Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient, is the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. High emotional intelligence includes emotional recognition of emotions of the self and others, using emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discerning between and labeling of different feelings, and adjusting emotions to adapt to environments. This includes emotional literacy.
The term first appeared in 1964, gaining popularity in the 1995 bestselling book Emotional Intelligence by psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim that it is innate.
Various models have been developed to measure EI: The trait model focuses on self-reporting behavioral dispositions and perceived abilities; the ability model focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment. Goleman's original model may now be considered a mixed model that combines what has since been modelled separately as ability EI and trait EI.
While some studies show that there is a correlation between high EI and positive workplace performance, there is no general consensus on the issue among psychologists, and no causal relationships have been shown. EI is typically associated with empathy, because it involves a person relating their personal experiences with those of others. Since its popularization in recent decades and links to workplace performance, methods of developing EI have become sought by people seeking to become more effective leaders.
Recent research has focused on emotion recognition, which refers to the attribution of emotional states based on observations of visual and auditory nonverbal cues. In addition, neurological studies have sought to characterize the neural mechanisms of emotional intelligence. Criticisms of EI have centered on whether EI has incremental validity over IQ and the Big Five personality traits. Meta-analyses have found that certain measures of EI have validity even when controlling for both IQ and personality.
History
The concept of emotional strength was introduced by Abraham Maslow in the 1950s. The term "emotional intelligence" may have first appeared in a 1964 paper by Michael Beldoch. and a 1966 paper by B. Leuner.In 1983, Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences introduced the idea that traditional types of intelligence, such as IQ, fail to fully explain cognitive ability. He introduced the idea of multiple intelligences, which included both interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence, which he respectively defined as the capacity to understand others and oneself.
The first published use of the term EQ is in an article by Keith Beasley in 1987 in the British Mensa magazine.
In 1989, Stanley Greenspan proposed a model to describe EI. The following year, Peter Salovey and John Mayer proposed another model.
The term became widely known with the publication of Daniel Goleman's 1995 book: Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ. Goleman followed up with several similar publications that reinforce use of the term. Late in 1998, Goleman's Harvard Business Review article entitled "What Makes a Leader?" caught the attention of senior management at Johnson & Johnson's Consumer Companies. The article argued that EI comprised the skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance. Johnson & Johnson funded a study which concluded that there was a strong relationship between superior performing leaders and emotional competence, supporting theorists' suggestions that the EI is a distinguishing factor in leadership performance.
Tests measuring EI have not replaced IQ tests as a standard metric of intelligence. In later research, EI has received criticism regarding its purported role in leadership and business success.
Definitions
Emotional intelligence has been defined by Peter Salovey and John Mayer as "accurately perceiving emotion, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotion, and managing emotion". The concept comprises both emotional and intellectual processes.Emotional intelligence also reflects an ability to use intelligence, empathy, and emotions to enhance understanding of interpersonal dynamics. However, substantial disagreement exists regarding the definition of EI, with respect to both terminology and operationalization. Currently, there are three main models of EI: The ability model defines EI in terms of cognitive and emotional abilities; the mixed model, introduced by Daniel Goleman, comprises a variety of emotional competencies, sometimes being regarded as a form of trait EI; the trait model defines EI as comprising traits within a personality trait theory framework.
Different models of EI have led to the development of various instruments for the assessment of the construct. While some of these measures may overlap, most researchers agree that they relate to different constructs.
Models
Based on theoretical and methodological approaches, EI measures are categorized in three main streams: ability-based measures, self-reports of abilities measures, and mixed-models, which include measures of EI and traditional social skills.Ability model
Salovey and Mayer's define EI within the confines of the standard criteria for a new intelligence. Their initial definition of EI had been "the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior". They later revised the definition to "the ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions, and to regulate emotions to promote personal growth." After further research, their definition of EI evolved into "the capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions, to enhance thinking. It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth."The ability-based model views emotions as useful sources of information that help one to make sense of and navigate the social environment, with EI abilities manifesting in adaptive behaviors. It proposes that individuals vary in their ability to process information of an emotional nature and in their ability to relate emotional processing to wider cognition.
The model claims that EI includes four types of abilities:
- Perceiving emotions: the ability to detect and decipher emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artifacts—including the ability to identify one's own emotions. Perceiving emotions is a basic aspect of emotional intelligence, as it makes all other processing of emotional information possible.
- Using emotions: the ability to harness emotions to facilitate various cognitive activities, such as thinking and problem-solving. The emotionally intelligent person can capitalize fully upon his or her changing moods in order to best fit the task at hand.
- Understanding emotions: the ability to comprehend emotion language and to appreciate complicated relationships among emotions. For example, understanding emotions encompasses the ability to be sensitive to slight variations between emotions, and the ability to recognize and describe how emotions evolve over time.
- Managing emotions: the ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and in others. The emotionally intelligent person can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals.
Measurement
The current measure of Mayer and Salovey's model of EI, the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, is based on a series of emotion-based problem-solving items. Consistent with the model's claim of EI as a type of intelligence, the test is modeled on ability-based IQ tests. By testing a person's abilities on each of the four branches of emotional intelligence, it generates scores for each of the branches as well as a total score.Central to the four-branch model is the idea that EI requires attunement to social norms. Therefore, the MSCEIT is scored in a consensus fashion, with higher scores indicating higher overlap between an individual's answers and those provided by a worldwide sample of respondents. The MSCEIT can also be expert-scored so that the amount of overlap is calculated between an individual's answers and those provided by a group of 21 emotion researchers.
Although promoted as an ability test, the MSCEIT test is unlike standard IQ tests in that its items do not have objectively correct responses. Among other challenges, the consensus scoring criterion means that it is impossible to create items that only a minority of respondents can solve, because, by definition, responses are deemed emotionally "intelligent" only if the majority of the sample has endorsed them. This and other similar problems have led some cognitive ability experts to question the definition of EI as a genuine intelligence.
In a study by Føllesdal, the MSCEIT test results of 111 business leaders were compared with how their employees described their leader. It was found that there were no correlations between a leader's test results and how he or she was rated by the employees, with regard to empathy, ability to motivate, and leader effectiveness. Føllesdal also criticized the Canadian company Multi-Health Systems, which administers the test. The test contains 141 questions, but it was found after publishing the test that 19 of these did not give the expected answers. This has led Multi-Health Systems to remove answers to these 19 questions before scoring.