The Balance Between IQ and EQ: A Correlative Study

Chapter 1

The Problem and Its Background

Introduction

Life is a war that is hard to battle with. In each stage of our life, we are likely to face

different challenges, sorrows, and hardships which are great contribution to most of the

suicide cases around the globe. Suicide is the second leading cause of death legally among

people 15 to 29 years of age, according to the 2014 global report on Preventing Suicide by the

World Health Organization. Some people perceive life as a difficult thing we need to battle

with, in order to survive. They see life as something so difficult they don’t know how to

withstand struggles and handle their emotions properly.

Life is unpredictable. For decades, it was assumed that the likelihood of being

triumphant is based on the level of one’s intelligence or simply said, Intelligence Quotient

(IQ). This was true to people for a while. However, researchers were puzzled by the fact that

while IQ could predict to a significant degree of academic performance and, to some degree

professional and personal issues, there was something missing in the equation. Some of those

with high IQ scores were doing poorly in life; one could say that they were wasting their

potential by thinking, behaving and communicating in a way that hindered their chances to

succeed. The Marshmallow Experiment revealed that Emotional Quotient is also a part of the

success equation. According to Walter Mischel, people with a greater certainty about their
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feelings are better pilots of their lives and have a surer sense about how they feel about

personal decisions.

Relatively, we have not heard of a theory proposing that there is indeed a significant

relationship between IQ and EQ. No theorist ever told a person that because a person is

intelligent, he is more likely to be having low emotional quotient. None of these theorists have

proven that happy people despite having problems are not intelligent. They have not proven

that intelligent people are having emotional insecurities.

That is why we have decided to conduct this study. Should we find the result of this

research, it can help teachers and parents in the development of these individuals.

The researchers chose the 1st year students because they were in the stage of adapting

to their environment as now, college students. Because of having a drastic change from the

previous atmosphere they belonged, emotional disturbances will arise. This is a perfect

situation for us to test their emotional stability.

The researchers of this study proceeded to understand if there is any relation between

intelligence quotient of the first year students and their emotional quotient.

Background of the Study

Emotional depression had always been the most prevalent mental condition among

adolescents. Contrary to our belief that Filipinos are resilient to disasters and poverty, our

very own Department of Health (DOH) says that the country “has the highest incidence of

depression in Southeast Asia. World Health Organization (WHO) showed that “the
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Philippines have the highest incidence of depression in Southeast Asia with 93 suicides for

every 100,000 Filipinos. “This may be an effect of the fluctuations of people who have very

low emotional quotient. People who have fabulous IQ scores are no exception to this. In fact,

we have seen intelligent people feeling frustrated and not contented. Sometimes, these people

let the frustration eat them whole.

This is a question for most of us. We found it amusing to see these people, who excel

in every subject, failing to control their emotions and taking the easy way to escape. That is

why; we desired to find the answer by conducting this study that aims to discover the

relationship between Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Quotient.

Throughout the years, there have been many methods used that attempted to

accurately quantify and measure human intelligence. Concepts and tests of Intelligence

Quotient—IQ—came about in the late 19th century and evolved from a man's pure, green

envy of Charles Darwin. Darwin's cousin Sir Frances Galton was a British scientist who

conceived his theories that intelligence is both hereditary and measurable out of jealousy over

the attention his cousin was getting for his research on evolution.

People are born with an inbuilt ability to learn new things, understand new concepts

and think in a logical way. The efficiency with which they accomplish these tasks depend on

their natural intelligence. Some children could be very gifted, intelligent and talented in

performing these entire academic, scholarly and intelligence tasks while others are just above

average and or poor in similar tasks. In a way, intelligence among children is diverse and

varied and it is only an indicator of how well they do in academics. IQ, or intelligence

quotient, is score derived from one of several standardized tests designed to assess an
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individual's intelligence. However, IQ is not just enough to make someone complete and

wholesome. It is not the primary indicator of success.

There is another kind of intelligence that helps a person to lead a life that is free of

stress, tension and emotional problems. This type of intelligence is the emotional intelligence.

For a child, who is just growing up, understanding emotions and paying attention to them is

very important because it can build self-awareness, know and understand other people, and

eventually understand their own mind and emotional status. Known as emotional intelligence

or quotient, it is very critical skill that can help children build a wholesome personality and a

successful career. Just like IQ, EQ can help children predict future success in acutely

emotional situations. Some children have very good skills in managing their emotions while

others are very poor in such skills. Unlike IQ, it is possible to improve and build emotional

intelligence and skills with proper intervention, training and tutoring.

