News & announcements from the ‘Social intelligence’ category
Moral Intuition
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007Consider the essential moral question, Is what I am about to do in keeping with my values, ethics or sense of meaning? I’ve argued that the answer to this query comes to us first as a felt sense of “rightness” or “wrongness,” and only afterward do we explain to ourselves why this might be so….
Civility at Work
Friday, September 21st, 2007“How do you handle someone who is being obnoxious?” That was a question put to me recently when I talked to a group having their annual Civility Awareness day at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center at Worcester. We explored how best to encourage civility – which goes beyond mere politeness. The UMass credo on…
Three Kinds of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007Being cool in crisis seems essential for our being able to think clearly. But what if keeping cool makes you too cold to care? In other words, must we sacrifice empathy to stay calm? That’s the dilemma facing those who are preparing top teams to handle the next Katrina-like catastrophe we might face. Which gets…
Wired to Connect
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007As every author knows, books never really end – you just stop writing them at some point. This is especially true for books like mine, which take a science journalist’s approach to major new fields of discovery. The research and its applications that I wrote about in <em>Emotional Intelligence</em>, <em>Social Intelligence</em> and my other books…
Making Sense of Our Lives
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007When you were young, which of these did you feel more often: No matter what I do, my parents love me. I can’t seem to please my parents, no matter what I do. My parents don’t really notice me. The answers to such questions reveal more than about our childhood: they also tend to predict…
From the Basement to the Balcony: Your Brain in an Emergency
Saturday, April 14th, 2007I spoke recently with a psychologist who advises teams handling emergencies, including catastrophes like hurricanes. It occurred to me that a basic bit of neuroscience should adds a crucial piece in preparing for catastrophe, especially for those coordinating the response, as well as those on the front lines. The plans for emergency, he pointed out,…
SEND: Cooling the Flame
Monday, April 9th, 2007Poor Michael Brown. During the darkest days of the Hurricane Katrina debacle, Brown, then director of FEMA, the agency that so badly bungled the rescue efforts, sent this email: “Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?” Emails can come back to haunt us – any of us. Few among…
The Trouble with IQ
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007I’ve just spoken to a friend who tells me that the tech company he works for, one of the world’s most well-known brand names, uses IQ or its surrogates – SAT, GMAT, GPA scores and the like – as critical requirement for employment – even if they were scores from many years ago. Basically, they…
Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-mail Misbehavior
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007Jett Lucas, a 14-year-old friend, tells me the kids in his middle school send one other a steady stream of instant messages through the day. But there’s a problem. “Kids will say things to each other in their messages that are too embarrassing to say in person,” Jett tells me. “Then when they actually meet…
Emotional Contagion and Customer Satisfaction
Sunday, February 11th, 2007“I had an accountant who used to make me crazy,” a friend tells me. “So I switched to one who always makes me feel fine, no matter what we’re talking about.” That we gravitate to people who we enjoy being with is obvious. When it comes to the business world, cranky store clerks drive away…
Welcome to the website and blog of psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. Dr. Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 40 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries.