This post is a response to a question that appears often in my in-box. The concept of emotional intelligence had its roots in the work of Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, who objected to the use of IQ as a single measure of intelligence, arguing that it excludes other cognitive abilities such as innate social skills, athletic potential, and musical ability that contribute to an individual’s success in life. In his seminal book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, published in 1983, Gardner proposed that intelligence has 7 basic components shown in Figure 8.1 from the book, Intelligence, IQ & Perception.
He asserted that the standard IQ tests measure only the first 3 of these components, ignoring the other four. Gardner defined the 6th component, interpersonal intelligence, as the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. The 7th component, intrapersonal intelligence he described as the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one’s own feelings, fears, and motivations. Together, the 6th and 7th components of intelligence constitute what we now call emotional intelligence. Opponents of the multiple-intelligence theory argued that the four additional factors added by Gardner are merely acquired skills rather than components of innate intelligence.
The debate between those supporting the multiple-intelligences model and those who believe that only the first three components constitute a measure of general intelligence (denoted by g and measured as IQ) was confined to academic circles until 1995. In that year, Daniel Goleman a Ph.D. in psychology and science editor for The New York Times, on discovering the work of Salovey and Mayer, published a bestselling book titled: Emotional Intelligence. Hailed by the Harvard Business Review as “a groundbreaking, paradigm-shattering idea,” and “one of the most influential business ideas of the decade”, it became almost overnight, the basis for training managers in these newly articulated “people skills.” The idea of emotional intelligence went viral and the book was translated into more than 40 languages, selling millions of copies worldwide.
In contrast to the strong evidence of a link between IQ and job performance, the argument for EQ as a predictor of job performance in the workplace is weak. Research reveals that the concept of emotional intelligence is not well defined and seems to be conflated with other variables such as IQ and personality. The validity of tests designed to measure emotional intelligence, hinges on their ability to assign scores to item responses purported to measure EQ. One of the most prominent of these is the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso-Emotional-Intelligence-Test (MSCEIT) developed by the researchers who were pioneers in the development of EQ. This is a test of 141 items dedicated to assessing an individual’s EQ in these four areas: perceiving emotions, facilitating thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions. A sub-test in the area of managing emotions includes several items to analyze how well the individual calms their negative emotions. One of the items attempting to assess the management of anger reads:
When you are ANGRY with someone at work which statement best describes you?
• I calm down within 5-10 minutes and let it go, and return to what I was doing without thinking about the incident again.
• I stay angry all morning and sigh and roll my eyes, so people know I am irritated, but then I get over it by the afternoon and forget about it.
• I go to bed still angry and go over and over what happened.
• I stay angry for days and in some cases even weeks or months. I don’t forget quickly and can let things fester.
Assigning scores to the answers was a challenge for those who constructed the tests, for it’s unclear which of these behaviors is most conducive to success in the workplace. Although the test creators might assign the highest score to the first response, there are cases when the third response is more beneficial in the long run. Often when we mull over events, our unconscious mind enters problem solving mode and we awake the next morning with the anger abated, and a creative solution in mind. This is a method that has been used by many creative people.
To decide how to score an item, the test creators administered it to a large sample of people, tallied their responses, and weighted each response according to how often it was selected. A test-taker’s score on the test became a measure of how closely that individual’s responses matched the consensus of those sampled. This contrasts with the IQ test in which the answers are either correct or incorrect and not subject to opinion. For a more comprehensive answer with citations, visit: Intelligence, IQ & Perception: Chapter 8 – Intelligence and IQ
