Is There Scientific Evidence for Emotional Intelligence?

Scientific evidence for emotional intelligence

Check out this answer from Consensus:

The scientific evidence for Emotional Intelligence is robust, with numerous studies demonstrating its association with health, academic success, and interpersonal relationships. While criticisms exist, ongoing research continues to refine the construct and validate its measurement. Future research should focus on addressing methodological limitations and exploring the practical applications of EI in various settings.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has garnered significant attention in both academic and popular contexts. Defined broadly as the ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions, EI is posited to influence various aspects of life, including health, academic success, and interpersonal relationships. This article aims to explore the scientific evidence supporting the concept of Emotional Intelligence, drawing on multiple research studies to provide a comprehensive overview.

Theoretical Foundations of Emotional Intelligence

The concept of Emotional Intelligence was popularized by Mayer and Salovey’s four-branch model, which characterizes EI as a set of four related abilities: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions8. This model provides a useful framework for studying individual differences in emotional processing abilities. Despite initial skepticism, recent studies have shown that EI can be reliably measured and meets traditional standards for an intelligence6 10.

Emotional Intelligence and Health

Several meta-analyses have demonstrated a significant relationship between EI and various health outcomes. For instance, a comprehensive meta-analysis found that EI is associated with better mental, psychosomatic, and physical health1 4. Specifically, trait EI showed stronger associations with health outcomes compared to ability EI, with the TEIQue measure showing the strongest correlation with mental health (r = .50)1. Another meta-analysis identified behavioral and biological variables, such as social support and sleep quality, that mediate the relationship between trait EI and health3.

Criticisms and Counterarguments

Despite the growing body of evidence, EI has faced criticism. Waterhouse (2006) argued that the multiplicity of EI constructs undermines its validity and that EI has not been sufficiently differentiated from personality and IQ2. However, subsequent research has addressed these criticisms, showing that EI is a distinct construct with unique predictive power for various outcomes2 7.

Emotional Intelligence in Academic and Occupational Settings

The predictive validity of EI in academic and occupational settings has been a topic of debate. Some studies suggest that EI can predict academic success, although its incremental predictive validity over traditional cognitive abilities and personality traits is limited9. In occupational settings, EI has been shown to predict success in personal and work relationships, although more research is needed to establish its incremental validity8.

New Paradigms and Future Directions

Recent developments in EI research have focused on new paradigms for assessing EI, such as performance-based measures like the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU) and the Situational Test of Emotion Management (STEM)5. These measures have shown promising results in distinguishing between test and construct effects and have implications for developing EI interventions.

 

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Andrew M Lane has answered Near Certain

An expert from University of Wolverhampton in Psychology

People hold views on whether their feelings influence their thoughts and actions and whether they can do things to change how they feel. They also hold views that they change others emotions.

Intuitively, most people agree with the above statement.

The issue is how to detect and assess those skills. Emotional intelligence is hard to measure; can people report on their inner knowledge? if you have poor emotional intelligence, you wont know how good you are but might recognise that being good in emotional intelligence is desirable – because questionnaires are relatively easy to guess what is being assessed.

In summary, there is a concept called emotional intelligence but the science used to examine has many challenges and we dont know many things about it at present.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Hynek Cígler has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from Masaryk University in Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Psychometrics, Intelligence

However people certainly differ in the ability to knowing other emotions or ability to understand their own emotion (etc.), it is highly questionable what causes these observed differences. A huge amount of research just used self-report questionnaires and correlated them to other attributes (like depression, life success, etc.), but it did not focus on the nature of E.I. Existing research suggest that it is highly improbable to be able to differentiate E.I. from the “traditional” intelligence plus personality traits. To be highly “emotional intelligent”, you need to be smart, and you also must be motivated to apply your intelligence in a proper way. Thus, E.I. could be a useful “construct” to label some types of behavior, but it is not the human attribute. This can be understand similarly to e.g. social status. While people definitely differs in their education, income etc., the social status is arbitrary construct composed of these “objective” sources.

