Emotional Intelligence (EI)

 

EI is a person’s ability to;

• Be self aware - to recognize her own emotions when she experience them

• Detect emotions in others

• Manage emotional cues and information

People who know their own emotions and are good at reading emotion cues, for instance knowing why they are angry and how to express themselves without violating norms, are most likely to be effective. EI has been a controversial concept in OB with both supporters and criticisers, following are the major pros and cons.

 

Speaking for EI

 

Intuitive appeal

Almost everyone would agree it is good to possess street smarts and social intelligence. Intuition suggests people who can detect emotions in others, control their own emotions and handle social interactions well, have a powerful “up” in the business world.

 

EI predicts criteria that matter

Evidence suggests a high level of EI means a person will perform well on the job. One study found the ability to recognize emotions on others’ facial expressions and to emotionally “eavesdrop” predicted peer ratings of how valuable people were to their organization. A review of 59 studies indicated that, overall, EI correlated moderately with job performance.

 

EI is biologically based

In one study, people with brain damage to the area that governs emotional processing (part of the prefrontal cortex) scored no lower on standard measures of intelligence than people without similar damage. However, they did score significantly lower on EI tests and were impaired in normal decision making. This study suggests EI is neurologically based in a way that is unrelated to standard measures of intelligence.

 

Speaking against EI

 

EI is too vague of a concept

To many researchers, it is not clear what EI is. Is it a form of intelligence? Most of us would not think being self-aware or self-motivated or having empathy is a matter of intellect. Different researchers often focus on different skills, making it difficult to define EI.

 

EI cannot be measured

Many critics have raised questions about measuring EI. Because EI is a form of intelligence, they argue, there must be right and wrong answers for it on tests. The measures of EI are diverse and researchers have not subjected them to as much rigorous studies as they have measures of personality and general intelligence.

 

The validity of EI is suspect

Some critics argue that because EI is so closely related to intelligence and personality, once you control for these factors, it has nothing unique to offer. There is some foundation to this argument. EI appears to be highly correlated with measures of personality, especially emotional stability. If this is true, then the evidence for a biological component to EI is spurious and biological markers like brain activity and heritability are attributable to other well known and much more researched psychological constructs.