emotional intelligence

have you read about the Marshmallow Test?

i was reading my 8-year-old copy of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, given to me on my 22nd birthday by my dearest friend Lynn, and i came across this interesting study:

Four-year-old kids from the Stanford University preschool were the subjects.

The experimenter put a marshmallow in front of each kid and said: "You can have this marshmallow now, if you want, but if you wait until I finish running an errand, and don't eat it until I get back, you can have two then."

The videotaped results were hilarious. Some kids went up to the marshmallow, smelled it, then lept back like it's dangerous. Some went off in a corner and sang and danced to distract themselves. Some kids just grabbed it. About a third of the kids grabbed their marshmallows and ate them, about a third waited just a while, and the rest waited an endless 10 minutes until the experimenter came back, and they got their two, as promised.

These kids were followed up 14 years later, when they graduated from high school. The "grabbers" were still impulsive; they were quick to anger and not very popular. The "waiters" were popular and well-balanced emotionally. But the most astonishing finding was that the "waiters" had higher scores on their SATs - 210 points higher than the "grabbers," out of a possible score of 1,600.

Here are some social consequences of being impulsive: for boys - three to six times more likely to be violent by the end of adolescence; for girls - three times more likely to get pregnant in adolescence; for kids who are chronically sad or anxious in elementary school - most likely to end up as a substance abuser in adolescence during periods of experimentation.

Here are some consequences of being "waiters": A U.S. Department of Personnel study of outstanding performers found that they were flexible, adaptable, and conscientious; they stayed positive under pressure and had integrity.

i can't be sure what my EQ level is.. this test showed it was rather high while for the other test i barely made it above average... haha.. anyway, with stuff like that, who better to tell me then those dear long-time friends of mine who are always so brutally frank with me... :p .. should ask them.. haha..