Theoretical Framework

This study “The Balance between Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Quotient: A

Correlative Study “is anchored on the following theories:

The Hereditarian Theory of Intelligence

When Alfred Binet decided to study the measurement of intelligence, he used an age

old method of measuring skulls, and flavored the conclusion set forth by his countryman Paul

Broca. He collected his data by going to various schools and measuring the heads of pupils

designated by the teachers as their smartest and stupidest. After three years and several

publications, Binet’s research found that larger head sized favored the “good” student, but the

difference between the “good” and “poor” student amounted to mere millimeters. Secondly,
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Binet didn’t observe a large difference in anterior region of the skull, where higher

intelligence was supposedly found. It is where Broca in his analysis found the greatest

disparity between superior and less fortunate people . Binet concluded that even those most of

the results pointed in the right direction it was still useless to asset the intelligence of an

individual, because the differences between the smart and poor student was too small. He also

found that poor students varied more than their smart students, because the smallest and

largest value usually belongs to the poor pupil.

Furthermore, Binet become aware of his own unconscious bias. “I feared,” Binet

wrote, “that in making measurements on heads with the intention of finding a difference in

volume between intelligence and less intelligence head, I would be led to increase,

unconsciously and in good faith, the cephalic volume of intelligence heads to decrease that of

unintelligence heads.” Binet was able to confirm his unconscious bias by re-measuring the

heads of “idiots and imbeciles” in a hospital; where he found an average diminution of 3mm,

a good deal of more average difference between the skulls of smart and poor students. In the

end, Binet did recalculate his work and found an extreme average of 3 to 4 mm, but it still

didn’t exceed the average potential bias.

Binet’s scale and the birth of IQ

Binet test was concerned with separating the natural intelligence and instruction. Binet

stated, “We give him nothing to read, nothing to write, and submit him to no test in which he

might succeed by means of rote learning (180-181).” Furthermore, Binet would decline to

discuss the meaning of the score he assigned the children for he reminds us that intelligence

isn’t a single, scalable thing like height.

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What Binet feared most about an IQ number was its negative uses in society. He

thought that it could be used as an indelible label rather than a tool to identify the needs of the

child. Therefore, Binet declined to label IQ as inborn intelligence and refused to regard it as

device for ranking individuals based on the mental capacity.

Cattell-Horn-Caroll Theory

The Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory, or CHC theory, is a psychological theory of human

cognitive abilities that takes its name from Raymond Cattell, John L. Horn and John Bissell

Carroll. Recent advances in current theory and research on the structure of human cognitive

abilities have resulted in a new empirically derived model commonly referred to as the

Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory of cognitive abilities. CHC theory of cognitive abilities is an

amalgamation of two similar theories about the content and structure of human cognitive

abilities. The first of these two theories is Gf-Gc theory (Raymond Cattell, 1941; Horn 1965),

and the second is Carroll's (1993) Three-Stratum theory. Carroll's expansion of Gf-Gc theory

to CHC theory was developed in the course of a major survey of research over the past 60 or

70 years on the nature, identification, and structure of human cognitive abilities. That research

involved the use of the mathematical technique known as factor analysis. In comparison to

other well-known theories of intelligence and cognitive abilities, CHC theory is the most

comprehensive and empirically supported psychometric theory of the structure of cognitive

and academic abilities.

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Emotional Intelligence Theory

US psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey published the first formal definition of

emotional intelligence in 1990. Their publication also claimed that it might be possible to

assess and measure a person’s emotional intelligence.

Mayer and Salovey believed that emotional intelligence is a subset of social

intelligence and is about a person’s ability to:

• perceive emotion in oneself and others

• integrate emotion into thought

• understand emotion in oneself and others

• manage or regulate emotion in oneself and others.

They have also described emotional intelligence as being ‘knowledge of self and

others’ and, more specifically, ‘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’.

Since 1990, Mayer, Salovey and David Caruso have developed a set of tasks that

assess this four-dimensional model. These include identifying emotions in human faces. They

claim their research indicates that emotional intelligence can be measured reliably and that it

is related to, but independent of, standard intelligence.

The Development of Emotional Intelligence

Although theories of emotional intelligence have been around since the 1920s, writers

such as Howard Gardner and Daniel Goleman have championed the importance of emotions
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and feelings in learning more recently. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence pioneered

the view that intra and interpersonal intelligences were as important as other forms such as

linguistic and logical. Daniel Goleman, who later coined the phrase ‘emotional intelligence’,

put forward the argument that emotional intelligence (EQ) mattered more than IQ

(Intelligence Quotient).

