In 1995, Daniel Goleman (1995) a New York psychologist and science writer for the New York Times, published ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ’ which gained the idea of emotional intelligence a popular following. It is worth noting some of the language used by Goleman in this book. For
example, he refers to ‘appropriate’ and ‘regulate’, perhaps indicative of a lack of adherence and/ or concern for this notion of societal suppression of emotion. Indeed, I would suggest that it can be argued from his book through his language, for example, words such as, ‘control impulse’ and ‘delay gratification’ that the balance between emotion suppression and emotion expression is thin. Goleman, defined EI as:
“The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships” (1985: 317).
Goleman’s model has been categorized as a ‘competency’ or personality model in distinction to the Salovey and Mayer ability model (Stys & Brown, 2004, Roberts, et al, 2001). Both models have a focus on self-awareness but for Goleman this equates to the notions of emotional self-awareness, self- confidence, and self-assessment. He links strongly the notion of self-awareness with that of empathy, stating that empathy:
“…represents the foundations skill for all the social competencies important for work” (1998: 137).
A range of social-awareness skills or ‘other-awareness’ skills compliments competencies of self-awareness. Echoing Salovey and Mayer, (1990, 1997) Goleman evidences awareness that EI is not a uni-focal artefact, but demonstrated, or evidenced in community. Getting along with others and their emotions requires a set of social competencies, or skills. Skills, such as ‘communication’, ‘influence’, ‘leadership’, ‘conflict management,’ and ‘acting as a catalyst for bringing change’ (Goleman 1998).
It was Goleman’s first book, ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ’ in 1995 that brought the concept before the public at large. Goleman drew on a range of related materials from neurophysiology, psychology, and cognitive science. Consequently, the concept of EI was made accessible and popular. EI attracted mass appeal and interest- along with some astounding claims of how the presence of EI as opposed to IQ may be more significant a
determinant of success in life, career, and relationships (Goleman, 1995, 1998). It has been suggested that Goleman’s book may be seen as a response to the Herrnstein and Murray book entitled ‘The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life’ which was printed the previous year (1994) which arguably created a manifesto for an privileged intelligentsia amongst white middle class Americans. According to Goleman (1995), EI is less constrained by socio-economic measures; it is also highly malleable, which, unlike traditional IQ implies the potential for growth of EI. Goleman perceived emotional intelligence as a set of learned skills and competencies. He identified emotional intelligence as the capacity we have to recognise our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotions in ourselves and in our relationships. For Goleman, emotional intelligence is not equated with cognitive intelligence and he views it as the object of emotional self –work. It is grounded in emotional competency rather than ability. In contrast to Mayer & Salovey’s idealisation of emotional intelligence being framed by a purist conceptualisation, Goleman has been criticised as being a mixed model of emotional intelligence; blending as it seems emotional competency with a range of existing psychological personality features (Matthews, et al, 2004, 2007)
Goleman outlines emotional intelligence through use of five emotional competences: -
The ability to identify and name one’s emotional states and to understand the link between emotions, thoughts and actions
The capacity to manage one’s emotional states- to control emotions or shift from undesirable emotional states to more adequate ones
The ability to enter into emotional states at will linked to drives for success and achievement
The capacity to read, be sensitive to and influence other people’s emotions
Emotional competency reflects a model of EI that is arguably wholly different in approach and philosophy to that of ability based EI. In 1998, Goleman went on to publish a second book (Working with Emotional Intelligence) built around his conceptualization of EI as related to workplace competencies. Mayer & Salovey (1993) contends that such definitions as Goleman has used have served to misrepresent ability-based definitions by turning EI into a list of personality factors. As such, they represent ‘mixed models’ in that they have mixed a diverse range of parts of the personality. Mayer argues that through incremental research, the Four Branch model represents EI as potentially a standard intelligence (1995). Goleman (1998) has stated that this critique is based on a misreading of his first book. He argues that his purpose was to explore rather than model EI as a construct within the field of work related performance. However, Goleman does argue that his second book is competency based utilising a discrete set of cognitive and affective skills that are distinct from traditionally measured IQ abilities. Goleman argues that the emotionally intelligent employee is skilled in two main areas: personal competence [how we manage ourselves] and social competence [how we manage others]. Each of these domains consists of a range of competencies as outlined in the ‘emotional competence framework’ below:
Table 1 Goleman’s (1998) Emotional Intelligence Competencies
SELF Personal Competence OTHER Social Competence Recognition Self-Awareness
Emotional self awareness Accurate self-assessment Self-Confidence Social Awareness Empathy Service Orientation Organizational Awareness Regulation Self-Management Self –control Trustworthiness Conscientiousness Adaptability Achievement Drive Initiative Relationship Management Developing others Influence Communication Conflict management Leadership Change-catalyst Building bonds
These definitions span the divide that exists around this concept. It may be perceived as that of ‘ability’ versus ‘trait’ models, cognition versus personality. It may be also be perceived as that of the purist versus the pragmatist in the sense of defining and using EI. This distinction is identified as an ‘ability’ model as against’ ‘a mixed model (Goleman 1998, Mayer, et al, 2000). Petrides and Furnham (2000) state that early models of EI were found to be vague and lacking any link to cognitive ability typical of general intelligence. Salovey& Mayer’s refined definition of their ability model of EI addressed this deficit. Pure or ability models contain the following characteristics, which identify them as a form of intelligence: they are conceptual, they correlate with other intelligences, and they are developmental (Mayer et al 2000). Mixed models of EI contain a range of abilities, behaviours and general dispositions, confusing personality attributes with mental ability (Mayer et al 2000). This hybrid form of EI Goleman argues is due to a mis-reading of his early work. He argues that he was seeking merely to explore the concept of EI rather than present a scientific articulation for the scientific community. Yet, this distinction within the EI literature has emerged significantly. Consequently, when we ask what EI is, we need to be aware of who we are asking- for the answer will reflect a particular approach.
Petrides & Furnham (2000: 314) contend that this ‘ability- mixed model’ split is actually a distinction between Trait EI and information processing EI. Trait EI, according to Petrides & Furnham is ‘…manifest (ed) in specific traits or behaviours such as empathy, assertiveness, optimism as opposed to information processing EI, which concerns abilities (e.g. ability to identify, express and label emotions). Petrides & Furnham (2000) contends that as Trait EI includes behavioural and self-perceived abilities, it belongs in the realm of personality, as opposed to ability EI that is comprised of actual abilities, and should be located within the domain of cognition. Petrides & Furnham (2000) has argued that ability and trait conceptions of emotional intelligence are different, even though their theoretical domains may be seen as shared or overlapping. That which discriminates one concept from the other lies in the contentious arena of measurement. Ability based tests (as from Mayer and Salovey) measure performance in such tasks as identifying emotions and
choosing appropriate actions based on such emotions. Personality tests (as from Goleman, Bar-On) should be able to allow differentiation from more established trait-constructs to take place e.g. Big Five- a set of five personality traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Mayer et al 2007).