Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is one of John D. Mayer ( University of New Hampshire ) and Peter Salovey ( Yale University introduced) in 1990 Terminus . It describes the ability to (correctly) perceive, understand and influence one's own feelings and those of others. The concept of emotional intelligence is based on the theory of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner , the core idea of ​​which was already referred to by Edward Lee Thorndike and David Wechsler as " social intelligence ". Thorndike illustrated this in 1920 with an example according to which the (technically) best mechanic will fail as a foreman if he lacks social intelligence. The topic of "emotional intelligence" is thus also a contribution to the discussion of the question of success in life and at work. The American psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman, with his book EQ. Emotional Intelligence (1995) contributed.

Definitions

Some authors present emotional intelligence as the opposite of the classical concept of intelligence . In fact, it is about the expansion of the classical concept of intelligence, in which only cognitive and purely academic skills are viewed as a prerequisite for success in life.

Daniel Goleman defines the term emotional intelligence based on Salovey and Gardner by the following skills:

Know your own emotions

Recognize and accept your own emotions as they occur. This ability is crucial for understanding one's own behavior and drives. (Background: Many people feel exposed to their feelings, reject them and fight or avoid them - instead of being aware of the fact that emotions can be actively controlled.)

Affect emotions

Handle feelings in a way that is appropriate to the situation (instead of dramatizing or playing down). This includes the ability to calm yourself down and to reduce feelings of fear, irritability, disappointment, or hurt and to increase positive feelings. This helps in overcoming setbacks or stressful situations.

Put emotions into action

Influence emotions in such a way that they help achieve goals. This is the core of self-motivation and promotes creativity and the frequency of successes. This also includes being able to postpone short-term (emotional) benefits and temptations ( delayed reward ) and to suppress impulsive reactions. This longer-term perspective is the basis of any success . In later work, Goleman assigned this drive and motivation-related aspect to the above-mentioned ability to influence emotions.

empathy

This is the basis of all human knowledge and the foundation of interpersonal relationships. A person who recognizes what others are feeling can recognize the often hidden signals in the behavior of others much earlier and find out what they need or want. However, Goleman himself points out in other texts that it also becomes clear how they can be negatively influenced (leadership ability) . Empathy is therefore a value-neutral ability - it can have an individually positive or negative effect.

Dealing with relationships

The ability to successfully build relationships is largely based on dealing with other people's feelings. It is the basis for smooth cooperation in almost all professional environments. It is a prerequisite for popularity, appreciation and integration in a community, but also for leadership ability (Goleman); an ability that has a positive effect, but can also be used for manipulation.

To operationalize and measure emotional intelligence in a test, Salovey and Mayer have divided this concept into four areas:

• Perception of emotions
• Use of emotions
• Understanding emotions
• Influencing emotions

The first area of perception of emotions comprises the ability to perceive emotions in facial expressions, gestures, posture and voice of other people. The second area of using emotions for support includes knowledge about the connections between (own and others) emotions and thoughts, B. is used to solve problems. The understanding of emotions reflects the ability to analyze emotions, assess the changeability of emotions and to understand the consequences of it. The influencing of emotions is based on the goals, self-image and social awareness of the individual and includes e.g. B. the ability to avoid feelings or to correct emotional assessments (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, 2004).

Capture

Mayer, Salovey and David R. Caruso have developed a test for measuring “emotional intelligence”, which follows the concept of conventional performance tests. The MSCEIT (Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test; Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, 2002, quoted from Mayer et al., 2004) measures each of the four areas of the model with two sub-tests each, which are described below:

Perception of emotions:

• Identify emotions in faces
• Identify emotions in landscapes and designs

Using emotions to support thinking:

• Compare emotional sensations with other tactile or sensory stimuli
• Identify emotions that best support certain thinking tasks

Understanding emotions:

• Knowing under what circumstances emotional states change and how one emotional state changes into another
• Identify multiple emotions in more complex affective states

Dealing with emotions:

• Propose measures to change one's own emotional state in hypothetical scenarios
• Propose measures to influence the emotional state of other people in order to achieve the goal

The test quality criteria internal consistency and discriminant validity of the MSCEIT proved to be good in studies with 5000 data sets. The internal consistency is very high at .98 for the overall test. The validity was assessed by means of correlations with other intelligence and personality tests and showed that the MSCEIT hardly overlaps with other partial intelligence. The connections with the Big Five (personality traits) were also sufficiently small to be able to take discriminant validity as a given.

