In today's workplace, EQ (Emotional Quotient) as opposed to IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is far more important.Learning how to improve your Emotional Intelligence therefore, is perhaps one of the most useful skills you can ever acquire.This book provides a great introduction to this important subject.Introduction to Emotional IntelligenceIn general terms, Emotional Intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive,control, and evaluate emotions – your own and those of other people.Emotional Intelligence is a relatively new area of study. Its earliest roots canbe traced back to Darwin’s work on the importance of emotional expressionfor survival. In the 1900s, the issue of intelligence was discussed mainly interms of cognitive aspects such as memory and problem-solving, althoughseveral influential researchers had begun to recognize the importance of noncognitiveaspects.In 1920, E. L. Thorndike used the term “social intelligence” to describe theskill of understanding and managing other people.The term "Emotional Intelligence" is usually attributed to Wayne Payne's1985 doctoral thesis, A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence,but mainstream media interest was really only piqued in 1995 after a Timemagazine article on Daniel Goleman's bestseller, Emotional Intelligence: WhyIt Can Matter More Than IQ.Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading researchers onemotional intelligence since those days, and they define emotional intelligenceas “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one'sown and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to usethis information to guide one's thinking and actions”.Currently there are several different models proposed for the definition of EI,and researchers still disagree how the term should be used.