How do emotional skills work where we actually live and learn? See the research on classrooms, families and workplaces, what helps, what is oversold, and practical tools for each setting.
Last updated: 12 October 2026. Written by the EDUSAMBAM Editorial Team. This article is for general education and does not replace advice from a qualified professional.
Emotional intelligence is not practised in a vacuum. A student uses it before an exam, a parent uses it at bedtime when a child will not settle, and a nurse uses it in a crowded ward at the end of a long shift. The skills overlap, but each setting has its own pressures, rules and evidence. In this guide, the ninth in our series, we look at what researchers have actually found about emotional skills at school, at home and at work, including studies of whole schools, long-term follow-ups, family research and workplace meta-analyses. We also point out what has been oversold. You will find tools to use in each setting, worked examples and a plan for four weeks.
At school, supportive teacher-student relationships and whole-school programmes show real benefits, but a well-known school mindfulness programme did not help in a very large trial. At home, parents who accept children's feelings while keeping limits on behaviour tend to have children who regulate emotions and get along with others better, although most of the evidence is observational. At work, faking emotions (surface acting) is linked to poorer well-being, team conflict tends to hurt performance, and EI training shows moderate effects on EI scores, but claims that EQ predicts job success far more than anything else are not supported. In every setting, listening, pausing, naming feelings and repairing mistakes are the portable skills.
In earlier articles we met Goleman's five components, the Salovey and Mayer ability model, and many specific skills. In schools, a different but related framework is widely used. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) describes five social and emotional competences.
| CASEL competence | What it means | Closest idea in Goleman's model |
|---|---|---|
| Self-awareness | Recognising your own emotions, strengths and values | Self-awareness |
| Self-management | Managing emotions, stress and goals | Self-regulation and motivation |
| Social awareness | Understanding others' perspectives and respecting differences | Empathy |
| Relationship skills | Communicating, cooperating, resolving conflict, seeking help | Social skills |
| Responsible decision-making | Making safe, ethical, constructive choices | (Not a separate Goleman component) |
This table shows that the same underlying skills appear in different vocabulary. What changes from setting to setting is the situation: who holds power, what is expected, and what the consequences of a mistake are.
Schools are where most children spend much of their waking life and where social and emotional skills are tested daily, in friendships, in group work, with teachers and in exams. We have already described the large meta-analyses of school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programmes in our article on Goleman's five components. Here we add more specific evidence.
RULER is a school programme developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Its name stands for recognising, understanding, labelling, expressing and regulating emotions. In a clustered randomised controlled trial across 62 schools (Rivers and colleagues, 2013), fifth- and sixth-grade English classrooms in RULER schools were compared with classrooms in schools using their usual curriculum. Observers rated RULER classrooms as having more warmth and connectedness between teachers and students, more student autonomy and leadership, and teachers who focused more on students' interests and motivations. An evidence-rating review of this trial describes the programme as "promising", and notes that it did not significantly change some other measures, such as negative classroom climate.
The Fast Track study followed 753 children from low-income neighbourhoods in four US sites. Jones, Greenberg and Crowley (2015) found that kindergarten teachers' ratings of children's prosocial skills, such as sharing, cooperating, helping and solving peer problems, were linked with outcomes 13 to 19 years later: education, employment, criminal activity, substance use and mental health. These links remained after accounting for family background and other child characteristics. This was an observational study, so it does not prove that the skills caused the outcomes, and for some outcomes early academic ability was a better predictor, but it does show that early social competence is a valuable signal for who may need support.
A meta-analysis of 99 studies (Roorda and colleagues, 2011) found that warm, close teacher-student relationships were linked with higher student engagement (a medium-to-large association) and with higher achievement (a small-to-medium association). Conflict-filled relationships were linked with lower engagement and achievement. These are correlations, but they have been found in preschool through to high school, and a later update with 189 studies found that engagement helps to explain the link with achievement.
A systematic review and meta-analysis by Ttofi and Farrington (2011) looked at 44 evaluations of school anti-bullying programmes. On average, bullying decreased by 20 to 23 per cent and victimisation by 17 to 20 per cent. Programmes were more effective when they were more intensive and included parent meetings, firm and consistent disciplinary methods, and better playground supervision. Interestingly, work with peers was associated with an increase in victimisation, which suggests that putting students in charge of solving bullying can backfire without adult support.
