History and Definition of "Emotional Intelligence"
In 1985 a graduate student at an alternative liberal arts college in the USA
wrote a doctoral
dissertation which included the term "emotional intelligence" in the title. This seems to
be the
first academic use of the term "emotional intelligence."
Then in 1990 the work of two American university professors, John Mayer and Peter
Salovey,
was published in two academic journal articles. Mayer, (U. of New Hampshire), and Salovey
(Yale), were trying to develop a way of scientifically measuring the difference between
people's ability in the area of emotions. They found that some people were better than others
at things like identifying their own feelings, identifying the feelings of others, and solving
problems involving emotional issues.
Since 1990 these professors have developed two tests to attempt to measure what they are
calling our "emotional intelligence." Because nearly all of their writing has been done in
the
academic community, their names and their actual research findings are not widely known.
Instead, the person most commonly associated with the term emotional intelligence
is actually a
New York writer named Daniel
Goleman.
Goleman had been writing articles for the magazine
Popular Psychology and then later for the New York Times newspaper. Around 1994 and
early 1995 he was evidently planning to write a book about "emotional literacy." For that
book
he was visiting schools to see what programs they had for developing emotional literacy. He
was also doing a lot of reading about emotions in general. In his reading he came upon the
work of Mayer and Salovey. At some point it seems Goleman or his publisher decided to
change the title of his upcoming book to "Emotional Intelligence." (For a very interesting
and
well written story on the history of emotional intelligence see this Article by Annie Paul)
So in 1995 the book "Emotional Intelligence" was published. The book
made it to the cover of
Time Magazine, at least in the American market. Goleman began appearing on American
television shows such as Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue. He also began a speaking tour to
promote the book. As a result of his own and his publisher's efforts, the book became an
international best seller. It remained on the New York Times best-seller list for approximately
one year, which one can assume made Daniel Goleman a multi-millionaire.
In his book he collected a lot of interesting information on the brain, emotions,
and behavior.
Goleman offered very few of his own ideas, though he did share a few of his personal
prejudices and beliefs. Mostly what he did was collect the work of many others, organize it,
and dramatize it. On my Daniel
Goleman
page you can read my notes and criticisms of the
book, but for now I will just say that in my opinion Goleman basically stole the term "emotional
intelligence" from Mayer and Salovey and greatly misrepresented the public about what
emotional intelligence actually is.
Since his rise to fame in 1995, Goleman seems to have ignored the actual research
on
emotional intelligence and moved even further from scientific truth. This, however, does not
seem to have stopped his popularity as a speaker and consultant, and most people still believe
that his version of emotional intelligence is the correct one. So many people have now taken
hold of his version of emotional intelligence, cited him as the "guru" and promoted his
misleading version of emotional intelligence that it is now difficult to separate truth from fiction.
While I believe there definitely is validity to the concept of emotional intelligence
as Mayer and
Salovey are attempting to establish it, Goleman has unfortunately made wildly exaggerated and
premature claims about what it is and what it means. After writing his 1995 book, for example,
Goleman found out that business managers were willing to pay big money for his ideas.
Goleman capitalized on this. He quit his job writing for the New York Times, and started his
own consulting practice and a "consortium," both of which cater to multi-national corporations.
He also quickly put together another book specifically for the business market. In that book he
stretched the definition of emotional intelligence even farther, claiming that it consists of 25
"skills, abilities and competencies". It may be no coincidence that these kinds of competencies
are just the kinds of things which large corporations (who can afford high-priced consultants)
want in their employees. For that reason I call Goleman's version of emotional intelligence the
"corporate definition."
For a more thorough explanation of why Goleman's corporate definition of EI is
misleading,
see my article originally published in
HR.com or the articles: Models
of emotional intelligence
and Emotional
Intelligence as Zeitgeist, as Personality, and as a Mental Ability, both written by
Mayer, Salovey and Caruso. Reprints are available at no charge from akendal@cisunix.unh.edu
You
may also read a few of my own notes on these articles.
Mayer and Salovey, though, have been very cautious about making claims as to
what
emotional intelligence means on a practical level and what it might predict in terms of "success",
happiness or the "ideal" member of society. In my opinion they have much more integrity than
Goleman and they seem to be more interested in scientific truth than in making money.
Here I will discuss only the definition of emotional intelligence as proposed
by Mayer, Salovey
and their recent colleague David Caruso. (Referred to below as MSC.)
MSC suggest that EI is a true form of intelligence which has not been scientifically
measured
until they began their research work. One definition they propose is "the ability to process
emotional information, particularly as it involves the perception, assimilation, understanding,
and management of emotion." (Mayer and Cobb, 2000)
Elsewhere they go into more detail, explaining that it consists of these "four
branches of mental
ability":
1. Emotional identification, perception and expression
2. Emotional facilitation of thought
3. Emotional understanding
4. Emotional management
In one publication they describe these areas as follows:
The first, Emotional Perception, involves such abilities as identifying emotions
in faces,
music, and stories.
