Emotional Intelligence vs Mental Strength: What's the Difference?

Originally published 2020-05-15.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to notice, understand and manage emotions, both your own and other people's. Mental strength is broader: it covers how you handle your thoughts, your emotions and your behaviour, especially under pressure. In short, emotional intelligence is one ingredient of mental strength, but you can be emotionally perceptive and still struggle to act on your values when life gets hard.

The two ideas are often mixed up, along with a third, "mental toughness". Here is where each concept came from, how they differ, what the evidence says, and how to build both.

What emotional intelligence means

The phrase "emotional intelligence" appeared in academic papers in the 1960s, but the modern idea comes from psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer. In 1990 they described it as the ability to monitor feelings in yourself and others, tell them apart, and use that information to guide thinking and action.

The concept went mainstream in 1995 when science journalist Daniel Goleman published the bestseller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Despite the title, Goleman did not claim that emotional skills replace intellect. He argued they can give people an edge in work and relationships, while academic results and test scores still depend heavily on traditional ability.

Goleman's five components

• Self-awareness: recognising your moods and drives and how they affect people around you.
• Self-regulation: pausing before reacting, and steering disruptive impulses in a better direction.
• Motivation: being driven by meaning and interest, not only by pay or status.
• Empathy: reading other people's emotional states and responding to them appropriately.
• Social skill: building rapport, handling conflict and managing relationships.

Researchers now distinguish three ways of thinking about emotional intelligence. The ability model treats it as a set of skills that can be tested, as in the MSCEIT test. The trait model treats it as part of personality, measured by self-report. Goleman's mixed model blends both with workplace competencies.

What mental strength means

"Mental strength" is not a single scientific construct in the way emotional intelligence is. The version popularised by psychotherapist Amy Morin, author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, describes it as the capacity to manage three things together:

• Thoughts: noticing unhelpful thinking, such as harsh self-criticism or catastrophising, and replacing it with something more realistic and kinder.
• Emotions: understanding how feelings shape your choices, accepting uncomfortable ones, and sometimes acting against a feeling that is not serving you.
• Behaviour: taking steps that improve your life even when motivation is low or the reward is far off.

In a 2017 Psychology Today column, Morin summed up the relationship plainly: Emotional intelligence is part of mental strength. On her account, mental strength adds the thinking and doing that turn emotional awareness into a better life.

Mental strength is not the same as mental toughness

Mental toughness grew out of sports psychology. Researchers such as Peter Clough describe it with four Cs: control, commitment, challenge and confidence. It is often linked with athletes pushing through pain or soldiers enduring hardship. Morin's point is that most people do not need to run on an injured ankle. Being mentally strong is less about looking hard and more about staying honest with yourself and acting on your values.

The key differences at a glance

• Focus: emotional intelligence centres on emotions, yours and others'. Mental strength covers emotions plus thinking patterns and habits.
• Direction: emotional intelligence is strongly social, about empathy and relationships. Mental strength is more personal, about how you respond to setbacks, temptation and fear.
• Outcome: emotional intelligence helps you read a situation well. Mental strength helps you follow through once you have read it.
• Overlap: self-awareness and self-regulation sit in both. You cannot manage feelings you have not noticed.

A simple example: someone with high emotional intelligence may realise in a meeting that they feel defensive and that a colleague feels unheard. Mental strength is what helps them stay calm, admit a mistake and change their plan afterwards, even though that is uncomfortable.

What the research says, and common myths

Myth: emotional intelligence matters more than IQ. The evidence does not support that headline. Meta-analyses find modest links between emotional intelligence and job performance, with correlations around 0.2 to 0.3. Some studies find that much of this effect disappears once general intelligence and personality traits are taken into account. Emotional skills are useful; they are not a replacement for knowledge or reasoning.

Myth: you either have it or you don't. Both emotional skills and coping habits respond to practice. Studies of mental toughness, for example, point to both genetic and environmental influences, with coaches, parents and training all playing a part.

Myth: strong people don't feel much. Suppressing emotion is not strength. Both frameworks treat noticing and naming feelings as the starting point, not something to avoid.

Myth: a quiz tells you your score. Most online EQ tests are self-report questionnaires. They can prompt reflection, but they are not precise measurements, and scholars still debate how best to measure either concept.

How to build both in everyday life

Rather than asking which label you would rather have, pick one situation that regularly trips you up and practise there.

• Name the feeling. Before replying to a tense message, put a precise word on what you feel: irritated, embarrassed, anxious. Naming an emotion gives you a moment of distance.
• Listen for the other side. In a disagreement, try to summarise the other person's view so well that they agree with your summary.
• Check your self-talk. Ask whether you would speak to a friend the way you are speaking to yourself. If not, rewrite the sentence.
• Act on one small value-led step. Mental strength grows through behaviour: going for the walk, making the difficult call, starting the task you are avoiding.
• Drop one habit that drains you. Morin's approach stresses giving up habits such as dwelling on the past or seeking everyone's approval.
• Review, don't ruminate. After a setback, write down what happened, what you learned and what you will try next time, then close the notebook.

If stress, low mood or anxiety are affecting your daily life, these ideas are not a substitute for professional support. Talk to a doctor or a qualified mental health professional.

Which matters more?

Neither is a ranking of a person's worth, and the two are not rivals. Emotional intelligence gives you accurate information about what is happening inside you and between you and others. Mental strength helps you use that information to keep going, choose well and recover from disappointment. Most people benefit from working on whichever side is weaker for them, and improvements in one usually help the other.

Sources: Amy Morin, Psychology Today (2017); Wikipedia: Emotional intelligence; Wikipedia: Mental toughness.