Books like Emotional Intelligence

01

Nonviolent Communication

Marshall B. Rosenberg · Self-help

Nonviolent Communication is Marshall Rosenberg's framework for communicating in ways that preserve connection and address needs rather than triggering defensiveness.

Shares self-awareness and empathy with Emotional Intelligence.

02

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

Lisa Feldman Barrett · Psychology

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a neuroscientist and psychologist at Northeastern University who has spent thirty years studying emotion, and her conclusion challenges the most widely held view of what emotions are.

Both dig into brain science.

03

Primal Leadership

Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee · Business

Primal Leadership is the application of emotional intelligence to organizational leadership, written by Daniel Goleman with Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee.

Shares emotional intelligence and self-awareness with Emotional Intelligence.

04

Stumbling on Happiness

Daniel Gilbert · Psychology

Daniel Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist whose central finding, after decades of studying affective forecasting, is that humans are systematically wrong about what will make them happy.

A kindred psychology read.

05

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain

Lisa Feldman Barrett · Psychology

Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote this short book — genuinely short at under thirty thousand words — as an accessible introduction to seven core findings of modern neuroscience, each presented as a lesson that overturns something most people believe.

Both dig into brain science.

06

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp · Business

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership is organized around a single distinction: whether a leader is operating from "above the line" (open, curious, committed to learning) or "below the line" (defensive, closed, committed to being right).

Shares emotional intelligence and self-awareness with Emotional Intelligence.

07

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Paul Bloom · Psychology

Paul Bloom's argument is not that we should care less about others.

Both dig into empathy.

08

Atlas of the Heart

Brené Brown · Psychology

Atlas of the Heart is Brené Brown's attempt to map eighty-seven distinct human emotions and experiences — not as a clinical taxonomy but as a practical vocabulary for people who want to communicate more precisely about what they feel.

Both dig into self-awareness.

09

Immunity to Change

Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey · Psychology

Immunity to Change is Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey's attempt to explain why intelligent, motivated people fail to change behavior they genuinely want to change.

Both dig into self-awareness.

10

Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil

Paul Bloom · Psychology

Paul Bloom's central question is how much morality is innate versus learned.

Both dig into empathy.

11

Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

Daniel J. Siegel · Psychology

Mindsight is Daniel Siegel's case that humans have a distinct capacity he calls "mindsight" — the ability to sense and shape one's own mental processes and to perceive the inner lives of others.

Both dig into self-awareness.

12

On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Carl R. Rogers · Psychology

Carl Rogers wrote this book in 1961 as an attempt to communicate his therapeutic approach to readers outside the consulting room.

Both dig into empathy.