This article charts recent research on the interrelationship of emotions, intelligence and success in life, drawing primarily on material reported by Daniel Goleman in his book, _Emotional Intelligence_ (Bantam, 1995). Gibbs says the term "emotional intelligence" was coined in 1990 by Peter Salovey, at Yale, and John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire, "to describe qualities like understanding one's own feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and 'the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living.'" This sounds nebulous, but has real-life ramifications. In a time when gangs substitute for families, marriages succeed and fail with equal probability, and playground arguments end in killing, Goleman sees understanding this area of mental development as crucial in developing strategies for the kinds of relationships that can build a civilized society.

Several studies are cited. In one study, a single marshmallow was placed before a four-year-old. The child was told s/he would receive two marshmallows _only_ if s/he resisted eating the first one until the researcher returned. Tracked through high school, those who successfully mastered their impulses at age four were more likely to exhibit positive traits later in life -- including scoring a surprising 210 points on average higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, than those who gave in to temptation.

As in other cognitive areas, emotions are linked to particular areas of the brain. Emotional life resides in the limbic system, specifically the amygdala. Delight, disgust, fear and anger are here. The neocortex enables humans to plan, learn and remember. Lust arises from the limbic system, love from the neocortex. Neurologist Antonio Damasio (author of _Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain_) studied patients in whom brain damage had severed the connection between the emotional brain and the neocortex. Their reasoning ability seemed to be intact, yet their lives fell apart: they could not make decisions because they didn't know how they felt about their choices.

Perhaps the most significant element is "metamood" -- a sense of self-awareness, the ability to pull back from one's emotional state and analyze the dynamics of one's own reactions. It is this "distancing" that enables us to achieve self-control, a degree of mastery over our impulses.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of this area of research. One's emotional system sets the framework by which some prisoners of war give up their personality under torture and become the enemy, while others become more fiercely themselves and deepen their beliefs; by which one paraplegic becomes a helpless victim for life, while another with the same injury gains strength from adversity.

Despite the excessively "chatty" writing style imposed by _Time Magazine_, I would recommend this article as a good overview and introduction to emotional quotient research. Caveat: the style sometimes blurs the information and makes it difficult to tell when the writers are reporting directly on research findings, and when they are transmitting Goleman's reports of someone else's findings.