The second, Emotional Facilitation of Thought, involves such abilities as relating
emotions to other mental sensations such as taste and color (relations that might be
employed in artwork), and using emotion in reasoning and problem solving. (Also:
"integrating emotions in thought," Mayer and Cobb)
The third area, Emotional Understanding involves solving emotional problems such
as
knowing which emotions are similar, or opposites, and what relations they convey.
The fourth area, Emotional Management involves understanding the implications
of
social acts on emotions and the regulation of emotion in self and others.
(see
reference
in Selecting a Measure of Emotional Intelligence: The
Case for Ability Scales, 2000)
In a 1997 publication Mayer and Salovey listed these branches as follows and
offered a
detailed chart reflecting their thoughts. In that article they say that the branches in the chart are
"arranged from more basic psychological processes to higher, more psychologically integrated
processes. For example, the lowest level branch concerns the (relatively) simple abilities of
perceiving and expressing emotion. In contrast, the highest level branch concerns the
conscious, reflective regulation of emotion." They add that abilities that emerge relatively early
in development are to the left of a given branch; later developing abilities are to the right."
And
they also say that, "people high in emotional intelligence are expected to progress more quickly
through the abilities designated and to master more of them." (From
What is Emotional Intelligence,
by John Mayer and Peter Salovey. Chapter 1, pp. 10,11 in Emotional Development and Emotional
Intelligence: Educational Implications, by Peter Salovey and David Sluyter. 1997.)
The Four branches of EI:
1. Perception Appraisal and Expression of Emotion
2. Emotional Facilitation of Thinking
3. Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge
4. Reflective Regulation of Emotions to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth
Perception,
Appraisal and Expression of Emotion
|
Ability to identify
emotion in one's
physical states,
feelings, and
thoughts.
|
Ability to identify emotions in
other people, designs,
artwork, etc. through
language, sound, appearance,
and behavior.
|
Ability to express
emotions accurately,
and to express needs
related to those
feelings.
|
Ability to discriminate
between accurate and
inaccurate, or honest vs.
dishonest expressions of
feeling.
|
Emotional
Facilitation of Thinking
|
Emotions prioritize
thinking by
directing attention
to important
information.
|
Emotions are
sufficiently vivid and
available that they can
be generated as aids to
judgment and memory
concerning feelings.
|
Emotional mood swings
change the individual's
perspective from optimistic
to pessimistic, encouraging
consideration of multiple
points of view.
|
Emotional states
differentially encourage
specific problem-solving
approaches such as when
happiness facilitates
inductive reasoning and
creativity.
|
Understanding
and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge
|
Ability to label emotions
and recognize relations
among the words and the
emotions themselves,
such as the relation
between liking and
loving.
|
Ability to interpret the
meanings that emotions
convey regarding
relationships, such as
that sadness often
accompanies a loss.
|
Ability to understand
complex feelings:
simultaneous feelings of
love and hate or blends
such as awe as a
combination of fear and
surprise.
|
Ability to recognize
likely transitions among
emotions, such as the
transition from anger to
satisfaction or from
anger to shame.
|
Reflective
Regulation of Emotion to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth
|
Ability to stay open
to feelings, both
those that are
pleasant and those
that are unpleasant.
|
Ability to reflectively
engage or detach from an
emotion depending upon
its judged
informativeness or utility.
|
Ability to reflectively
monitor emotions in
relation to oneself and
others, such as
recognizing how clear,
typical, influential or
reasonable they are.
|
Ability to manage emotion in
oneself and others by
moderating negative emotions
and enhancing pleasant ones,
without repressing or
exaggerating information they
may convey.
|
I have a few concerns about their definition and some suggestions I would like
them to
consider.
First, I would like to see them focus more on the idea that intelligence is potential. An
infant
can be intelligent, for example, without being able to read, write or take intelligence tests. In
other words, he may have no demonstrable abilities as yet, but he may have extremely high
potential ability. He simply has not had a chance to develop his potential and his intelligence
into competencies which can be measured by any existing tests.
The word "ability" itself can have two meanings. First, it can mean
potential, yet undeveloped
ability. Second, it can mean potential which has been developed into something which can be
demonstrated, measured or tested. At present it is impossible to measure pure potential, thus
the MSC tests (MEIS
and MSCEIT)
focus on only the second form of ability. (I suspect,
though, that one day brain scanning devices will be able to tells us much more about a baby's
potential.)
Second, their definition and the way they discuss EI in their writing ignores
the fact that a child
can start out with high innate emotional intelligence and then be emotionally damaged. (I
discuss this further in my section on EI vs EQ.) I would like to see them address this more in
their work.
Third, I would like to see them emphasize that an emotionally intelligent person
is capable of
mastering an extensive vocabulary of what I call feeling words. By mastering I mean having the
ability to not only perceive an extensive range of feelings in oneself and others, but also to
quickly assign the most specific label to the feeling, for example in conversation with others or
in self-reflection. In some of their writing MSC do include the ability to express emotion as
part of their first branch of EI, but they seem to limit their test to only a few emotions
compared with the much broader available scope of feeling words which are available in the
English language.
