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By Henry Charles |
Naipaul remarks somewhere in one of his early books - The Middle Passage, possibly, but I could be wrong - that the stories he heard growing up were nearly always stories of failure - cricketers gone to seed or drink, failed Island Schol winners.
I am not sure how much social currency such observations would have today. Not much, I imagine. I have always been puzzled, however, by stories of students who were bright in school, only to fail in later life, or not realise their promise, and others, who could only scrape a couple of passes together, going on to be highly successful entrepreneurs, for example, bankers, or captains of industry.
A standard explanation for the latter tended to be "late development." The "late development" explanation has always seemed to me an excuse for unwillingness to admit ignorance.
Recently I read Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. It's been around since 1995, so my acquaintance is late. Anyway, the subtitle was intriguing. It reads: Why It can matter more than IQ.
A central thesis Goleman explores relates to the issue I raise.
"One of psychology's open secrets," he writes, "is the relative inability of grades, IQ, or SAT scores, despite their popular mystique, to predict unerringly who will succeed in life.
"The exceptions to the rule that predictively equates IQ with success are many - more, in fact, than fit the rule.
"At best, IQ contributes to about 20 per cent of the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80 per cent to other forces."
A student with a SAT math score of 500 had better not have his heart set on being a mathematician, but if instead he wants to run his own business, become a Senator, or make a million dollars, he should not put aside his dreams.
The link between test scores and those achievements is dwarfed by the totality of other characteristics he may bring to life.
Emotional intelligence is key among those other characteristics. It includes abilities such as self-motivation, persistence in the face of frustration, control of impulses, delaying gratification, regulating one's moods, keeping one's ability to think from being swamped by distress, and the ability to empathise and to hope.
It is surprising, when you think about it, how much educational practice fixates on academic intelligence, when the latter offers virtually no preparation for the turmoil or opportunity of life's vicissitudes.
We ignore emotional aptitude, the set of traits or features, which largely describes our character, and which matters immensely for personal destiny.
Part of the reason emotional intelligence runs a poor second to "brains" in valuations of merit is the long history of philosophical bias against emotion.
A convenient place to start is Plato's famous metaphor in The Republic.
Reason is the charioteer, according to Plato, who holds the reins of the horses (the emotions), and keeps them on track. Without reason's guiding hand, emotion may run riot, capsizing both chariot and charioteer.
From Plato's characterisation developed the long-familiar identification of reason with intelligence and control, emotion with blindness and inconstancy.
What Goleman establishes (with a host of allied research and data, and help from several precursors) is the folly of pitting the two intelligences against each another (for emotion has its own intelligence), and the wisdom of integrating the two. What is needed is "an expanded model of what it means to be 'intelligent'."
Educational psychologists in fact speak of different kinds of intelligence. The operative word is "multiple."
Apart from the two standard academic kinds, "verbal and mathematical-logical," there is "the spatial capacity" seen in an outstanding artist or architect, "the kinesthetic genius" in the fluidity and grace of a Martha Graham or Magic Johnson, the musical gifts of a Mozart or Yo-Yo Ma, the "personal intelligence" of a great therapist like Carl Rogers or a leader like Martin Luther King Jr, or with less fanfare, the wisdom that accrues from "the inner contentment that arises from attuning one's life to be in keeping with one's true feelings."
"Emotional intelligence" also offers wide possibilities for dealing with social problems. Goleman reviews evidence, for example, that many substance abusers use their opiates as a medication of sorts, a way to soothe anxiety, lift depression, and calm rage. Through early experimentation in teenage years, they hit upon a "chemical fix," as a way to regulate such feelings.
Thus, a 1994 study of several hundred 12 and 13-year-olds found "it was those who reported higher levels of emotional distress who subsequently went on to have the highest rates of substance abuse."
This suggests the importance of dealing with the root causes of the problem by equipping children and young people with the skills to cope with negative feelings. These skills are the ones later taught remedially in recovery programmes such as AA.
It would obviously be far better if they were learnt early in life, well before self-destroying habits are set.
Goleman cites the success of projects that have taught skills such as reading social signals properly, dealing with anger, seeing the perspectives of others, and learning how to make more friends.
These projects support his contention that the skills of emotional intelligence can be learnt.
Some argue that IQ cannot be changed much by experience or education, but Goleman is firmly convinced emotional competences can be learnt and improved upon by children and adolescents, if we bother to teach them.
Childhood and adolescence are irreplaceably crucial times for establishing emotional literacy. Such literacy does not, of course, protect them or anyone else from life.
It provides, however, an indispensable resource for facing challenges and difficulties, and life's many and varied forms of adv