Models of Emotional Intelligence: Similarities and Discrepancies

Abstract

What is the secret of human happiness and fulfilment? Philosophers, prophets, and other sages have debated this questioned since ancient times without arriving at a satisfactory resolution. The advance of Psychology in the last century has raised the hope of a scientific answer. Systematic, empirical study of human success and failure will tell us how we should live. Recently Psychologists have proposed that understanding the emotions in oneself and others is the key to a satisfying life. Those people who are self aware and sensitive to others manage their affairs with wisdom and grace, even in adverse circumstances. On the other hand those who are emotionally illiterate blunder their way though lives marked by misunderstandings, frustrations and failed relationships. A scientific understanding of Emotional Intelligence allows us to train our emotional skills so that we can live more fulfilling and productive lives. El refers to the competency to identify and express emotions, understand emotions, assimilate emotions in thought, and regulate both negative and positive emotions in self and others. Although the concept first appeared in Psychological literature nearly two and a half decades ago, it is only in the past ten years or so that Emotional Intelligence has received widespread attention. The result is that today there are many models which explain Emotional Intelligence.Review of literature suggests there are five main models of Emotional Intelligence-Mayer, Salovey and Caruso Conceptualization, Bar-On's Model of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman's Model of Emotional Intelligence, The Four Cornerstone Model of Emotional Intelligence and the Six Seconds' Model of Emotional Intelligence. A brief discussion of these five models will be followed by a comparison among them.Mayer salovey caruso conceptualizationThe work of Mayer Salovey Caruso has been the most influential in scientific genesis. These researchers were the first to publish extensive accounts of El in peer reviewed psychological journals (Mayer, DiPaolo, & Salovey, 1990). These researchers suggest that their specific of the term stresses the concept of an intelligence that processes and benefits from emotions. From this perspective, El is composed of mental abilities, skills or capacities (Mayer, Salovey et al., 1997). A major assumption of the Mayer Salovey Caruso model is that El resembles other forms of ability in terms of concepts, assessment vehicle, developmental trajectories, lawful phenomena associated with patterns of interrelationships with other measures and further empirical instantiations. In this system, El represents an intelligent system for the processing of emotional information and thus it resembles central parts of well established intelligent systems. According to Mayer and Mitchell (1998), an intelligent system consists of a capacity for inputting information and a capacity for processing information, through both immediate manipulation of symbols and reference to expert knowledge. El cuts across the cognitive and emotional systems and is at one time unitary and multidimensional, being sub divisible into four branches.Perceiving Emotions (Branch 1)- The ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others, as well as in objects, art, stories, music and other stimuli.Facilitating Thought (Branch 2)- The ability to generate, use and feel emotion as necessary to communicate feelings or employ them in other cognitive processes.Understanding Emotions (Branch 3)- The ability to understand emotional information, how emotions combine and progress through relationship transitions and to appreciate such emotional meanings.Managing Emotions (Branch 4)- The ability to be open to feelings, and to modulate them in oneself and others so as to promote personal understanding and growth.Multi-branch Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS, 1999) was developed for empirical testing of the model. …