Fourth, in the section on emotional understanding much of this is probably better
called
knowledge of emotions, rather than an aspect of emotional intelligence itself. Knowledge can
be taught but intelligence represents potential before any learning has taken place. Of course, if
one is more intelligent, emotionally or otherwise, this learning takes place faster and can go
further.
Fifth, is my concern with measuring emotional facilitation of thought and emotional
management. I don't see how you can really do this with a paper and pencil test. The MSC
team say they are measuring some of these things with their tests, but it is hard to say how
much their test scores reflect actual ability in real life situations, or when under extreme stress.
And these are the situations when highly developed emotional intelligence may be the most
important.
Finally their definition is a bit too abstract for me when it comes to things
like identifying
emotion in art and music. I found this section of their CD ROM test a little hard to take
seriously when it asks you to look at a graphic design and try to guess what emotions it is
conveying. Therefore I would like to see them test for something like the ability to identify
emotion in tone of voice or body language instead.
Now I will give you my adaptation of their definition.
1. Emotional identification, perception and expression
- The ability to perceive
and identify emotions in faces, tone of voice, body language
- The capacity for self-awareness:
being aware of your own feelings as they are
occurring
- The capacity for emotional
literacy. Being able to label specific feelings in yourself and
others; being able to discuss emotions and communicate clearly and directly.
2. Emotional facilitation of thought
- The ability to incorporate
feelings into analysis, reasoning, problem solving and
decision making
- The potential of your feelings
to guide you to what is important to think about
3. Emotional understanding
- The ability to solve emotional
problems
- The ability to identify
and understand the inter-relationships beween emotions, thoughts
and behavior. For example, to see cause and effect relationships such as how thoughts
can affect emotions or how emotions can affect thoughts, and how your emotions can
lead to the behavior in yourself and others.
- The ability to understand
the value of emotions to the survival of the species
4. Emotional management
- The ability to take responsibility
for one's own emotions and happiness
- The ability to turn negative
emotions into positive learning and growing opportunities
- The ability to help others
identify and benefit from their emotions
Because the above attempt at a definition is still a bit cumbersome, here are
two less
complicated ways to look at it:
The mental ability we are born with which gives our emotional sensitivity and
potential
for emotional management skills that help us maximize our long term health, happiness
and survival.
Or more simple yet:
Knowing how to separate healthy from unhealthy feelings and how to turn negative
feelings into positive ones.
For a more detailed description of the definitions used by Mayer et al, see the academic section
Innate Emotional Intelligence vs "EQ"
Most writers interchange the terms EQ and emotional intelligence. In my writing,
however, I
make a distinction between the two. I use emotional intelligence to refer to a person's innate
potential. I believe each baby is born with a certain potential for emotional sensitivity,
emotional memory, emotional processing and emotional learning ability. It is these four inborn
components which I believe form the core of one's emotional intelligence.
This innate intelligence can be either developed or damaged with life experiences,
particularly
by the emotional lessons taught by the parents, teachers, caregivers and family during
childhood and adolescence. The impact of these lessons results in what I refer to as one's level
of "EQ." in other words, as I use the term, "EQ" represents a relative measure of
a person's
healthy or unhealthy development of their innate emotional intelligence.
When I say "EQ" I am not talking about a numerical test score like
IQ. It is simply a
convenient name I am using. As far as I know, I am the only writer who is making a distinction
between inborn potential and later development or damage. I believe it is possible for a child
to begin life with a high level of innate emotional intelligence, but then learn unhealthy emotional
habits from living in an abusive home. Such a child will grow up to have what I would call low
EQ. I would suspect that abused, neglected and emotionally damaged children will score much
lower on the existing emotional intelligence tests compared to others having the same actual
original emotional intelligence at birth.
As I see it, I believe, then, that it is possible for a person to start out with
high EI, but then be
emotionally damaged in early childhood, causing a low EQ later in life. On the other hand, I
believe it is possible for a child to start out with relatively low EI, but receive healthy emotional
modeling, nurturing etc., which will result in moderately high EQ. Let me stress however that I
believe it is much easier to damage a high EI child than to develop the EQ of a low EI child.
This follows the principle that it is generally easier to destroy than create.
In comparison to say, mathematical intelligence, it is important to note that
relatively few
people start out with high innate mathematical abilities and then have this ability damaged
through misleading or false math training or modeling. I say relatively few because I mean in
comparison to the number of emotionally sensitive children who receive unhealthy and self-
destructive emotional imprinting from any number of sources. Parents and television shows
don't generally teach that 2+2=968. But they do often teach emotional lessons which are as
equivalent in unhealthiness as this equation is in inaccuracy. Or we might say which would be
as damaging to an intimate relationship as the false equation would be to the career of an
accountant.
At present, all other models of emotional intelligence, including even the most
"pure" of the
group, the Mayer/Salovey/Caruso model, combine the measurement of the innate emotional
variables (sensitivity, memory, processing and learning) with the environmental affects on those
same variables. Certain writers have defined intelligence in general as "potential." (1) I agree
with this and this is why I want to distinguish between EI and EQ.
Notes
1. For example, Howard Gardner in "A case against spiritual intelligence."
