Question

Describe the opposing views on emotional intelligence.

Answer 1

The original definition of emotional intelligence proposed by Salovey and Mayer (1994) referred to emotional intelligence as the ability to think intelligently about emotions and their meanings. As an ability, emotional intelligence should be viewed as a type of intelligence that is relatively independent of personality traits (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). In contrast, Goleman‘s (1995) and Bar-On‘s (1997) definitions of emotional intelligence are broader and encompass various personality traits.

Furthermore, mixed models of emotional intelligence have been criticized for including almost any construct that may predict success (Hedlund & Sternberg, 2000). There appears to be some agreement among researchers that emotional intelligence is in need of further study and development, and that successful efforts to define and measure this construct may prove advantageous for organizations (Dulewicz & Higgs, 2000). Self-report mixed-model measures of emotional intelligence are unlikely to prove to be accurate measures of emotional intelligence, especially given their high correlations with various personality dimensions and low correlations with general intelligence (Barchard & Hakstian, 2001). Furthermore, many researchers question whether self-report emotional intelligence measures add incrementally to the prediction of work and non-work outcomes beyond the influence of personality (Newsome et al., 2000).

Emotional intelligence is not the cure-all to the world's problems. Far from it. Some of the most unethical persons in human history could also be the most emotionally intelligent.

Emotional intelligence is also not about constantly suppressing your emotions, or never disagreeing with others.In contrast, emotional intelligence is a set of skills that prevents you from being dominated by your feelings, and keeps your emotions from getting in the way of making the decision you really want to make--as opposed to the one that "feels right" at the time, but leads to major regret. In short, it's about making emotions work for you, instead of against you.