Not every well-meaning programme works. In the MYRIAD trial in the United Kingdom, 84 schools and 8,376 students aged 11 to 13 were randomly assigned to a 10-lesson school mindfulness programme or to normal teaching (Kuyken and colleagues, 2022). At one year, there was no evidence that the mindfulness programme was better than normal teaching on risk of depression, social-emotional-behavioural functioning or wellbeing. A follow-up analysis found that, for students already at risk of mental health problems, scores were slightly worse, though the differences were small. This does not mean that mindfulness never helps (some adult studies show modest benefits, as we described in our article on anger and stress), but it shows that a universal programme for all students needs to be tested before it is assumed to work.
| Approach in schools | Evidence summary |
|---|---|
| Structured, repeated SEL programmes with trained staff | Benefits for skills, behaviour and achievement in large reviews |
| Whole-class climate programmes such as RULER | Promising randomised evidence of warmer classroom climate |
| Supportive teacher-student relationships | Consistent links with engagement and achievement |
| Intensive, whole-school anti-bullying programmes with adult supervision | Average reductions of about 20% in bullying |
| Universal school mindfulness lessons (as tested in MYRIAD) | No benefit over normal teaching at one year in the largest trial |
| One-off assemblies or "feelings days" alone | Little evidence that single events change behaviour |
| Practice | Example |
|---|---|
| Warm greetings | Greet students by name at the door |
| Feelings check-in | A quick "How are you arriving today?" using a scale or chart |
| Predictable routines | Clear start and end routines; warning before changes |
| Calm responses | Lowering your voice, using a neutral tone, and speaking privately about problems |
| Restorative conversations | "What happened? Who was affected? What can we do to put it right?" |
| Teach skills explicitly | Practise breathing, naming feelings, and "I" statements as lessons |
| Look after yourself | Teachers' own stress and sleep affect the climate; seek support early |
Homes are where children first learn what feelings are and what to do with them. The psychologists John Gottman, Lynn Katz and Carole Hooven (1996) described parental meta-emotion philosophy: how parents think and feel about their own and their children's emotions. They contrasted emotion coaching parents, who see children's negative emotions as valuable chances for guidance and closeness, with emotion dismissing parents, who try to make negative feelings go away quickly or treat them as unimportant.
A review of the research (Katz, Maliken and Stettler, 2012) concluded that emotion coaching is associated with benefits and emotion dismissing with disadvantages for children's emotion regulation, behavioural adjustment and relationships with peers. The research is largely correlational (families differ in many ways), and it was developed mostly in specific cultural settings, so it should be applied thoughtfully. Even so, it fits the wider evidence that warmth together with clear limits supports children's development.
| Style | What it sounds like | Likely message the child receives |
|---|---|---|
| Dismissing | "Stop crying. It's nothing." | "My feelings do not matter." |
| Disapproving | "Go to your room until you can be nice." | "Having this feeling is wrong." |
| Laissez-faire (accepts but does not guide) | "You're upset. Whatever." | "I'm on my own with big feelings." |
| Emotion coaching | "You seem really disappointed. It's okay to feel that. Let's think about what you can do." | "My feelings are understandable, and I can learn to handle them." |
Notice that coaching does not mean giving in. A parent can say: "I can see you are angry that screen time is over. It is okay to be angry. It is not okay to throw the tablet. What could you do with that angry feeling instead?"
Seven-year-old Maryam screams that she hates bedtime. Dismissing: "Don't be silly. Go to bed." Coaching: The parent crouches down, speaks quietly and says, "You sound really upset. Is it that you are not ready to stop playing, or is something worrying you?" Maryam admits that she is scared of tomorrow's spelling test. The parent says, "That makes sense. Let's do five words together, then it's time for sleep. Tomorrow, we can practise again." The feeling was accepted, the limit (bedtime) stayed, and the real problem was solved.
