Emotional intelligence linked to academic success

Research presented at The British Psychological Society's Education Section Annual Conference suggests a link between emotional intelligence and success on standardized exams. The researchers followed 628 students over a 5 year period. For boys, higher emotional intelligence predicted higher scores on the SAT and General Certificate of Secondary Education English exams. For girls, higher emotional intelligence was related to better performance on the SAT Science exam.

The researchers did not dispute the effect of IQ on test performance, but noted that emotional intelligence seemed to moderate this relationship. For example, a student with a lower IQ, but higher "EQ" might be able to regulate emotions surrounding failure and self-motivate to improve. A student with a low IQ and low EQ might have a larger negative reaction to the potential of failing, which might have an impact on motivation.

You can read more here. We discussed emotional intelligence and suggestions for how to support its development in kids in a recent episode of The Family Anatomy Podcast.

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