A Morally Informed Theory of Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

The goal of this chapter is to apply the work that we have done thus far to the psychological notion of emotional intelligence. No doubt my reader has already heard the term “emotional intelligence” and has some associations brought to mind by it, largely due to the prevalence of media attention given to the idea in recent years. Some psychologists are positively giddy at the amount of popular attention their field is receiving; others are suspicious and denounce the whole notion as “pop psychology.” Here I review the research being done on emotional intelligence in order to clarify the concept. We shall see that there is a great deal of disagreement between psychologists over the meaning of the term. Some accounts stand out for their accuracy, while others, like Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence (which led to the popularity of the term itself), are problematic. Definitions that focus on the automatic nature of emotions prove unable to explain the means by which people might become more emotionally intelligent, as does identifying or assimilating emotional intelligence with cognitive intelligence. The focus on emotionally intelligent behavior, on the other hand, which we see in the work of those who focus on the practical question of teaching emotional intelligence, resists positing a latent, innate ability and instead focuses on achieving psychological health.