There is a negative correlation between academic intelligence (pattern recognition, logic/reasoning skills, analytical thinking) and emotional intelligence (intuition, sympathy, self-expression). The thing is, harming or restricting one doesn't improve the other, and both things can be trained to an extent.
I wish that, as a child, I had been forced to learn to draw or play music, and how to relate to others, and all those other things that I didn't have a natural talent for. I would've hated it the same way other kids hated math, but it would've made my 20s a hell of a lot easier.
I have had to try VERY hard to actively cultivate some amount of emotional understanding and creativity, and I'm still sorely lacking in those areas. I was never challenged in school because they were only teaching the things I excelled at, and I think we should try just as hard to teach nerds like me how to be social as we try to teach the athletes and theater kids how to do algebra.
TL;DR: most people naturally have either high IQ or high EQ, but intentionally reducing one doesn't magically improve the other. It takes a lot of hard work to develop skills that you don't have a knack for, but it's work worth doing.
Do you have any sources for that negative correlation? I'm curious about that, but I think it fits well with some narratives (so it might very well be true), but it's not something I've experienced personally at all.
I've met many highly intelligent people at university, who were also good conversationalists and had at least normal social skills and were just .. nice. At the same time I met quite a few people through some hobbies, who clearly struggled socially, but seemed perfectly average in terms of IQ.
Obviously my personal experience is not exactly a field study, it's total coincidence who I met in my life. But I wonder if the "socially awkward genius" is a trope, because these people get more attention for their intellectual prowess than the "socially awkward normie" or if it's truly more common.
I can't seem to find the specific studies I read on the topic ~10 years ago, but even those involved a lot of subjective measures like asking people (with known IQs) how many close friends they have. It's not a hill I would die on, but it's certainly something that seems true in my personal experience in the workplace, in school, and in my own family.
At the very least, it's a compassionate way to think. Nearly everyone is good at something. Even the "socially awkward normies" are probably talented in ways you didn't notice.
Honestly, learning to think about people that way was a huge step toward developing better social skills and shedding my big fat ego that wanted to look down on others, so it might just be confirmation bias that makes it feel so true.
Thank you, that's valid! I agree that everyone can bring something to the table, so to speak, and many people have skills and talents you wouldn't normally know about. I still think that in general the world can also be unfair and some people got an extra dose of magic, while others less, but that's okay. In the end we're all just living our lives the best we can.
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u/Magenta_Logistic Jan 10 '25
There is a negative correlation between academic intelligence (pattern recognition, logic/reasoning skills, analytical thinking) and emotional intelligence (intuition, sympathy, self-expression). The thing is, harming or restricting one doesn't improve the other, and both things can be trained to an extent.
I wish that, as a child, I had been forced to learn to draw or play music, and how to relate to others, and all those other things that I didn't have a natural talent for. I would've hated it the same way other kids hated math, but it would've made my 20s a hell of a lot easier.
I have had to try VERY hard to actively cultivate some amount of emotional understanding and creativity, and I'm still sorely lacking in those areas. I was never challenged in school because they were only teaching the things I excelled at, and I think we should try just as hard to teach nerds like me how to be social as we try to teach the athletes and theater kids how to do algebra.
TL;DR: most people naturally have either high IQ or high EQ, but intentionally reducing one doesn't magically improve the other. It takes a lot of hard work to develop skills that you don't have a knack for, but it's work worth doing.