From Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to Emotional Quotient (EQ) to Social Fitness!

by Dr Bibiana Chan

I once heard this anonymous quote, ‘IQ got you the job, EQ got you the promotion!’ I may add one more ‘Social Fitness got you to live a long and healthy (both physical and mental) life!’ This is my story.

Every October, I’ll get ready some ‘Stress-less Postcards’ created by WayAhead’ to hand out at various events held by CFS to promote mental wellbeing. This October, I was naïve enough to ‘cramped’ 3 creative workshops (as part of Willoughby City Council’s EMERGE Festival) over 3 weekends of the Sept/Oct school holidays. Two of which were scheduled in the first week of Oct. The primary goal was to avoid direct competition with Sat Sports, music tutorials and dance lessons. I also worked with a few members to pilot a new Resin Art Workshop to be offered at the end of Nov.  I was totally exhausted and neglected my own mental health. I felt like my ‘battery had died’ and truly need a super-charge!

The adoption of this kind of jargons to treat the human body as a battery-operated robot requiring constant charging is very common. These days, robots have already replaced many tasks once performed by human (e.g. clearing landmines).  In the not-too-far future, generative A.I. may take over jobs which could be programed following pre-set algorithms to ‘predict’ human behaviours (IQ may not get you a job then). AI will provide the corresponding responses or actions. Many of us have encountered chat box (with built-in limited standard answers) when responding to online enquiries. I was very frustrated when I tried to lodge a complaint to Aust Post regarding a lost parcel. While the ‘non-human agent’ threw a bunch of standard answers to my question, I also learnt how to ‘earn’ my way to a human agent. When I was finally put on hold to wait for a human voice to talk to me, my call was disconnected due to the waiting time surpassed the pre-set cut-off. There was no pathway for me to skip the initial obstacles and no guarantee that I wouldn’t get hung up again! At that point, I stopped to ‘contain my negative emotions’ (anger, frustration and helplessness). Perhaps my EQ saved me from fighting an unwinnable battle with an AI. 

Imagine if an AI is to deliver therapeutic services to a client on waiting list to see a human therapist (be it a psychologist or a psychiatrist) due to the 3 – 4 months wait time. The ‘data’ being fed into the AI therapist, the algorithms to be followed and the process to alert a human mental health professionals must be carefully planned and implemented. Rigorous research evidence to support the use of AI in clinical setting must be obtained before it could be rolled out. We are dealing with the most vulnerable group of people requiring mental health services. Apparently, the current version of Chat-GPT 4.0 has been ‘fed’ data from a wide range of books and documents equivalent of a human being continuously reading for 47 years! 

The future of a blended model of care (human assisted by AI) seems to be the way forward. I attended a recent ‘Digital Mental Health Policy Forum’ hosted by the Black Dog Institute (BDI). When 80 participants attending the forum were asked about what kind of model of care will they be confident to adopt, close to 80% chose blended care. However, I have doubts on how to feed ‘empathy’ into AI to boost its EQ? Human must use AI wisely and ethically to maximise benefits and minimise harm.

While everyone was excited about what new technology like AI may advance mankind, researchers at BDI reminded us of a “Harvard Study of Adult Development’ which followed their participants for 85 years. The key findings point to a piece of golden advice: ‘Social Fitness (embracing relationships and connections) will give you a long and healthy life’. To me, growing up in a collectively oriented culture like Hong Kong, this is just common sense. Embracing a community spirit to support each other through thin or thick is the key to a happy life. However, these relationships must be nurtured, i.e. quality is of utmost importance. My next question is HOW & HOW OFTEN? I guess there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ formula for every relationship. Prof Robert Waldinger (Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development) explained,

 “Social connections are really good for us and that loneliness kills. Those socially connected to family, friends and community are happier and they’re physically healthier and they live longer. The quality of your close relationships matters. Good close relationships seem to buffer us from some of the slings and arrows of getting old. .. Good relationships not just protect our bodies but also our brains.”

Imagine ‘social fitness’ can be trained like going to a gym’s weight-training session to build muscle strength. The first step is to take stock of your relationships. Click here to find out more. Good Luck!

Note: you might have noticed the Book Review in this issue is co-written by Bibi and Chat-GPT!