Talk:Emotional competence

Subversion of emotional competence
The point of emotional competence, and what makes it different from concepts such as emotional intelligence, is that it recognises that emotions are normal and valuable parts of being human. Other approaches all end up buying into the common and destructive attitudes that emotions are dangerous, or at least unhelpful, and should be controlled or suppressed.

Emotional competence is an important part of personal self empowerment, people who are comfortable with their emotions and with expressing them are more powerful. Being comfortable with anger, for instance, helps people to be able to deal with aggression or abuse, being comfortable with fear helps people to handle danger well. The whole business of trying to coerce people into suppressing their emotions, or being afraid of their emotions, is to do with controlling people, i.e. oppressing them.John Talbut 07:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Is there a credible source that provides a definition that includes this distinction? If so, this should be added to the description section. ParticipantObserver (talk) 00:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

This article has been largely rewritten obscuring the meaning of emotional competence to suggest that it is the same as emotional intelligence. It is not, emotional competence is an internal quality, a state of being and cannot be reduced to a set of abilities. I propose to revert the article to closer to the original version. John Talbut (talk) 09:59, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

As I have explained, the original article had been revised using the language and concepts or emotional intelligence eventually saying that "Emotional competence is another term for emotional intelligence.". It is not, they are fundamentally different concepts. It is like the difference between being able to describe how to make a pot on a potters wheel and actually being able to do it. The original article had been completely deleted in edits over recent years with no attempt to justify the fundamental change. It is not possible to edit the September 2023 version of the article to revert to the proper meaning of emotional competence without discarding most of it.John Talbut (talk) 16:36, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The current lead fails to provide any sort of definition at all for what emotional competence is. "Emotional competence is to do with how a person feels in any situation. Emotions are normal and valuable attributes of humans. Emotional competence relates to how well a person’s emotions relate to any situation they are in and how beneficially the person responds to those emotions. It generally involves acceptance and ease around emotions." That says it's related to stuff. It's kind of like something to do with emotion, and emotions are normal, and emotional competence has something to do with how appropriate those emotions are, and maybe there's something about how easy it is (to feel emotions?). This is completely unclear. I have no idea what this is. If it is not emotional intelligence, then what is it? There must be some kind of reliable source that can provide an actual definition. ParticipantObserver (talk) 08:42, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The definition section says emotional competence is the quality of a person’s emotional response to any situation and how well they motivate a person towards beneficial responses. That is effectively the same as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions, which is emotional intelligence. ParticipantObserver (talk) 08:45, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * No it isn't. "the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions" would be external abilities for handling the external expression of emotions. Emotional competence is to do with the internal functioning of genetically inherited emotional attributes, how they are initiated and how well they lead to self actualisation. This may be entirely out of awareness and not requiring perception, understanding or management. John Talbut (talk) 17:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

The September 2023 version of this article is not about emotional competence, it says so (see the reference in the definition) and see the discussion above. I am not anonymous and I have been training people to develop emotional competence for over 30 years. I have also studied Goleman’s book and I do know the difference between emotional competence and emotional intelligence. If anyone has difficulties with the updated version of the article, please discuss them here, see Dispute_resolution, and make constructive suggestions about how it can be improved. Please do not simply revert the article to an earlier version.John Talbut (talk) 17:40, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Nothing you say above justifies or explains or even mentions the removal of existing sources and the addition of unsourced material (including claims of effectiveness and ineffectiveness). If you would like to remove existing sources, please discuss it here. If you would like to add a whole bunch of stuff, please source the material or it should be removed, particularly where claims of effectiveness and ineffectiveness are concerned. WP:NOR "This is explained in the talk page" is not a sufficient edit description when you do not, in fact, explain these things on the talk page. Thanks. ParticipantObserver (talk) 11:07, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Simply arguing that you prefer an old version of an article from a month ago and then reverting other editors' work is not a particularly constructive approach. Please salvage the text wherever possible, per Dispute_resolution. Normal protocol is to attempt to salvage the text that you feel is inaccurate. ParticipantObserver (talk) 11:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * To be very clear here: it sounds like you have a COI with respect to this article, having worked in this area for 30+ years. And you are saying "do not simply revert the article to an earlier version" while claiming that your goal is to do precisely that (to revert the article to the version from September). ParticipantObserver (talk) 11:15, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * As I have written, the whole article had been modified from the original to mean something different. I do feel somewhat remiss in not having followed and corrected previous revisions. I considered trying to salvage the text and modify it to refer to the correct meaning but hardly any of it was relevant to emotional competence as it nearly all refers to emotional intelligence. I could have reverted it to a previous version that still related to emotional competence, but I have chose to improve and update it. Emotional competence and emotional intelligence are different concepts which is why there should be two articles.
 * I have explained quite clearly above why I removed many of the references, they do not relate to emotional competence.
 * As I also wrote, I am not anonymous and my biography is available for anyone to see. I have been paid in the past to teach relevant topics and I am no longer paid.John Talbut (talk) 13:09, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Problems with article
IMHO, this article appears to be a combination of Original Research and pop psychology references and not an article to be included in the database of Psychology as a social science or profession. Sincerely, Mattisse 17:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree totally. It sounds like pseudoscience and gives no context to the subject. (Where does this idea come from and who asserts it? Is there criticism? What field does it go under?) BlankAxolotl 04:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * US Military believes in it. I have reworked the Lede and Cite'd it as such. I will try digging further into the subject and see if we can improove the rest of the Article. Exit2DOS2000   •T•C•  09:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that these are problems. From the sources provided in the article, it appears the US Military believes it is synonymous with emotional intelligence. That other article does not have these other issues. Perhaps these should be merged?ParticipantObserver (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2019 (UTC)