IQ or EQ: Which One Is More Important?
IQ vs. EQ Traditional Intelligence vs. Emotional Intelligence What's more important in determining life success—book smarts or street smarts? This question gets at the heart of an important debate contrasting the relative importance of cognitive intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ). Proponents of the so-called 'book smarts' might suggest that it is our IQ that plays the critical role in determining how well people fair in life. Those who advocate for the importance of what might be called 'street smarts' would instead suggest that EQ is even more important. So which is it? Understanding the IQ vs. EQ Debate In his 1996 book Emotional Intelligence , author and psychologist Daniel Goleman suggested that EQ (or emotional intelligence quotient) might actually be more important than IQ. Why? Some psychologists believe that standard measures of intelligence (i.e. IQ scores ) are too narrow and do not encompass the full range of human