Types of Faith and Emotional Intelligence

In this article, I depict four types of relational faith (functional-cooperative, oppositional-closed, mutual-person, and transcendent) and their relation to emotional intelligence. I begin with a brief definition of emotional intelligence, as well as the research that has supported a shift in understanding the necessity of emotions in cognitive and social development. This sets the stage for describing the types of relational faith, using the notion of emotional intelligence to differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive manifestations of each faith type. This perspective serves as a lens for identifying the varied and complex types of faith-relations manifested in daily life within or outside of the church, synagogue or mosque.