Emotional Intelligence : Implications for Personal , Social , Academic , and Workplace Success

This article presents an overview of the ability model of emotional intelligence and includes a discussion about how and why the concept became useful in both educational and workplace settings. We review the four underlying emotional abilities comprising emotional intelligence and the assessment tools that that have been developed to measure the construct. A primary goal is to provide a review of the research describing the correlates of emotional intelligence. We describe what is known about how emotionally intelligent people function both intraand interpersonally and in both academic and workplace settings. The facts point in one direction: The job offer you have in hand is perfect – great salary, ideal location, and tremendous growth opportunities. Yet, there is something that makes you feel uneasy about resigning from your current position and moving on. What will you do? Ignore the feeling and choose what appears to be the logical path, or go with your gut and risk disappointing your family? Or, might you consider both your thoughts and feelings about the job in order to make the decision? Solving problems and making wise decisions using both thoughts and feelings or logic and intuition is a part of what we refer to as emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Linking emotions and intelligence was relatively novel when first introduced in a theoretical model about twenty years ago (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; but see Gardner, 1983 ⁄1993). Among the many questions posed by both researchers and laypersons alike were: Is emotional intelligence an innate, nonmalleable mental ability? Can it be acquired with instruction and training? Is it a new intelligence or just the repackaging of existing constructs? How can it be measured reliably and validly? What does the existence of an emotional intelligence mean in everyday life? In what ways does emotional intelligence affect mental health, relationships, daily decisions, and academic and workplace performance? In this article, we provide an overview of the theory of emotional intelligence, including a brief discussion about how and why the concept has been used in both educational and workplace settings. Because the field is now replete with articles, books, and training manuals on the topic – and because the definitions, claims, and measures of emotional intelligence have become extremely diverse – we also clarify definitional and measurement issues. A final goal is to provide an up-to-date review of the research describing what the lives of emotionally intelligent people ‘look like’ personally, socially, academically, and in the workplace. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/1 (2011): 88–103, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00334.x a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd What is Emotional Intelligence? Initial conception of emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence was described formally by Salovey and Mayer (1990). They defined it as ‘the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’ (p. 189). They also provided an initial empirical demonstration of how an aspect of emotional intelligence could be measured as a mental ability (Mayer, DiPaolo, & Salovey, 1990). In both articles, emotional intelligence was presented as a way to conceptualize the relation between cognition and affect. Historically, ‘emotion’ and ‘intelligence’ were viewed as being in opposition to one another (Lloyd, 1979). How could one be intelligent about the emotional aspects of life when emotions derail individuals from achieving their goals (e.g., Young, 1943)? The theory of emotional intelligence suggested the opposite: emotions make cognitive processes adaptive and individuals can think rationally about emotions. Emotional intelligence is an outgrowth of two areas of psychological research that emerged over forty years ago. The first area, cognition and affect, involved how cognitive and emotional processes interact to enhance thinking (Bower, 1981; Isen, Shalker, Clark, & Karp, 1978; Zajonc, 1980). Emotions like anger, happiness, and fear, as well as mood states, preferences, and bodily states, influence how people think, make decisions, and perform different tasks (Forgas & Moylan, 1987; Mayer & Bremer, 1985; Salovey & Birnbaum, 1989). The second was an evolution in models of intelligence itself. Rather than viewing intelligence strictly as how well one engaged in analytic tasks associated with memory, reasoning, judgment, and abstract thought, theorists and investigators began considering intelligence as a broader array of mental abilities (e.g., Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Gardner, 1983 ⁄1993; Sternberg, 1985). Sternberg (1985), for example, urged educators and scientists to place an emphasis on creative abilities and practical knowledge that could be acquired through careful navigation of one’s everyday environment. Gardner’s (1983) ‘personal intelligences,’ including the capacities involved in accessing one’s own feeling life (intrapersonal intelligence) and the ability to monitor others’ emotions and mood (interpersonal intelligence), provided a compatible backdrop for considering emotional intelligence as a viable construct. Popularization of emotional intelligence The term ‘emotional intelligence’ was mostly unfamiliar to researchers and the general public until Goleman (1995) wrote the best-selling trade book, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More than IQ. The book quickly caught the eye of the media, public, and researchers. In it, Goleman described how scientists had discovered a connection between emotional competencies and prosocial behavior; he also declared that emotional intelligence was both an answer to the violence plaguing our schools and ‘as powerful and at times more powerful than IQ’ in predicting success in life (Goleman, 1995; p. 34). Both in the 1995 book and in a later book focusing on workplace applications of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1998), Goleman described the construct as an array of positive attributes including political awareness, self-confidence, conscientiousness, and achievement motives rather than focusing only on an intelligence that could help individuals solve problems effectively (Brackett & Geher, 2006). Goleman’s views on emotional intelligence, in part because they were articulated for ⁄ to the general public, extended Emotional Intelligence 89 a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/1 (2011): 88–103, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00334.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd beyond the empirical evidence that was available (Davies, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998; Hedlund & Sternberg, 2000; Mayer & Cobb, 2000). Yet, people from all professions – educators, psychologists, human resource professionals, and corporate executives – began to incorporate emotional intelligence into their daily vernacular and professional practices. Definitions and measures of emotional intelligence varied widely, with little consensus about what emotional intelligence is and is not. Alternative models of emotional intelligence Today, there are two scientific approaches to emotional intelligence. They can be characterized as the ability model and mixed models (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000). The ability model views emotional intelligence as a standard intelligence and argues that the construct meets traditional criteria for an intelligence (Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008b; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008a). Proponents of the ability model measure emotional intelligence as a mental ability with performance assessments that have a criterion of correctness (i.e., there are better and worse answers, which are determined using complex scoring algorithms). Mixed models are so called because they mix the ability conception with personality traits and competencies such as optimism, self-esteem, and emotional self-efficacy (see Cherniss, 2010, for a review). Proponents of this approach use self-report instruments as opposed to performance assessments to measure emotional intelligence (i.e., instead of asking people to demonstrate how they perceive an emotional expression accurately, self-report measures ask people to judge and report how good they are at perceiving others’ emotions accurately). There has been a debate about the ideal method to measure emotional intelligence. On the surface, self-report (or self-judgment) scales are desirable: they are less costly, easier to administer, and take considerably less time to complete than performance tests (Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerner, & Salovey, 2006). However, it is well known that self-report measures are problematic because respondents can provide socially desirable responses rather than truthful ones, or respondents may not actually know how good they are at emotion-based tasks – to whom do they compare themselves (e.g., DeNisi & Shaw, 1977; Paulhus, Lysy, & Yik, 1998)? As they apply to emotional intelligence, selfreport measures are related weakly to performance assessments and lack discriminant validity from existing measures of personality (Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Brackett et al., 2006). In a meta-analysis of 13 studies that compared performance tests (e.g., Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) and self-report scales (e.g., EQ-i; Bar-On, 1997), Van Rooy, Viswesvaran, and Pluta (2005) reported that performance tests were relatively distinct from self-report measures (r = 0.14). Even when a self-report measure is designed to map onto performance tests, correlations are very low (Brackett et al., 2006a). Finally, self-report measures of emotional intelligence are more susceptible to faking than performance tests (Day & Carroll, 2008). For the reasons described in this section, we assert that the ability-based definition and performance-based measure