills.