For quite some time when I was much younger,  you couldn’t really say I was intellectually and emotionally balanced. Sure, I was doing well at school and didn’t find it difficult to grasp new concepts, but boy was it easy to make me cry. Thank goodness I’m older now and with age it seems my EQ has risen. Let’s take a closer look at these two concepts.

Many of you have probably heard of the IQ test. It really started out as a mental age test which was invented in 1905 by a French guy named Alfred Binet and his colleague Théodore Simon. You see, even if you were only six years old but could correctly answer questions in the test that normally a nine year old would be able to answer, you were considered to have a mental age of nine.

This test was later adapted by an American by the name of Lewis Terman and was called the Stanford-Binet test. Lewis Terman went on to change the way performance was scored into what we now know as the intelligence quotient (IQ).
As you should well know from maths, a quotient is the answer you get after dividing two numbers. Therefore an IQ is the mental age divided by the actual age and then, just to eliminate the decimal, multiplied by 100. So, for example, if you were 10 years of age and after the test it was found that you had a mental age of 13, your IQ would measure (13/10) × 100 = 130 or if you were 10 but you had a mental age of 8 then your IQ would measure (8/10) × 100 = 80
The IQ test has undergone several revisions since then but is still generally in use today.

Out of curiosity I took one of these tests free at IQTEST.com. It was quite interesting. I got a score of 128 which, according to the site’s classification, is above average so it’s cool. Click the link and have a go at it!

With regard to the Emotional Intelligence Quotient and in contrast to the Intelligence Quotient, scientists have found and in fact still find it difficult to specifically define the term. In 1900 an attempt at a definition was made by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer. They said, “Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.”  In a nutshell, a high EI allows you to understand and control your emotions and use them to do what you want in the best way.

I will admit that when I was younger I didn’t have the highest emotional quotient. The smallest things would get me teared up, one of the most frequent being any one of my younger sisters calling me names (I know, how pathetic!). I would always hate the nasty lump in my throat that formed whenever I was upset and which prevented me from uttering another syllable without the tears beginning to flow. I have however improved. I can’t even remember the last time I cried unnecessarily.

I find it interesting, though, to note which things seem to emotionally affect people more strongly than others. For example, you’ll NEVER see me sniffing during a sad, touching movie or something. I mean, I do feel that occasional twinge, but I am never moved that deeply and it’s never enough to make me even contemplate shedding a tear, EVER (bit weird, don’t you think, considering it used to take only a taunting name to get me worked up). However, set down a very low score written in red ink on my test or assignment in front of me and you can be sure Mr Emotional-Lump will be drawn to my throat like moths are inexplicably drawn to night lamps. No-one I know behaves in the same way!

So with a quick inspection of both intellect and emotionality, I think one can safely assume that intelligence is easier to understand and to measure while emotions are more unpredictable and difficult to grasp. Perhaps it could be because of how differently our minds work and, consequently, how differently we react to things (as confirmed by my sad-movie watching scenario). We should however work to strike a balance. No matter how intelligent you are, it won’t matter if you can’t handle life situations in a controlled manner due to your emotions wreaking havoc on your ability to think. That’s probably a worse-case scenario but it should make you pause to think and ask yourself “How balanced am I?”

Sources: Encarta Reference Library for background of IQ
Wikipedia for technical definition of EI