Social Determinants of Emotional Intelligence and its Influence on Learning Outcomes-A Study

Abstract

In spite of the concerted efforts, learning is still an elusive concept. The concept of learning has been exclusively studied by psychologists who first believed that learning is individual and is influenced by several psychological aspects. Later they believed that intelligence is the dominant psychological trait that influences learning. Since then to the first half of the present century, cognitive aspects have assumed the supreme place and intelligence has been considered as an individual trait until Edward Lee Thorndike's Multiple Intelligence theory, where he introduced the concept of social intelligence which has given scope to see intelligence as not only an ability to perform a given task but also individuals ability to deal with physical and social environment. Once people identified the limitations in the concept of intelligence, they started looking at other aspects of intelligence, more predominantly the non-cognitive aspects of intelligence which gave rise to Howard Gardner's Multiple intelligence theory which speculated about the potential importance to successful every day adaptation of what he described as separate intelligences, a kind of abilities which are required to understand and establish social relations.