Adolescents need more independence, but they still need connection. Helpful habits include choosing quiet moments (in the car, while cooking) for conversations, listening before advising, asking "Do you want advice or just someone to listen?", respecting privacy within safety limits, and staying calm when they test rules. Avoid sarcasm and public shaming. Keep clear, agreed rules on safety, sleep and screens, and explain the reasons.
| Situation | Helpful approach |
|---|---|
| Siblings fighting | Separate until calm; let each child give their side without interruption; ask both for ideas; agree on one fair step |
| Parent loses their temper | Pause; later apologise simply: "I shouted. That was not okay. I'm sorry, and I'll try to stay calm next time." |
| Disagreement between adults | Take a time-out if either person is flooded; return to talk using "I" statements; avoid contempt and name-calling |
| Chores and fairness | Hold a short family meeting; list tasks; rotate; praise effort |
| Phones at meals | Agree on a device-free time; adults follow the same rule |
Some families use a short daily check-in at dinner, such as each person naming one high point, one low point and one thing they are looking forward to. This is a practitioner tool, not a research-tested programme, but it builds the habit of naming feelings and listening.
If a child or teenager has frequent and extreme outbursts, withdraws for weeks, stops enjoying everything, has big changes in sleep or eating, or talks about harming themselves or others, speak to a doctor, school counsellor or another qualified professional. If anyone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number or a crisis helpline. If there is violence or abuse at home, contact local child-protection or domestic-violence services.
Workplaces have their own rules about which emotions may be shown, and workers are often asked to manage emotions as part of the job. Meanwhile, EQ has been marketed heavily to employers, so this is the setting where the gap between the claims and the evidence is largest. As we explained in our article on Goleman's components, meta-analyses found that ability-based EI adds only a small amount to predicting job performance beyond personality and intelligence, and slightly more in jobs with high emotional demands. Here we look at three more specific areas of research.
The sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1983) used the term emotional labour for managing your feelings to meet a job's display rules, such as staying cheerful with customers. Researchers separate two strategies:
A meta-analysis by Hülsheger and Schewe (2011) combined 95 studies with 23,574 participants. Surface acting and a mismatch between felt and required emotion had substantial links with impaired well-being (correlations of .39 to .48) and with poorer job attitudes, and a small negative link with performance. Deep acting had weak links with poor well-being and positive links with emotional performance and customer satisfaction (.18 and .37). The practical message for employers is to avoid forcing constant fake cheerfulness and to support staff with training, breaks and fair workloads. For workers, it is better to find authentic ways to see the situation than to wear a mask all day. (Correlations do not prove cause, and some other research suggests deep acting can also be tiring.)
A meta-analysis by De Dreu and Weingart (2003) of 30 studies found strong negative links between relationship conflict (personal friction) and both team performance and member satisfaction. Surprisingly, it also found negative links for task conflict (disagreement about ideas), contrary to the common claim that disagreement about ideas is always beneficial. A later and larger meta-analysis (de Wit, Greer and Jehn, 2012) found that the links for task conflict were weaker and more mixed, depending on conditions. The sensible conclusion is that disagreement is not automatically harmful or helpful. What matters is whether it stays about the task, whether people feel safe, and whether it turns personal.
Moods also spread. In a group experiment (Barsade, 2002), a trained actor joined a group with a pleasant or unpleasant mood, and the group's moods tended to shift in the same direction, with positive moods linked to more cooperation and less conflict. This is called emotional contagion, and it is one reason why leaders' and colleagues' emotional habits matter.
| Workplace situation | Less skilful response | More skilful response |
|---|---|---|
| A colleague criticises your idea | Defend aggressively or go silent | "Can you tell me more about the concern? What would make it work better?" |
| A customer is rude | Argue back, or fake a smile while seething | Take a breath, reappraise ("they may be stressed"), acknowledge the problem and offer a solution |
| You disagree with the plan | Complain privately | State your concern, give your reason, and propose an alternative |
| You made a mistake | Hide it | Report it early, explain facts, say what you will do to fix and prevent it |
| A manager gives unclear instructions | Guess, then feel resentful | Ask: "What does a good result look like? By when?" |
| You feel overloaded | Say yes to everything | Show your list and ask which tasks to prioritise |
Doctors, nurses and carers use emotional skills constantly. A meta-analysis of randomised trials in which the patient-clinician relationship was deliberately varied (Kelley and colleagues, 2014) found a small but statistically significant effect on health outcomes such as blood pressure or pain scores (d = 0.11). The authors noted that only a few trials were designed for this purpose and called for more research. So a good bedside manner matters, but it is not a replacement for medical treatment. Empathy training for clinicians can be effective, as the earlier meta-analysis in our article on empathy shows.