The German adaptation of the MSCEIT is rated critically in a current TBS-TK review . For example, the non-transparent construction process of the test, lack of interpretation information for the test application (objectivity), inadequate information about the standardization sample (standardization) as well as insufficient presentation of the theoretical basis of the validity criteria are criticized. As positive u. a. the satisfactory reliability and low falsifiability were recognized. Overall, the German version of the MSCEIT is classified as partially unsatisfactory; in any case, the previous findings only partially meet the quality criteria of psychodiagnostic procedures .

criticism

Criticism focuses primarily on the term “emotional intelligence” and the question of how it fits in with the traditional constructs of intelligence and supplements them in a meaningful way. In terms of content, however, the concept describes highly relevant human capabilities. These are discussed in science under the keywords " emotion regulation " or " self-regulation ". Whether the term “emotional intelligence” will prevail in science will primarily depend on the extent to which this concept can be validated through appropriate tests and theoretically differentiated from other psychological constructs .

Heiner Rindermann made a move in this direction in the German-speaking area with the questionnaire for measuring emotional competence . This test for the operationalization and empirical verification of this concept is based on a norm sample of over 600 people and achieves - according to the author - satisfactory values ​​for validity and reliability. He also believes that the term intelligence should be reserved for cognitive abilities and not be overstretched, especially since the correlation between emotional competence and (cognitive) intelligence is not high (p. 9). In the test, four dimensions of emotional competencies are ascertained, namely the ability (1) to recognize one's own feelings, (2) to recognize the feelings of others, (3) to regulate one's own feelings and (4) to express feelings as emotional expressivity.

Empirical studies show that people who have the ability to control their own feelings and those of others are more successful in their professional and private life ; they suffer less from mental disorders, have better personal relationships, are more satisfied and less prone to unfavorable habits such as smoking, unhealthy diet etc. For example, a meta-analysis from 2011 came to the conclusion that emotional intelligence is more closely related to professional success than cognitive intelligence and the five personality dimensions . Further research results on topics that complement or extend the concept of emotional intelligence can be found in the articles Emotion Regulation , Implementation Skills and Volition .

The psychologists Murphy and Sideman criticize the flattened concept of emotional intelligence circulating in popular and management literature. They consider the concept to be extremely bland . The lightning-fast spread of the term through the Goleman book and popular media since 1995 (a bandwagon effect), little evidence from empirical research, the lack of theoretical further development and the faithfulness of the followers of the concept ( true believers ) arouse this suspicion, the but not against the original version of Salovey and Mayer (1990), which is more closely related to classical theories and can be developed. Incidentally, the term is problematic because general intelligence and what is measured under the term emotional intelligence have little correlation.

Incidentally, in the 19th century what is now (in the opinion of Ute Frevert "management-friendly") is called emotional intelligence, would not be in the context of psychological science, but in the context of a theological-moral discourse, in education or in literature been treated. In this context, the formation of the heart appears almost as a counterpart to intelligence , as is expressed in the usual phrase “mind and heart” (French intelligence et coeur ). As an example, compare with Marcel Proust, where heart is to be understood in the sense of heart formation :

«Qu'est-ce que cela peut faire qu'il soit duc ou cocher s'il a de l'intelligence et du coeur? »

"What does it matter whether a duke or a cab driver is when he has a mind and a heart?"

