Emotional Intelligence: A New Concept of 21st Century

The concept of Emotional Intelligence is a new one in the literature of Educational and Psychological studies. It was in 1995 when Daniel Goleman published his most widely popular book “Emotional Intelligence” that research work in this area started in America, but this work was conducted in the field of Organizational Behaviour. Only a few years back, that research work on Emotional Intelligence in the area of Educational Psychology was undertaken in India. Many scholars have started doing their researches taking emotional intelligence as a main variable and studying it by relating with many other independent variables in order to find out the relationship. The students at the college and university levels pass through a turmoil period of their lives. They have many emotional and psychological problems which affect their behaviour adversely. They become stubborn, aggressive and nervous and sometimes they are unable to concentrate on their studies or they lose interest in their academic pursuits They may be intelligent or they may be high in their I.Q; but sometimes they lack emotional maturity or suffer from emotional disorders. So there is a need to study their emotional intelligence, along with their general intelligence as well as social maturity. Hence the present study has been undertaken with this view in mind.