The science of intelligence
What is emotional intelligence?
Short answer
Emotional intelligence (EI, often called EQ) is the capacity to recognize and express emotions, regulate them, and use feelings to guide thinking and action, in yourself and in others. Salovey and Mayer framed it as a set of skills in 1990. Today the label covers two different things: ability EI, measured with tests, and trait EI, measured by self-report.
Want your own number? The test is 25 visual puzzles, about 12 minutes, no sign-up.
Where the idea came from
Peter Salovey and John Mayer gave the term its research meaning in 1990. They described emotional intelligence as a set of skills: accurately appraising and expressing emotion in yourself and in others, regulating emotion, and using feelings to motivate, plan and achieve (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). The key word is skills. In their framing, EI is something a person can do more or less well, in the same way that reasoning or vocabulary can be stronger or weaker.
The idea spread quickly beyond research, and the popular term EQ grew with it. As it spread, the label stretched to cover far more than the original skill model, which is the source of most of the confusion today.
Two models under one label
A 2010 meta-analysis pointed out that the EI label is applied to two distinct sets of constructs: ability-based EI and mixed-based EI (Joseph & Newman, 2010). They are measured differently and behave differently.
- Ability EI treats emotional skill as a kind of intelligence. It is measured with performance tests, where you solve emotion problems and your answers are compared with a scoring standard.
- Trait EI (and the related mixed models) treats EI as a constellation of traits and self-perceived abilities that sits at the primary level of personality, rather than as a cognitive ability (Petrides & Furnham, 2001). It is measured with self-report questionnaires.
When someone says a person has high EQ, it helps to ask which of these they mean. A high score on a self-report questionnaire tells you how a person sees themselves. A high score on an ability test tells you how they did on emotion problems.
Try one · Quantitative Reasoning
Which number comes next?
5, 10, 17, 26, 37, 50, ?
Tap the option you think is right, or show the answer.
Show the answer
The next number is 65 (option 6).
How to solve it
- The gaps (5, 7, 9, 11, 13) grow by 2 each time, which is the pattern of square numbers.
- Each number is a square number plus 1: 2 × 2 + 1, 3 × 3 + 1, 4 × 4 + 1, 5 × 5 + 1, 6 × 6 + 1, 7 × 7 + 1.
- So the next number is 8 × 8 + 1 = 65.
That was 1 puzzle. The full test has 25.
How ability EI is measured: the MSCEIT
The best known ability test is the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Any emotion test faces a hard question that an IQ puzzle does not: who decides the right answer? In the MSCEIT validation, 21 emotions experts and 2,112 members of the standardization sample endorsed many of the same answers, and the test showed reasonable reliability (Mayer et al., 2003). That agreement is the main argument that emotion problems can have better and worse answers at all.
What EI predicts at work
A 2011 meta-analysis grouped EI research into three streams: ability tests, self- or peer-report measures built on the four-branch ability model, and mixed models. The three streams had corrected correlations of 0.24 to 0.30 with job performance (O'Boyle et al., 2011). The self-report and mixed-model streams showed the largest incremental validity beyond cognitive ability and the Five Factor Model of personality (O'Boyle et al., 2011).
The ability picture is less tidy. Joseph and Newman found the link between ability EI and job performance inconsistent: positive in jobs with high emotional labor and negative in jobs with low emotional labor (Joseph & Newman, 2010). For a sense of scale, a separate meta-analysis of 85 years of personnel research put the validity of general mental ability for job performance at 0.51 (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). The full comparison is on EQ vs IQ.
The main criticisms
Two criticisms come up again and again. The first is redundancy: Joseph and Newman raised the question of whether EI measures add anything beyond cognitive intelligence and Big Five personality (Joseph & Newman, 2010). The second is evidence for the broad claims made in schools and workplaces. A 2006 critical review concluded that emotional intelligence theory, along with multiple intelligences and the Mozart effect, lacks adequate empirical support and should not be the basis for educational practice (Waterhouse, 2006).
Neither criticism says emotions do not matter. They say the evidence for EI as a distinct, well-measured intelligence is weaker than its popularity suggests, and stronger for some measures than for others.
EI and IQ tests
IQ tests were never meant to capture emotional skill. The 1994 mainstream statement on intelligence said such tests do not measure creativity, character or personality, and are not intended to (Gottfredson, 1997). For how EI fits alongside other proposed kinds of intelligence, see types of intelligence and Gardner's multiple intelligences. For what an IQ score does and does not capture, read what an IQ test measures, or try the free reasoning test, which gives an estimated IQ and nothing about EQ.
Sources
- Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185-211. doi.org/10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG
- Joseph, D. L., & Newman, D. A. (2010). Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 54-78. doi.org/10.1037/a0017286
- Petrides, K. V., & Furnham, A. (2001). Trait emotional intelligence: Psychometric investigation with reference to established trait taxonomies. European Journal of Personality, 15(6), 425-448. doi.org/10.1002/per.416
- Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., Caruso, D. R., & Sitarenios, G. (2003). Measuring emotional intelligence with the MSCEIT V2.0. Emotion, 3(1), 97-105. doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.3.1.97
- O'Boyle, E. H., Humphrey, R. H., Pollack, J. M., Hawver, T. H., & Story, P. A. (2011). The relation between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32(5), 788-818. doi.org/10.1002/job.714
- Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262
- Waterhouse, L. (2006). Multiple intelligences, the Mozart effect, and emotional intelligence: A critical review. Educational Psychologist, 41(4), 207-225. doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4104_1
- Gottfredson, L. S. (1997). Mainstream science on intelligence: An editorial with 52 signatories, history, and bibliography. Intelligence, 24(1), 13-23. doi.org/10.1016/S0160-2896(97)90011-8