Emotional Intelligence

If your sense of pride and self-confidence is ungrounded in reality and does not suit your challenge, then it leads to distortion.

By Megan Jane, Featured Writer.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been defined as more than being attentive to how others may be feeling, as it also involves how the individual uses the information gathered from others to determine their own actions in social situations (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; DeRaad, 2005; Goleman, 2004). EI is recognised for its positive associations with social interaction skills, with Goleman (2004) proposing that having a high EI can be more socially powerful than having a high IQ. It has also has been linked with other traits including social intelligence (Nagler et al. 2014; Salovey & Mayer, 1990), the ability to mediate and calm others, as well as holding positive mental and physical health (Austin et al., 2007; Austin & O’Donnell, 2013; O’Connor & Athota, 2013).

What Psychological Methods Are Used to Measure EI?

Studies have shown that there are two subclasses of EI; trait EI (TEI) and ability EI (AEI). TEI is measured from an individual’s personality and character from numerous available self-report assessments. Such assessments are used to measure an individual’s perception of their own EI and how their level of awareness then determines attitudes and predicted behaviour in situations; traits measured include empathy and sociability (Petrides & Furnham, 2001; DeRaad, 2005; Lishner et al., 2011). AEI is measured via the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT: Mayer, Salovey, Caruso; 2002) which consists of numerous maximal performance tasks that measures traits including perception of emotions, and does so by comparing results from the tasks with a predetermined typical normative (Lishner et al., 2011; Davis & Nichols, 2016). 

What Are The Five Characteristics of EI?

1. Self-Awareness – being aware of your strengths and weaknesses.

2. Self-Regulation – being able to take responsibilities for mistakes that you have made.

3. Motivation – money and status not driving your goals – it’s all about enjoying what you do!

4. Empathy – being able to listen without interruption and the ability to learn from others.

5. Social Skills – the ability to learn now to provide praise, listen, and resolve conflict between others.

Is there a Bad Side to EI?

Below is a section taken from the 2008 Dalia Lama and Ekman book:

“Dalai Lama: in relation to the emotion pride, the normal view is a sense of self-importance. You can see the evolutionary purpose for this: without a sense of self confidence, the sense of self-importance and pride, often will not initiate anything….. If a sense of confidence or self-confidence is grounded in reality, you have a certain basis for that confidence and drive; it is appropriate because it can be beneficial. But if your sense of pride and self-confidence is ungrounded in reality and does not suit your challenge, then it leads to distortion although it is still being beneficial to you.

Ekman: There is another emotional state that gets confused with pride, and that is the way we feel when we meet a difficult challenge that stretches us to our limits. That feels very good, and that has great benefits for everyone. It motivates us to do the best we can do with the abilities we have. We do not need to go around and tell everyone else that we are doing that. It is a totally internal experience, and that often gets called pride too.

Dala Lama: In Tibetan, we have two different terms. That state is called popa, which I suppose in English is ‘pride.’ And then the more negative, self-important, that's called ngagyal, which literary means self-victory.

Ekman: I do not know other languages well enough to say, but English seems to me rather impoverished in its labelling of the different emotions. If we do not have the words to describe different states, like these two in Tibetan, then we cannot think about them and anticipate them. We cannot discipline ourselves as much because we do not have the words to refer to these emotions. Without words, we cannot reflect on what has or could occur”.

(Dalia Lama & Ekman, 2008, pp. 31-33.)

Think of those two words: pride and self-victory – are they so dissimilar? I think it is fair to say that both words can be associated with EI, but that these two words separately hold positive and negative assumptions. I do feel that self-victory holds slightly more negative associations, for example, I would much rather be called proud than self-victorious! Even so, this section in the book and other research has shown that there can be negative associations with the heightened presence of EI, suggesting that individuals with high EI also lack interpersonal skills and have traits of Machiavellianism therefore linking the presence of EI with Dark Triad traits (Austin et al. 2007; Fehr et al., 1992). These studies acknowledge the positive associations with the presence EI, as previously mentioned, but imply that holding such an awareness of one’s own, and others’ emotions, can lead to influential and manipulative behaviour towards others in order to achieve self-interested goals (Davis & Nichols, 2016; Nagler et al., 2014; Austin et al., 2007).

So, is EI Good or Bad?

From reading the research, I do think that the presence of EI can help social development and a better understanding of one’s own emotion – as well as increase empathy levels towards others:

“Emotional intelligence refers to being intelligent about our emotional life: more self-aware, better able to handle disturbing emotions, more sensitive to the emotions of others dash and able to put all that together to create effective, nourishing interactions”

(Goleman in the Foreword of Dalai Lama and Ekman, 2008.)

However, I can also see how such heightened ability to ‘read’ others with the presence of additional ‘darker’ traits (including, to name a few; Psychopathy, Machiavellianism or ngagyal) could result in EI traits being used for manipulative and selfish reasons. 

References

Austin, E.J., Farrelly, D., Black, C., & Moore, H. (2007). Emotional Intelligence, Machiavellianism and emotional manipulation: Does EI have a dark side? Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 179-189. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2006.11.019.

Austin, E.J., & O’Donnell, M.M. (2013). Development and preliminary validation of a scale to assess managing the emotions of others. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 834-839. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.005.

Dalai Lama, & Ekman, P. (2008). Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles of Psychological Balance and Compassion. New York: Holt.

Davis, S.K., & Nichols, R. (2016). Does Emotional Intelligence have a “Dark” side? A review of the literature. Personality and Social Psychology, Frontiers on Psychology, 7(1316), 1-10. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01316.

DeRaad, B. (2005). The trait-coverage of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 673-687. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2004.05.002.

Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2004). Social norms and human cooperation. Trends in cognitive sciences, 8(4), 185-190.

Goleman, D. (2004). Emotional Intelligence & Working with Emotional Intelligence: Omnibus. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Lishner, D.A., Swim, E.R., Hong, P.Y., & Vitacco, M.J. (2011). Psychopathy and ability emotional intelligence: Widespread or limited association among facets? Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 1029-1033. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.018.

Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D.R. (2002). Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) users manual. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: MHS Publishers.

O’Connor, P.J., & Athota, V.S. (2013). The intervening role of Agreeableness in the relationship between Trait Emotional Intelligence and Machiavellianism: Reassessing the potential dark side if EI. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(7), 750-754. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.06.006.

Petrides, K.V., & Furnham, A. (2006). The Role of Trait Intelligence in a Gender-Specific Model of Organised Variables. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36(2), 552-569.

Salovey, P. & Mayer, J.D. (1990). Emotional Intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9, 185-211.

Nagler, U.K.J., Reitner, K.J., Furtner, M.R., & Rauthann, J.F. (2014). Is there a “dark intelligence”? Emotional intelligence is used by dark personalities to emotionally manipulate others. Personality and Individual Differences, 76, 232-237. DOI: 10.1016.j.pad.2014.01.025.