Quantifying Emotional Intelligence: The Relationship Between Thinking Patterns and Emotional Skills

This article explores the relationship between thinking patterns and emotional skills identified by 2 research-derived measures of emotional intelligence that reflect integrative and positive theories of human behavior. Findings suggest implications for planning educational and counseling interventions to facilitate positive growth and future research directions to quantify emotional intelligence. ********** The early and significant research and writings of Rogers (1951), Maslow (1962), and Jourard (1971, 1974) shifted counseling and education to a more positive and optimistic view of the person and his or her potential for personal change and growth. Additional humanistic-existential writers (Allport, 1955; Buber, 1958; Fromm, 1955; May, Angel, & Ellenberger, 1958) brought a focus on the active and teleological aspects of human behavior and the importance of intra- and interpersonal relationships. Now, as in the past, both qualitative and quantitative research are important to the theory and effective practice of humanistic counseling and education. For this reason, the emerging generic construct of emotional intelligence (EI) is potentially important to humanistic counselors and educators, to the end that EI could be a viable and integrative model for healthy and effective human behavior. According to Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso (2000), the construct of EI was first introduced in two academic journal articles published in 1990 (Mayer, DiPaolo, & Salovey, 1990; Salovey & Mayer, 1990); Goleman (1995) popularized the concept. Shortly thereafter EI appeared on the cover of Time magazine (Gibbs, 1995), and everyone began to use the term to refer to personality traits that promoted success in life and especially to psychological and social skills that could be learned. The present study defines EI as the learned ability to think constructively and act wisely. This definition grew out of the theories of Epstein (1994, 1998) and Nelson and Low (2003). These authors have researched their theories for more than 30 years. EPSTEIN'S COGNITIVE-EXPERIENTIAL SELF-THEORY Epstein's (1994) conception of his personality theory, cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), made a very important contribution to the theory of EI because it integrated Freud's psychodynamic unconscious and evidence of a rational cognitive system, both of which operated within the minds of human beings. Theorists outside the Freudian tradition have formulated a new cognitive unconscious "that automatically, effortlessly, and intuitively organizes experience and directs behavior" (Epstein, 1994, p. 710). This was not the dark, ominous unconscious that lay buried deep under layers of Freudian defenses. Instead, it was the automatic operation of the brain that allowed people to do one thing while thinking of something else. According to Epstein (1994), human beings have "two interactive modes of information processing, rational and experiential" (p. 710). Epstein (1994) went on to explain, "People, when they are highly emotional, characteristically think in a manner that is categorical, personal, concretive, unreflective, and action oriented, and the stronger the emotion the more they think that way and the more their thinking appears to them to be self-evidently valid" (p. 710). People are reactive, and it is likely that they survived in prehistoric times because they were able to take note of certain splashes of color and run away or take a fighting stance. People did not react to the event itself but reacted to their interpretation of the event. Thus, Epstein (1994) emphasized that the experiential system had a long evolutionary history and operated in lower animals as well as in human beings: At its lower levels of operation, it is a crude system that automatically, rapidly, effortlessly, and efficiently processes information. At its higher reaches, and particularly in interaction with the rational system, it is a source of intuitive wisdom and creativity. …