Topic > A literature review on emotional intelligence

Emotions are the most important part of life, one way or another they define a person. It shapes a man's destiny and defines the way he perceives life. According to the famous Sanskrit saying: “Mano Matram Jagat; Mano Kalpitam Jagat” means that the world is as the mind sees and feels it; the world is as the mind thinks it is (as cited by TN Sethumadhavan, 2010). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay A dictionary defines emotion as an emotional state involving thoughts, physiological changes, and an outward expression or behavior but, topologists, psychologists, philosophers, scientists, and researchers have developed and are still introducing various theories that attempt to probe its boundless expanse of intrigue and charm. While topologists study emotions or rather the control of emotions as a means to realize the Supreme Being, psychologists and sociologists have discussed emotions with respect to their meaning for the individual and society. On the other hand, natural scientists such as physiologists are interested in the origin, evolution, and functions of emotions. Human beings are a complex species of emotion and reason. While reasoning allows them to judge things with mathematical precision, emotions help them understand and empathize, which makes them “human.” Traditionally, it was believed and accepted that people with high reasoning skills and a strong mental aptitude for logic were more intelligent. IQ tests designed to ascertain a person's intelligence and competence tested only the person's reasoning and logical aptitude. As suggested by Woodworth (1940), IQ tests were considered effective when they tested a person who was “not” scared, angry, or curious about things that aroused emotions. Emotions were considered to be disruptive in nature that hindered a person's thought process. Erasmus of Rotterdam, a 16th-century humanist, stated: “Jupiter has given far more passion than reason – you might calculate the ratio as 24 to one. He placed in opposition to the solitary power of Reason two furious tyrants: anger and lust. How much reason can prevail against the combined forces of these two, the common life of man makes it quite clear. Young (1943) defined emotions as “acute disturbances of the individual…” and believed that emotions cause people to “lose control”. But not everyone felt or accepted the emotions as “disorganized interruptions.” Mowrer (1960) argued that “… emotions are of extraordinary importance in the total economy of living organisms and do not deserve to be placed in opposition to “intelligence”. Emotions are, it seems, themselves a higher order of intelligence. The positive relationship between emotions and cognition was established by cognitive theorists who assumed that emotions depended on personal interpretation or evaluation of a particular event. Any event or event has a personal meaning for each person, and the person reacts based on this personal meaning and his evaluation of the event based on his personal well-being. Others such as Stanley, Schachter, and Jerome Singer have proposed that emotion involves both physiological arousal and the cognitive evaluation of this arousal. Even when people experienced a state of nonspecific physiological arousal such as anger, happiness, or something else, they tried to evaluate and reason about it to understand what those arousals meant for them. As the author further hypothesizes, some theorists have explained the process of emotion as first identification of objects or events, second evaluation,third physiological change, fourth action or expression and finally regulation. First comes the evaluation and then the emotion and therefore it is not an emotion that interrupts cognition. The researchers had moved from the phase in which they believed that emotions were disruptive, to a phase in which they saw that emotion and reason are interconnected and that most of the time, cognition or reasoning precedes emotions. Intelligence and emotion which were considered separate fields are now integrated into the new field Cognition and Affect. Perspectives on emotions continue to vary. The subjective nature of emotions makes it difficult to introduce a single accepted definition or theory. Scientifically conceptualizing something that can only be felt and experienced becomes an almost impossible task. Several theories of emotion have attempted to understand the nature of emotions and how they are experienced by people. While the James-Lange theory believes that a particular event or occurrence causes a physiological change and then this change is interpreted into a corresponding emotion, the Cannon-Bard theory believes that we perceive the physiological change and the emotion at the same time . The Schachter-Singer theory introduces the angle of reasoning that intervenes in physiological change and emotion labeling. Lazarus theory talks about the thought that comes before perceiving emotion and Facial Feedback theory talks about emotions as an experience of facial expressions (when someone smiles, they experience happiness – the expression that precedes cognition). Sapir–Whorf hypothesized that language influenced thinking, and Chomsky believed that language and cognition were separate abilities of the mind (Perlovsky, 2009). The theories and concepts are countless. Emotion perhaps "... a complex and widespread concept that can be expressed differently at different levels of abstraction" (Mathews et. al., 2004), however, the beauty and fascination lies in the fact that each of these concepts hold a place of meaning for themselves and have also revolutionized the way people perceive emotions. No longer seen only as problematic, emotions were being realized as playing a fundamental role in cognition and motivation. As Caruso (2008) observes, “emotions direct our attention and motivate us to engage in certain behaviors.” According to him, emotions “do not interfere with good decision-making, they are, in fact, necessary and fundamental for all effective decisions”. How effective they are will be discussed in detail later, but for now it is enough to note that emotions are not necessarily opposite to reason as previously believed, but they also help to reason and make effective decisions. But before proceeding, it would be worth distinguishing what the words emotion and feeling mean, and why we prefer to use emotion rather than feeling. The two words are quite commonly used and freely exchanged, but it pays to be precise in the choice and use of words especially when the entire research is based on emotions and intelligent management of emotions. Intelligence Intelligence itself has always been linked only to intellect and cognition. It was believed that there was only one intelligence called g for general intelligence. A person is born with a certain intelligence which can be assessed using short answer tests (IQ tests). Psychologists also believed that this intelligence was difficult to change. But can intelligence only be reasoning and cognitive abilities? Gardner (1998) makes a compelling point when he asks: If IQ tests in this world disappeared, would it be impossible to identify a