The project is co-funded by EU through the Interreg-IPA CBC Bulgaria–Serbia Programme.
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11.05.2020 12:39

Emotional vs. Social Intelligence

According to Goleman`s model of emotional intelligence, it can be concluded that emotional and social intelligence are closely interrelated. Namely, empathy and social skills that are usually regarded as components of emotional intelligence, in fact, reflect social intelligence. Although based on Goleman`s work, it could be concluded that social intelligence is derived from emotional intelligence, the other authors believe that social intelligence, in fact, involves emotional intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p. 189), i.e. that social intelligence is an ”older” concept in relation to the concept of emotional intelligence. This opinion has some sort of confirmation since in the 1920s of the last century Edward Thorndike (1920) researched social intelligence and defined it as ”the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls - to act wisely in human relations” (Thorndike, 1920 p . 228). Since the concept of emotional intelligence develops rapidly, there is a third group of opinions regarding the relation between the concepts of emotional and social intelligence, according to which these are separate concepts (Bar-On, 2000, p. 363; Emmerling & Boyatzis, 2012, p. 4). Therefore, those authors use the term emotional-social intelligence. Under this term they assume interdependence of the emotional and social competencies and skills which determine how effectively people understand and express themselves, how they understand relations with others, but also how they cope with everyday challenges in those relations (Bar-On, 2000, p. 363). Based on the above, it can be concluded that the emotional and social intelligence are undoubtedly related concepts, but the authors will hereafter put emphasis only on emotional intelligence, which as its components contains the dimensions that are a reflection of social intelligence.