- Combray

See also

• Aesthetic intelligence
• Practical intelligence
• psychology

literature

• Daniel Goleman:
  • Emotional intelligence. Hanser, Munich 1996; dtv, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-19527-0 .
  • Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. How we can overcome destructive emotions. dtv, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-34207-2 .
  • The healing power of feelings. Conversations with the Dalai Lama about mindfulness, emotion and health. dtv, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-423-36178-6 .
• Jerrell C. Cassady, Mourad Ali Eissa (Eds.): Emotional Intelligence. Perspectives on Educational and Positive Psychology. Peter Lang, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-4331-0196-0 .
• Bernhard Jussen , Susanne Scholz , Ute Frevert (eds.): Vergängliche Emotions , Wallstein, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1160-2
• R. Schulze, PA Freund, RD Roberts: Emotional Intelligence. An international manual. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-8017-1795-7 .
• Peter Salovey , John D. Mayer: Emotional Intelligence. In: Imagination, Cognition, and Personality. Volume 9. pp. 185-211.
• John D. Mayer, P. Salovey, DR Caruso: Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings and Implications. In: Psychological Inquiry. Volume 15, 2004. pp. 197-215.
• JH Otto, E. Döring-Seipel, M. Grebe, ED Lantermann: Development of a questionnaire to record the perceived emotional intelligence. In: Diagnostica. Volume 47, 2001. pp. 178-187.
• Christian Bourion: Emotional Logic and Decision Making. The Interface Between Professional Upheaval and Personal Evolution. 2004, ISBN 978-1-4039-4508-2 . (Original: La logique emotionnelle , 2nd edition 2001, ISBN 978-2-7472-0236-7 )
• H. Weber, H. Westmeyer: The inflation of the intelligences. In: Elsbeth Stern , Jürgen Guthke (Hrsg.): Perspektiven der Intellektivenforschung. Pabst Science Publishers, Lengerich 2001, ISBN 978-3-935357-69-2 .
• Ralf Schulze, P. Alexander Freund, Richard D. Roberts (Eds.): Emotional Intelligence. An international manual . Hogrefe, 1st edition 2006, ISBN 978-3-8017-1795-7 . Table of contents (pdf). In it (pp. 191–212):
• Juan Carlos Pérez, KV Petrides, Adrian Furnham: The measurement of emotional intelligence as a trait

Individual evidence

1. ^ DG Myers: Psychology. New York 2010
2. ↑ D. Goleman: Emotional Intelligence. Munich and Vienna 1996, p. 65 f.
3. ↑ Burk, CL, & Amelang, M. (2015). TBS-TK review: MSCEIT-Mayer-Salovey-Caruso test for emotional intelligence. German-language adaptation of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT TM). Journal for Industrial and Organizational Psychology A&O, 59 (3), 155–157. doi: 10.1026 / 0932-4089 / a000188
4. ↑ C.-H. Lammers: Emotional Psychotherapy. Stuttgart 2008, p. 38
5. ↑ JJ Gross (Ed.): Handbook of Emotion Regulation. New York 2007 (2nd edition 2013: ISBN 978-1-4625-0350-6 )
   JP Forgas et al .: Psychology of Self-Regulation. Psychology Press, New York 2009
6. ^ Suss, H.-M., Seidel, K., & Weis, S. (2008). New ways of performance-based recording of social intelligence and initial findings. In W. Sarges & D. Scheffer (eds.), Innovations in suitability diagnostics (pp. 129–143). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
7. ↑ Heiner Rindermann: Emotional competence questionnaire, assessment of emotional competencies and emotional intelligence from self and external view. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2009
8. ↑ JP Tangney: High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. In: Journal of Personality. Volume 72, April 2004, Issue 2, 271-324
9. ↑ Ernest H. O'Boyle Jr. et al. a .: The relation between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis . In: Journal of Organizational Behavior . 31, No. 5, July 2011, pp. 788-818. doi: 10.1002 / job.714 .
10. ↑ Kevin R. Murphy, Lori Sideman: The fadification of emotional Intelligence , in: Kevin R. Murphy (Ed.): A Critique of Emotional Intelligence: What Are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed? Psychology Press, 2014, pp. 283-300.
11. ↑ Ute Frevert : Heart formation. Feelings and sensations: On the change in educational ideals over the centuries , in: Humboldt. A publication by the Goethe Institute .
12. ↑ Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time: In Swann's World.