person as intelligent or not? Such questions led us to anew world of understanding who agreed that, in addition to intellectual ability, there are other inherent abilities in an individual that should be taken into account before evaluating his intelligence. Tracing the evolution of the emotional sphere theory of intelligence, we discover that attention to "non-intellectual" elements being equally important was introduced as early as 1920 by Thorndike. A strong critic of IQ tests, his belief was that “it is better to think of human beings as having a number of relatively independent faculties, rather than as having a certain amount of intellectual power (or IQ) that can simply be channeled into one or the other. direction." As Gardner further discusses in the same article, a person's intellect or non-intellect cannot be sealed by a single intelligence test since each human being in his or her own way has multiple latent abilities. These abilities have not been recognized from conventional testing methods. Based on this belief, he defined intelligence as “a psychobiological potential to process information so as to solve problems or create products that are valued in at least one cultural context.” anthropology, cultural studies and biological sciences, proposed in his book “Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences”, seven intelligences – linguistic, logical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal – that every human being possessed, perhaps various levels. An eighth intelligence – “naturalistic” – was added in 1995. The theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) makes two main claims: all human beings have all these intelligences, no two individuals have exactly the same combination of intelligences. these intelligences. Supposedly, not many were comfortable with these claims and some even called it a “radical theory.” But, as Gardner himself states (2005), he is not concerned with whether these intelligences can be tested and validated, but with arguing that human beings have multiple intelligences that must be considered before defining a person as intelligent or not. Emotional IntelligenceDavid Wechsler during 1940 wrote that: “The main question is whether non-intellectual capacities, that is, affective and conative capacities, are admissible as factors of general intelligence. My thesis has been that such factors are not only permissible but necessary. I have tried to demonstrate that in addition to the intellectual ones, there are also certain non-intellectual factors that determine intelligent behavior. If the above observations are correct, it follows that we cannot expect to measure total intelligence until our tests also include some measures of non-intellectual factors.” He was not the only researcher to argue that emotional intelligence could be linked to important work-related outcomes such as individual performance and organizational productivity. Robert Thorndike also wrote about "social intelligence" in the late 1930s. In fact, reflections on emotional intelligence had already begun in Plato's time when he wrote: “All learning has an emotional basis”. Since then, scientists, educators, and philosophers have worked to prove or disprove the importance of feelings. Unfortunately, for much of these two millennia, the common thought was, “Emotions get in the way. They prevent us from making good decisions and prevent us from concentrating. Over the past three decades, a growing body of research is proving just the opposite. In the 1950s Abraham Maslow wrote about how people could improve their emotional, physical, spiritual and mental strength. His work gave birth to the movement of“Human Potential” which may be the greatest celebration of humanism since the Renaissance. In the 1970s and 1980s this led to the development of many new sciences of human capabilities. Management thinkers in the pre-1990 era were largely busy visiting and revisiting the forebrain areas of human capital to fully understand and develop them, but were rather underestimating the central role that the emotional brain of human capital plays in effective functioning. of organizations. Literature in the field of knowledge of brain evolution states that it was the emotional brain that came into existence first and only after years of evolution did the cognitive brain evolve.of the emotional brain. This may mean that the emotional cortex of humanity in the organizational setup has a dominant role regarding the control, coordination and regulation of any activity that takes place in the cognitive cortex. This being a reality now, the emotional intellect of the organization's employees deserves proper attention. Emotional intelligence today also known as emotional quotient (EQ) has proven to be the buzzword in the workplace or any industry for that matter. The term emotional intelligence is said to have been coined by two researchers Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer in 1990, who described it as “a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate between them, and use this information to guide one's thinking and action." There are various other researchers, scholars who have specified other interpretations of emotional intelligence, some of them are as follows: Emotional intelligence (EI) has been defined as “the ability to recognize one's own feelings and those of others, to motivate ourselves and to manage emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships". - Goleman (1998).“Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand, and effectively apply the power and insight of emotion as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.” - Cooper and Sawaf (1997). The concept of emotional-social intelligence is “a cross-section of interconnected emotional and social skills, abilities and facilitators that determine how effectively we understand and express ourselves, understand and relate to others, and deal with everyday situations” . - Bar-On (2005). In the study conducted by Carolynn Kohn entitled “Emotional Intelligence, Personality, Emotional Regulation, and Coping,” the author argues that EI is not a single construct, but rather consists of several other constructs that attempt to measure different individual characteristics or abilities . As the study of EI has been widely conducted by various researchers, advances identify two distinct models of EI: ability EI and trait EI. Both are quite distinct from each other and it is important to understand the difference. Trait EI is strongly correlated with personality traits, while ability EI has been found to correlate with coping skills and emotional regulation. Common criticisms of the theoretical construct of EI (particularly trait EI) and the measures used to assess it assert that EI is not much more than another measure of personality. In particular, EI overlaps substantially with the main principles and constructs of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), and therefore EI adds little to our baseline of knowledge after checking for FFM. . Similar criticisms have been made regarding ability EI and its high correlation with coping and emotion regulation. Furthermore, EI supporters –).