For references, see a great overview of Waterhause (2006).

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Neal M Ashkanasy has answered Near Certain

An expert from University of Queensland in Psychology

The most direct scientific evidence for emotional intelligence (as distinct from IQ) comes from the work on Antonio Damásio, and set out in his popular book, “Descartes’ Error” (1994; Penguin edition, 2005). In the book, Damásio describers the case of “Patient Elliot,” who suffered a brain trauma that caused him to lose the ability to access his emotions. Despite having an exceptionally high IQ, Patient Elliot is rendered totally incompetent.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Lulu Bagnol has answered Near Certain

An expert from Independent in Public Health, Global Health

While conducting my published study on spiritual intelligence (SQ), emotional intelligence was one of the reoccurring themes that kept popping up during the in-depth semi-structured interviews. Out of the 10 participants, emotional intelligence was evident in 100% of my participants. Through the semi-structured questions, each participant was able to recognize their emotions and especially the emotions of others which facilitated their own SQ; in fact, emotional intelligence and SQ go hand-in-hand.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Leehu Zysberg has answered Likely

An expert from Gordon College of Education in Education, Psychology

Different definitions and measures of EI exist, most common of which are Trait EI and Ability EI. The first conceptualization relies on self report measures that correspond and associate significantly with other measures of personality (in current research it is usually the “big five” personality traits). In some studies the correlations between trait EI measures and personality traits are so high that one may claim EI belongs in one or more branches of the big five. Ability EI tests show minimal associations with cognitive measures but maintain just enough unique associations with various criteria – from academic performance, on the job performance to health outcomes.

I would therefore suggest that enough evidence has been gathered to support EI as a valid, stand alone concept, but measures and conceptualization may need to mature through additional research.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Sandra J Lloyd has answered Near Certain

An expert from Northcentral University in Psychology

My research: Emotional Intelligence: A Predictor for Depression as Related to Coping Skills in Older Adults found that increased Emotional Intelligence (EI) has a beneficial effect in terms of current depression status. The study indicated that for every 1-point increased in the EQ scaled score, the risk of depression decreased by 5%. This is a highly significant result, as this provides clear evidence that; emotional intelligence and depression are strongly related in the older adult population.

This finding has strong implications that EI may assume a ;more prominent role in the assessment and treatment of individuals with depression. Those with higher EI may be able to better deal with stressors that lead to depression.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Igor Grossmann has answered Likely

An expert from University of Waterloo in Psychology, Cognitive Science

The answer to this question depends on the definition and measurement of emotional intelligence. The construct is complex and its measurement, often relying of self-reports, is often flawed. The broader construct of emotional intelligence as an ability to recognize one’s and others’ emotions and regulate one’s emotions to fit the features of the situation is likely real. But its measurement requires expensive methods many companies and scholars are not willing to pay for.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Brian B Partido has answered Near Certain

An expert from Ohio State University in Health, Dentistry

Emotional intelligence has been associated with the success of various health care professionals, including dental and dental hygiene professionals. Mental health, physical health, and life satisfaction all have been linked to having a high emotional intelligence. Most recently, emotional intelligence was found to be a predictor of academic and clinical performance among dental hygiene students. However, emotional intelligence has been correlated with burnout among health care professionals. Fortunately, emotional intelligence can improve with skills training. More research is needed to determine the effectiveness of the training methods.

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Murali Sambasivan has answered Likely

An expert from Taylor’s University in Social Sciences

I have published a few papers that have EI as one of the main constructs

 

Is there scientific evidence for emotional intelligence?

Antonietta Curci has answered Near Certain

An expert from University of Bari in Psychology

Psychometric studies account for a measure of EI being different from measures of academic intelligence, personality, coping styles, alexithymia, etc. Furthermore, there is evidence that measures of EI have incremental validity over and above indices of other constructs to predict both positive and negative life outcomes (see for a review, Mayer et al., 2001, 2013; Curci et al., 2013, 2017).