The origins of Emotional Intelligence theory
Overview
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate
emotions. It has been suggested that EQ, the ‘emotion quotient’, or measure of
emotional intelligence, is even more important than the somewhat less controversial
‘intelligence quotient’ or IQ.
Emotional intelligence didn't become popular as a term until around 1990 and interest
has grown tremendously over the last 30 years. As early as the 1930s,
psychologist Edward Thorndike described the concept of "social intelligence" as the
ability to get along with other people. During the 1940s, psychologist David Wechsler
proposed that different components of intelligence could play an important role in how
successful people are in life.
The 1950s saw the rise of humanistic psychology with the likes of Abraham
Maslow focusing on the different ways that people could build emotional strength. In
the mid-1970s, Howard Gardner introduced the idea that intelligence was more than
just a single, general ability.
The emergence of Emotional Intelligence
It was not until 1985 that the term ‘emotional intelligence’ was first used in a doctoral
dissertation by Wayne Payne. In 1987, an article published by Keith Beasley in Mensa
Magazine uses the term ‘emotional quotient.’ Reuven Bar-On1, an Israeli psychologist
proposed a quantitative approach to creating “an EQ comparable to an IQ score” in the
first copy of his doctoral dissertation, which was submitted in 1985. In 1990,
psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer2 published their landmark article,
‘Emotional Intelligence,’ in the journal ‘Imagination, Cognition, and Personality’.
In 1995, the concept of emotional intelligence was popularised after the publication of
Daniel Goleman’s book ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ’ which
we have used as the basis for EI content in our Organisational Leadership Skills course.
Below is an overview of a couple of the other prominent models mentioned above in the
development of EI theory.
1The Bar-On concept of emotional and social intelligence
Bar-On's model described emotional and social competencies that determine how
effective individuals are at understanding and expressing themselves, understanding
others and interacting with them as well as coping with daily demands and challenges.
These competencies are clustered into the following five meta-factors – the ability to:
1. Be aware of emotions as well as to understand and express feelings
2. Understand how others feel and interact with them
3. Manage and control emotions
4. Manage change, adapt and solve problems of a personal/ interpersonal nature
5. Generate positive effect to enhance self-motivation, in order to facilitate
emotionally and socially intelligent behaviour.
