Overview of Emotional Intelligence
The systematic study of emotional intelligence is often dated to the early 1990s, when scientific articles suggested that there existed an unrecognized but important human mental ability to reason about emotions and to use emotions to enhance thought.
Journalistic accounts of emotional intelligence in books and magazines of the mid-1990s explained the concept to an interested public -- but not without introducing some crucial inaccuracies. Moreover, much has been learned about emotional intelligence since those early writings.
Emotional Intelligence (EI), often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), is a term that describes the abilty , capacity, skill or (in the case of the trait EI model) a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups. Different models have been proposed for the definition of EI and disagreement exists as to how the term should be used. Despite these disagreements, which are often highly technical, the ability EI and trait EI models (but not the mixed models) are enjoying considerable support in the literature and have successful applications in many different domains.
Criticism on measurement issues
Ability based measures are measuring conformity, not ability
One criticism of the works of Mayer and Salovey comes from a study by Roberts et al. (2001), which suggests that the EI, as measured by the MSCEIT, may only be measuring conformity. This argument is rooted in the MSCEIT's use of consensus-based assessment, and in the fact that scores on the MSCEIT are negatively distributed (meaning that its scores differentiate between people with low EI better than people with high EI).
Ability based measures are measuring knowledge (not actual ability)
Further criticism has been offered by Brody (2004), who claimed that unlike tests of cognitive ability, the MSCEIT "tests knowledge of emotions but not necessarily the ability to perform tasks that are related to the knowledge that is assessed". The main argument is that even though someone knows how he should behave in an emotionally laden situation, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he could actually carry out the reported behavior.
Self report measures are susceptible to faking good
More formally termed socially desirable responding (SDR), faking good is defined as a response pattern in which test-takers systematically represent themselves with an excessive positive bias (Paulhus, 2002). This bias has long been known to contaminate responses on personality inventories (Holtgraves, 2004; McFarland & Ryan, 2000; Peebles & Moore, 1998; Nichols & Greene, 1997; Zerbe & Paulhus, 1987), acting as a mediator of the relationships between self-report measures (Nichols & Greene, 1997; Gangster et al., 1983).
It has been suggested that responding in a desirable way is a response set, which is a situational and temporary response pattern (Pauls & Crost, 2004; Paulhus, 1991). This is contrasted with a response style, which is a more long-term trait-like quality. Considering the contexts some self-report EI inventories are used in (e.g., employment settings), the problems of response sets in high-stakes scenarios become clear (Paulhus & Reid, 2001).
There are a few methods to prevent socially desirable responding on behavior inventories. Some researchers believe it is necessary to warn test-takers not to fake good before taking a personality test (e.g., McFarland, 2003). Some inventories use validity scales in order to determine the likelihood or consistency of the responses across all items.
Claims for the predictive power of EI are too extreme
Landy distinguishes between the 'commercial wing' and 'the academic wing' of the EI movement, basing this distinction on the alleged predictive power of EI as seen by the two currents. According to Landy, the former makes expansive claims on the applied value of EI, while the later is trying to warn users against these claims. As an example. Goleman (1998) asserts that "the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. ...emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership". In contrast, Mayer (1999) cautions "the popular literature’s implication—that highly emotionally intelligent people possess an unqualified advantage in life—appears overly enthusiastic at present and unsubstantiated by reasonable scientific standards."
Landy further reinforces this argument by noting that the data upon which these claims are based are held in ‘proprietary databases', which means they are unavailable to independent researchers for reanalysis, replication, or verification. Thus, the credibility of the findings cannot be substantiated in a scientific manner, unless those datasets are made public and available for independent analysis.
EI, IQ and job performance
Research of EI and job performance show mixed results: a positive relation has been found in some of the studies, in others there was no relation or an inconsistent one. This led researchers Cote and Miners (2006) to offer a compensatory model between EI and IQ, that posits that the association between EI and job performance becomes more positive as cognitive intelligence decreases, an idea first proposed in the context of academic performance (Petrides, Frederickson, & Furnham, 2004). The results of the former study supported the compensatory model: employees with low IQ get higher task performance and organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, the higher their EI(Emotional Intelligence).