The Marshmallow Test

The experiment began by bringing each child into a private room, sitting them down in

a chair, and placing a marshmallow on the table in front of them. At this point, the researcher

offered a deal to the child.The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room

and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be

rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before

the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow.

So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later.The researcher left

the room for 15 minutes.

As you can imagine, the footage of the children waiting alone in the room was rather

entertaining. Some kids jumped up and ate the first marshmallow as soon as the researcher

closed the door. Others wiggled and bounced and scooted in their chairs as they tried to

restrain themselves, but eventually gave in to temptation a few minutes later. And finally, a

few of the children did manage to wait the entire time.

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The Power of Delayed Gratification

As the years rolled on and the children grew up, the researchers conducted follow up studies

and tracked each child’s progress in a number of areas. What they found was surprising.

The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second

marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower

likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents,

and generally better scores in a range of other life measures.

The researchers followed each child for more than 40 years and over and over again, the

group who waited patiently for the second marshmallow succeed in whatever capacity they

were measuring. In other words, this series of experiments proved that the ability to delay

gratification was critical for success in life.

Conceptual Framework

Independent Dependent

Intelligence Quotient Emotional Quotient

1. Cattell- Horn- Caroll Theory 1.Emotional Intelligence Theory

2. The Hereditarian Theory of IQ  Self-awareness
 Self-management
 Social Awareness
 Self-control

2. Marshmallow Theory
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Figure 1 shows the research paradigm depicting the interplay of the independent and

dependent variables and the theories in which they are anchored to.

There are two frames presented in this figure, one for the independent on the left while the

other frame on the right side shows the dependent variable.

The independent variable pertains to the intelligence Quotient of the students. The dependent

variable refers to the emotional quotient of the respondents. The arrow connecting the frame

denotes relationship between them. The conceptual framework was based on the assumption

that the respondent’s IQ and EQ are significantly related to each other.

Statement of the Problem

This study will determine the relationship of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional

Quotient (EQ) of the first year students of PUP San Pedro.

Specifically, it will answer the following question:

1.) What is the profile of the respondents in terms of the following:

a.)Age

b.)Gender

c.) year/ level

2.) What is the respondent’s level of Intelligence Quotient?

3.) What is the respondent’s level of Emotional Quotient?

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4.) Is there any significant relationship between the respondent’s IQ and EQ?

Hypothesis

There is no significant relationship between the respondent’s Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and

Emotional Quotient (EQ).

Scope and Limitations of the Study

This study will include two variables: the Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Quotient of the

first year students of Polytechnic University of the Philippines enrolled in SY (2015-2016).

This study will focus on the relationship between Intelligence Quotient of selected 1st year

students and the Emotional Quotient.

This involved the participation of 1st year students of Polytechnic University of the

Philippines enrolled in SY 2015-2016.The study will be limited to the use of intelligence

quotient and emotional quotient of the respondents.

Significance of the Study

The results of the study may be beneficial to the following:

Student

This study will benefit the students for this can help them to determine the areas which are the

indicators of success. If they will improve their IQ and EQ, they are going to be fruitful

citizens of this society

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Teachers/Advisers

Through this research, teachers may understand the condition of their students and provide

counseling for students who need attention and care the most. It can also help them integrate

values in every cognitive lesson.

School Administrator

This study can be used in enhancing the curriculum so that it will not focus on IQ alone which

can improve the cognitive and appetitive faculty of the mind of the students.

Parents

To emphasize the significance of the efforts that parents should put in at home to ensure that

their children are academically-competent and emotionally stable.

Future researchers

This can serve as a reference to future researchers who would want to study cases along the

line.

Definition of Terms

Intelligence – is the capacity or set of capacities which enable an individual to learn or cope

with his environment or to solve problem: the ability to perceive and understand relationship.

Intelligence Quotient – ability of a person to perform some tasks characterized by difficulty,

complexity, originality, abstractness, adaptiveness to a goal with social value in a manner that

reflects accuracy and speed.

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IQ Test – it gives a fairly accurate index of the intelligence. Instruction, scoring instruction

and explanation are provided to the users.

Emotional Stability – the ability to attend to situations without any fluctuations in the mood or

emotion.

Self-esteem - the inner perception people have as being more or less valuable, worthy and

powerful in the world

Emotional literacy - the practice of being aware of, understanding and managing emotional

states in both oneself and other people.

EQ Test - it gives a fairly accurate index of the emotion. Instruction, scoring instruction and

explanation are provided to the users.