A multilevel meta-analysis (Hodzic and colleagues, 2018) of 24 studies with 28 samples of healthy adults found a moderate improvement in EI scores after training, and the effect was stable at follow-up. A separate meta-analysis of 58 studies (Mattingly and Kraiger, 2019) also found a moderate positive effect, larger for published studies than for dissertations (a sign of possible publication bias). A reasonable reading is that EI skills can be trained, especially when training is longer and practised, but that we have less evidence that training changes real behaviour and job results than that it changes scores on EI measures.
Many companies use EQ tests when hiring. Researchers advise caution. Self-report EI scales overlap strongly with personality traits, and ability tests have debates about scoring. Fairer approaches use structured interviews, work samples and clear criteria, and treat any EI measure, if used at all, as one small piece of information. People should also know how and why their results are being used.
Emotional skill is a tool. Someone who reads people well can use that skill to help or to manipulate. This is why emotional intelligence should always be linked with values: honesty, fairness and respect. A genuinely emotionally intelligent workplace rewards integrity as well as skill.
Rules about showing emotion differ between families, schools, workplaces and cultures. In some settings, open expression of excitement or disagreement is valued; in others, calm restraint shows respect. Emotional intelligence includes reading the context: asking what is expected here, noticing how people respond, and being willing to check ("Is this a good time to talk about it?"). Avoid assuming that your own style is the only correct one, and avoid stereotyping people from any group.
Four moves work in every setting. They draw on the research in this series.
| Move | School | Home | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name it (notice and label the feeling) | "I feel anxious about this test." | "I'm frustrated because I'm tired." | "I'm worried about the deadline." |
| Pause (slow breath, wait before reacting) | Breathe before answering a rude comment | Take a minute before replying to a teenager's door-slam | Wait before replying to an annoying email |
| Listen (ask, reflect, check) | Ask a quiet friend how they are | "Tell me more about what happened." | "Let me check that I understood your concern." |
| Repair (own it, fix it, move on) | Apologise to a teammate and offer to redo your part | "I shouted. I'm sorry. Let's start again." | Report an error early and propose a fix |
| Case | What a skilful response looks like |
|---|---|
| 1. The exam-night panic (school). Sana cannot sleep before an important test. | She names the feeling (anxiety, level 7), does five minutes of slow breathing with long exhales, lists the three topics that worry her most, reviews them briefly, then stops and sleeps. |
| 2. The group-project slacker (school). One teammate has not done his part. | A teammate speaks privately: "I'm worried we will not finish. Is something getting in the way? How can we split what is left?" The teacher is informed only if the problem continues. |
| 3. The slammed door (home). A teenager shouts and slams the door after a row about a phone. | The parent waits, then knocks: "I'd like to understand. I'm listening when you're ready." Later, they explain the rule and listen to the teenager's view. The limit stays; the relationship is protected. |
| 4. The sibling dispute (home). Two brothers argue over a game controller. | Separate briefly; each speaks without interruption; ask, "What do you each need?" Agree on a timetable and shake hands. |
| 5. The rude customer (work). A customer shouts about a delay. | The worker breathes, reappraises ("they are frustrated, not attacking me"), acknowledges ("I understand this is frustrating"), and offers a clear next step. If it becomes abusive, they use the organisation's policy to get support. |
| 6. The feedback conversation (work). A manager must tell an employee that their report was weak. | The manager describes the specific issue and its impact, asks for the employee's view, agrees on a plan and a follow-up date, and ends with something honest and encouraging. |
| Setting | Questions to think about this week |
|---|---|
| School | Who do I go to when I'm struggling? What would help me stay calm in tests? How do I treat classmates who are left out? |
| Home | How do I respond when someone in my family is upset? When did I last apologise properly? What small routine could we add? |
| Work | Which emotions do I hide at work, and what does it cost me? How do I react to feedback? Who could I thank this week? |
| Myth | Fact |
|---|---|
| "Emotional skills are for soft subjects, not academics" | Teacher-student relationships and SEL are linked with engagement and achievement |
| "Any school wellbeing programme will help" | Programmes must be tested; a large school mindfulness trial found no benefit over usual teaching |
| "Accepting a child's feelings means letting them do anything" | Emotion coaching accepts feelings and keeps limits on behaviour |
| "Cheerfulness at work should be constant" | Faking emotions (surface acting) is linked with poorer well-being |
| "Team conflict is always healthy" | Relationship conflict hurts, and even task conflict is not reliably helpful |
| "EQ tests can pick the best employees" | Tests overlap with personality and add little beyond other measures; use caution |
| "You cannot teach emotional skills to adults" | Meta-analyses find moderate gains in EI scores after training |
| "High EQ means being agreeable to everyone" | It includes setting limits, giving honest feedback and managing conflict fairly |
| Week | Focus | School | Home | Work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name it | Name one feeling a day in a journal | Do a daily check-in at dinner | Note one emotion you hid or managed at work |
| 2 | Pause | Practise one slow breath before a test or reply | Pause before reacting to a family irritation | Wait before replying to one difficult message |
| 3 | Listen | Ask a classmate an open question and reflect back | Use one coaching response to a feeling | Ask a colleague: "What would help you most?" |
| 4 | Repair | Apologise or thank someone properly | Offer a full apology if you owe one | Give one piece of specific, kind feedback |
The main claims in this article come from the following published works, which you can find by searching the authors, year and title.
