Emotional intelligence is all the rage and, many would argue, it has been for some time. Ask any psychology professor and they’ll likely tell you that it’s one of their students’ favorite topics. There’s certainly no question that it’s incredibly necessary and relevant today.

Given consistent psychological findings that humans desire to avoid suffering, emotional intelligence is what we all want in our partners, our friends, our colleagues, and… the world. It’s correlated with better well-being in general and has been shown to be related to positive relationship outcomes, improved mental health, reduced stress, better decision-making, and many other desirable variables.

I’ve noticed, however, that many people tend to conflate emotional intelligence with empathy. While empathy is indeed an important component of emotional intelligence, that’s quite a limited view. Emotional intelligence involves—and necessitates—much more.

Simply put, emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, manage, and utilize emotions. I tend to tell students it’s our ability to understand and work with emotions—both ours and others’. Students like the concept because it challenges traditional notions of intelligence. You can know as many facts as possible, but if you can’t regulate your own emotions, or respond appropriately to someone else’s emotions, then how “intelligent” are you, really?

Empathy is indeed a big part of........

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