How Men Can Build Emotional Intelligence — A Practical Guide
Last reviewed by the Men Women Psychology editorial team.
The evidence
What the research actually shows
Mayer and Salovey (1997) defined emotional intelligence as a hierarchy of related abilities: accurately perceiving emotions, using them to aid thinking, understanding emotional meaning, and managing emotions in oneself and others. Framed this way, emotional intelligence resembles a skill set that can be trained, much like literacy or numeracy, rather than a trait people are simply born with or without.
Where average differences appear, the evidence points more toward upbringing than wiring. Levant and colleagues (2009) documented what they call normative male alexithymia — a learned difficulty putting feelings into words that tracks with how strictly someone was socialized into traditional masculine norms. The feelings are present; the practiced vocabulary and permission to use it often are not, and both can be developed.
Regulation, a core part of emotional intelligence, is also trainable. Gross and John (2003) found that people who habitually use cognitive reappraisal — reframing how they interpret a situation — tend to report more positive emotion, better relationships, and higher well-being than those who rely on suppression. None of this is unique to men, and Hyde's (2005) review suggests the sexes are far more alike than different on most emotional measures.
The mechanism
Why this happens
From early childhood, many boys receive subtly different emotional coaching than girls. Caregivers and peers often discuss a narrower range of feelings with boys, reward toughness, and discourage tears or fear. Over years, this can leave some men with fewer practiced words for their inner states and less rehearsal at the basic skill of pausing to ask what they are actually feeling.
Because emotional skills compound with practice, early under-rehearsal can snowball. A man who rarely names feelings gets fewer chances to refine the distinctions between, say, anxiety, frustration, and disappointment — and those blurry distinctions make regulation harder, since it is difficult to manage an emotion you cannot identify. The encouraging implication is that the loop runs the other way too: practice reliably sharpens it.
There is also a permission dimension. Many men report believing that examining emotions is unproductive or unmanly. Mayer and Salovey's model reframes the work as competence rather than weakness — reading a room, staying steady under pressure, and repairing a tense conversation are all high-skill abilities, which can make the practice feel less like surrender and more like growth.
In practice
What this looks like in real life
A man who snaps at his partner after a hard day may not register that the irritation is really exhaustion and worry about work. Building the perceiving skill looks like a brief internal check — naming 'I'm tense and tired' — which often takes the charge out of the reaction before it lands on someone else.
Vocabulary practice can be small and concrete. Some men keep a short daily note of one feeling and what prompted it, gradually trading vague labels like 'fine' or 'stressed' for more precise ones. Over weeks, the finer distinctions tend to make both self-understanding and conversations with others noticeably easier.
Reappraisal shows up in everyday reframes. Instead of reading a partner's quietness as rejection, a man practicing this skill might consider that she is tired or preoccupied — a shift that tends to lower his own reactivity and leaves room to simply ask, rather than assume.
Myth vs. evidence
What most people get wrong about this
A common misconception is that emotional intelligence means becoming more emotional or constantly talking about feelings. The research describes the opposite balance: it is partly the skill of regulating emotion so it informs decisions without hijacking them. Steadiness under pressure is a sign of high emotional intelligence, not its absence.
Another mistake is treating it as a fixed trait — believing some men simply 'aren't emotional people.' The evidence on alexithymia and reappraisal suggests these are practiced capacities. Difficulty naming or managing feelings usually reflects limited rehearsal, not a permanent ceiling, and tends to improve with deliberate effort.
Why it matters
What this means for relationships
For couples, a partner's growing emotional skill tends to reduce the cycle where unspoken stress leaks out as irritability or withdrawal. Naming a feeling — even imperfectly — gives the other person something to respond to, which often defuses conflict faster than either silence or blame.
It helps to treat this as a shared, low-pressure project rather than a demand. Asking a guarded partner to 'open up' on the spot can backfire; offering safety, patience, and modeling the behavior yourself tends to work better. The skills grow with practice, so progress is usually gradual rather than sudden.
Where it varies
The nuance
These are averages, and the overlap between men and women is large. Hyde's gender similarities hypothesis (2005) finds the sexes far more alike than different on most psychological measures, including emotional ability. Plenty of men are highly emotionally skilled, and plenty of women struggle with the same things — sex predicts far less than individual history and practice.
Personality, culture, and upbringing shape the starting point more than gender does. A man raised in an emotionally expressive family may begin with a rich vocabulary; another may have years of catching up to do. The consistent finding is that the trajectory, not the starting point, is what deliberate practice changes.
Questions people ask about this
Can emotional intelligence actually be learned, or is it fixed?
Research frames emotional intelligence as a set of learnable abilities rather than a fixed trait. Mayer and Salovey's model treats perceiving, understanding, and regulating emotions as skills that improve with practice. The difficulty many people have is usually about limited rehearsal, not a permanent ceiling.
Why do some men struggle to name their feelings?
Levant and colleagues describe normative male alexithymia — a learned difficulty putting feelings into words that tracks with strict masculine socialization. The feelings are present; the practiced vocabulary often isn't. This tends to improve as men deliberately practice noticing and labeling emotions over time.
What's the single most useful skill to start with?
Many find that simply naming the emotion in the moment is the highest-leverage starting point. Pausing to ask 'what am I actually feeling?' often takes the charge out of a reaction and makes regulation possible, since it is hard to manage an emotion you cannot identify.
Does building emotional intelligence mean becoming more sensitive or less tough?
Not really. The research describes it partly as regulating emotion so it informs decisions without overwhelming them. Staying steady under pressure and repairing a tense conversation are high-skill abilities. It tends to make people more composed, not more fragile.
What is cognitive reappraisal and why does it matter?
Reappraisal means reframing how you interpret a situation before reacting. Gross and John found people who habitually reappraise tend to report more positive emotion and better relationships than those who suppress feelings. It is one of the more reliably trainable regulation skills.
How long does it take to see a difference?
There is no fixed timeline, and it varies by person and starting point. Because these are practiced skills, change tends to be gradual rather than sudden. Small daily habits — naming one feeling, trying one reframe — usually compound over weeks and months rather than days.
Research sources
These references point to the published research and established frameworks behind this page. They are provided for further reading; see our research methodology for how sources are selected.
- Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence.
- Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362.
- Levant, R. F., Hall, R. J., Williams, C. M., & Hasan, N. T. (2009). Gender differences in alexithymia. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 10(3), 190–203.
- Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299.
- Hyde, J. S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60(6), 581–592.