| Topic | Source |
|---|---|
| SEL framework | Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). The CASEL framework. https://casel.org/ |
| RULER trial | Rivers, S. E., Brackett, M. A., Reyes, M. R., Elbertson, N. A., and Salovey, P. (2013). Improving the social and emotional climate of classrooms: A clustered randomized controlled trial testing the RULER approach. Prevention Science, 14, 77-87. |
| Early social competence | Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., and Crowley, M. (2015). Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American Journal of Public Health, 105, 2283-2290. |
| Teacher-student relationships | Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt, J. L., and Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher-student relationships on students' school engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81, 493-529. |
| Anti-bullying programmes | Ttofi, M. M., and Farrington, D. P. (2011). Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 7, 27-56. |
| School mindfulness trial | Kuyken, W., and colleagues (2022). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial. Evidence-Based Mental Health, 25, 99-109. Montero-Marin, J., and colleagues (2022). School-based mindfulness training in early adolescence: what works, for whom and how in the MYRIAD trial? Evidence-Based Mental Health, 25, 117-124. |
| Emotion coaching | Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., and Hooven, C. (1996). Parental meta-emotion philosophy and the emotional life of families. Journal of Family Psychology, 10, 243-268. Katz, L. F., Maliken, A. C., and Stettler, N. M. (2012). Parental meta-emotion philosophy: A review of research and theoretical framework. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 417-422. |
| Emotional labour | Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart. Hülsheger, U. R., and Schewe, A. F. (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 361-389. |
| Team conflict and mood | De Dreu, C. K. W., and Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 741-749. de Wit, F. R. C., Greer, L. L., and Jehn, K. A. (2012). The paradox of intragroup conflict: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 360-390. Barsade, S. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 644-675. |
| Healthcare relationships | Kelley, J. M., Kraft-Todd, G., Schapira, L., Kossowsky, J., and Riess, H. (2014). The influence of the patient-clinician relationship on healthcare outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. PLoS ONE, 9, e94207. |
| EI training | Hodzic, S., Scharfen, J., Ripoll, P., Holling, H., and Zenasni, F. (2018). How efficient are emotional intelligence trainings: A meta-analysis. Emotion Review, 10, 138-148. Mattingly, V., and Kraiger, K. (2019). Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta-analytical investigation. Human Resource Management Review, 29, 140-155. |
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| CASEL | A US organisation whose framework of five social and emotional competences is widely used in schools |
| Deep acting | Genuinely changing how you feel to match what your job requires |
| Emotion coaching | A parenting style that accepts children's feelings, helps name them and guides problem solving, while keeping limits on behaviour |
| Emotional contagion | The spread of moods from one person to others |
| Emotional labour | Managing your emotions to meet the display rules of a job |
| Meta-emotion philosophy | A parent's beliefs and feelings about emotions |
| Relationship conflict | Personal friction between team members |
| Surface acting | Showing an emotion you do not feel |
| Task conflict | Disagreement about ideas, plans or how to do the work |
Emotional skills are not an extra to add after "real" learning, parenting or work. They are part of how learning, caring and working happen. The evidence suggests that warm relationships, clear limits, honest and kind communication, and fair environments matter more than any single technique or test. So choose the setting where you spend most of your day, pick one move from the toolkit, and practise it until it feels natural. Then try it in the next setting.
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