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Did you actually read the answer? Nowhere did he say that those traits don't matter, or even that they are too hard to measure (although he did say they are less predictive of success than IQ).

He says the concept of EQ is worthless because it just bundles together measurements of completely different character traits in a pretty much random way and creates a less-predictive mess as a result.

It's like summing someone's weight in kg and height in cm and saying that's their "physical score". This "physical score" is pointless even though we can measure both components accurately and measuring them is not useless in itself.

I read the answer, and my response is to the repeated "There is no such thing as EQ" statements which are stressed throughout it. How is anything I wrote not related to that statement? (edited my reply to be more constructive)

By saying EQ doesn't exist he's saying there is no "emotional intelligence" trait that determines how good you will be at various emotional/social aspects of life. Instead, testing EQ just looks at those various things and combines the results. There is no reason to believe that, for example, a person who is conscientious will also be agreeable. They are separate traits. A test which tests both (and other things) and combines the results and calls them "EQ" is not useful.

Contrast this with intelligence, for which they they test something very specific which you can test even in children, and we know this ability, even though on the surface unrelated to any real-world skill, strongly correlates with how they will perform at many different things later in life. It is an actual trait, not just an average of how good you are at various things.

Okay I don't want to derail too much, but a couple things to note:

1. IQ is itself a combination of multiple cognitive functions: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and processing speed, etc, and people might be better or worse on in individual topics.

2. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are part of the Big 5 model, which is itself just a model of personality that has its own share of flaws.

You can't just invent a trait. You have to define it and measure it and distinguish it from other traits and use it to predict the important ways that people vary.

EQ is not a psychometrically valid concept. Insofar as it is anything (which it isn't) it's the Big Five trait agreeableness, although this depends, as it shouldn't, on which EQ measure is being used (they should all measure THE SAME THING).

What precisely do you disagree with? Let's enumerate some possibilities. Feel free to pick one and argue your point:

1. You can just invent a trait.

2. You don't have to define a trait, measure it or distinguish it from other traits or use it to predict the important ways that people vary.

3. EQ is a psychometrically valid concept.

4. It isn't the Big Five trait agreeableness.

5. EQ measures shouldn't all measure THE SAME THING.

>1. You can just invent a trait.

Of course you can, though it will probably be a useless invention.

>2. You don't have to define a trait, measure it or distinguish it from other traits or use it to predict the important ways that people vary.

Naturally, if you're going to invent a trait you should distinguish it from other traits as well as show it has predictive power. Measuring it however is the tricky part, but not being able to currently measure it does not mean it doesn't exist.

>3. EQ is a psychometrically valid concept. >4. It isn't the Big Five trait agreeableness

Don't know - didn't major in psychology.

>5. EQ measures shouldn't all measure THE SAME THING

Yes they should, once EQ measures are well defined and standardized, which they are not.

I admit that What rubbed me the wrong way about the answer was the elitist vibe I got from it - if I'd have listened to predictors about me in my youth, I wouldn't never have reached anything I've achieved. Hubris is dangerous thing, and this is the feeling I got. I'm open to the possibility that it may well be a wrong interpretation on my part though.

The author goes on to point out that there are real, measurable, predictive personality traits like conscientiousness and they still don't come close to IQ.

It should also be noted that IQ is five or more times as powerful a predictor as even good personality trait predictors such as conscientiousness. The true relationship between grades, for example, and IQ might be as high as r = .50 or even .60 (accounting for 25-36% of the variance in grades). Conscientiousness, however, probably tops out at around r = .30, and is more typically reported as r = .25 (say, 5 to 9% of the variance in grades).

You've missed his point.

First. Its not that EQ does not describe certain personal characteristics. It is that EQ can actually be described as a combination of other existing, well established traits. Thus it is not an independent variable. EQ is just a bad design.

As for your "trust me, I'm an authority vibe" remark... OP has referenced a lot of papers to properly argument his point. And he is an actual authority.

I'm aware he's an authority, which is exactly the reason I caution against blind acceptance.

Hmm...you realize that he (a) explains ad nauseam and (b) cites relevant research. So how is this "blind acceptance"?

Whereas you don't appear to be an authority, made a fairly broad claim ("so much wrong..."), explained nothing and cited...crickets.

You are right regarding my broad claim - I stand corrected. You are also right regarding my lack of authority, but experience shows that authority (professional or otherwise) is not always backed up by a broader understanding. If I'm wrong I'll be the first to admit it. The professor is saying there is no such thing as EQ. What I understand he means is that there is no such thing as EQ in psychology, and therefore the concept does not exist or is worthless. I'm in no position to argue with a professional in psychology on psychology. What I'm saying is that psychology doesn't have a monopoly on defining what traits exist.

He explains this in more detail in the comments.

If we're going to do proof by paper (always dangerous in psychology, but never mind), consider this about IQ:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557354/

The evidence that IQ predicts success is dubious, and certainly not settled.

I also consider him wrong about EQ, although for more anecdotal reasons:

I have known people who can read individuals and social situations with extraordinary skill, make astonishingly accurate predictions about social and personal outcomes, and manipulate both with extraordinary efficiency and effectiveness.

I've also known high-IQ individuals who were worse than average at all of the above, and who suffered poor social, political, and financial outcomes as a result.

So IMO EQ is a recognisable skill, and it's clearly not the same as agreeableness in the Big Five.

It may not have been well-defined or well-researched in psychology, and the original book definition may not be accurate either. (I haven't read Golman, so I don't know what he says about it.)

But it's nonsense to pretend it simply doesn't exist.

We have no reason to believe there exists a trait like intelligence for emotional/social skills, all we have is people establishing its existence post-facto like you are doing here (from seeing some people are good at multiple social skills and assuming the existence of a common root trait).

It's like seeing some people are on average better at sports than others and saying there must be a "sportiness" trait that determines how good you are at sports. Instead we know it's a combination of various different things, many of which are independent of each other.

I've read the paper you provided, and it doesn't have a single professional point to make against IQ tests, the g factor, their predictive ability and correlation on job performance or anything else really.

Rather than rigorously discussing on what is technically wrong with the corpus of evidence and how it could be improved, she throws and regurgitates FUD in so many areas that it is nigh-impossible to address them all.

Thanks for wasting fifteen minutes of my life, OtherHobbes.

I don't understand how you can make the leap from accepting that EQ was made up by a journalist with no formal background to arguing that criticising EQ as a concept is naive.

I don't understand this business about Goleman being a "journalist". He did a PhD at Harvard under psychologist David McLelland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Goleman#Biography