| EQI Home Supplementary Files These are files which are linked to by other files in the core. 1990 EI Article Emotional Intelligence Meets Traditional Standards for an Intelligence Selecting a Measure of Emotional Intelligence: The Case for Ability Scales Educational Policy on Emotional Intelligence Models of Emotional Intelligence Emotional Intelligence as Zeitgeist, as Personality, and as a Mental Ability |
Other EQI Topics Respect |
| 1990 EI Article Emotional Intelligence, Peter Salovey, & John D. Mayer-- Imagination, Cognition, and Personality (1990),9, 185-211. The abstract reads:
The article begins by asking, "Is emotional intelligence a contradiction in terms?" Then, somewhat humorously, the authors quote several psychologists from years ago who said things like, emotions were "accute disturbances of the individual," and that emotions were "disorganized responses" which came from a "lack of adjustment, and pure emotion is similar to "a complete loss of cerebral control," and that emotions contained "no trace of conscious purpose." In 1940 some psychologist wrote in a his textbook that IQ should measure how much one can not show emotions such as fear or grief or "inquisitive over things that arouse the emotions of younger children." Then the article cites examples of a more "modern" approach to emotions in psychology. The paragraph begins with: (p 186) "A second tradition views emotion as an organizing response because it adaptively focusses cognitive activities and subsequent action." In other words, our emotions help us think and act in healthy ways. The authors provide four citations from the period between 1948 and 1982 to support this view of emotions. They also cite a quotation which says that our emotions "arouse, sustain and direct activity." "The full expression of emotions seems to be a primary human motive, and it may therefore be worthwhile to consider it from a functionalist perspective." [This seems to be another way of saying that they believe, as I do, that all emotions have basic survival value.] Next section: A definition of emotions "We view emotions as organized responses, crossing the boundaries of many psychological subsystems, including the physiological, cognitive, motivational, and experiential systems." [In another article after this one they reference a quote which seems to be the source of their definition of emotion. The quote is from 610, from Smith, C. A., & Lazarus, R. S. (1990). Emotion and adaptation. In L. A. Pervin, Handbook of personality (609-637). New York: The Guilford Press, and is as follows:
Later in their 2000 "Zeitgeist" article Mayer et al say this "Emotions are complex organizations of the physiological, emotional, experiential, cognitive, and conscious," so they have kept the same basic definition of emotion (which is obviously a pretty academic definiton.) They distinguish emotions from mood "in that emotions are shorter and generally more intense. [They do not address what feelings are.] They say that they view emotions as "adaptive and as something that can potentially lead to a transformation of personal and social interaction into enriching experience." Subsection: Emotional intelligence and its relationship to other intelligences "... constructs such as emotional intelligence have played a part within the traditions of the intelligence field. Subsection: Intelligence defined They mention Pythagoras' "none-too-helpful" depiction of intelligence as "winds," as well as Descartes statement that intelligence is the ability to judge true from false. They say that the definition which is probably most cited is that of Wechsler who said intelligence is "the aggreggate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment." |
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| Budi Budi 12 years
old as of August 2003 I just found these notes. It hurts me to read them and think about how smart this boy was and how people are probably just abusing him and ... well, I don't even want to think about what has happened to him. But please read this carefully. It says a lot about a young boy who was very smart and living on the street. And it says a lot about a teaching style that seems to work very well with smart people like Budi. Steve Hein -- Budi is 12. He lives in Gambir train station in Jakarta, Indonesia. He says he has no mother and no father. I met him when he came around to shine shoes. I didn't really care if my shoes were shined or not, but since he was so young I said okay. After we met I saw him around a lot and we became friends. I started teaching him English and how to use my laptop computer. Here are some notes. They are from a night we worked together after I had known him for about two weeks. -- He was alone. I asked him about his friend Iman. He said Iman was not here tonight. (Iman was another homless boy) I felt relieved he didn't have three or four of his friends because they were a bit much for me to handle by myself. I bought him an ice cream cone. I used my fingers to suggest that we do some work on the computer. He didn't look very interested. He made a disapproving face and shook his head just a little. I was afraid he wouldn't want to do
any work, but I motioned for him to follow me. This time I said "hey" and he quickly understood and turned to pick it up, but I got there first and picked it up myself. Then we kept walking and I was looking for a waste basket. I didn't find one before we got to the restaurant. When we got there I looked at him
and held up the wrapper, questioning what to do with it.
He quickly understood. He took it from me and went around
behind a counter and dropped it in a bucket of trash. I
wondered how he knew it was there because it wasn't
visible until you walked around the counter. So he must
have used it before or seen someone else using it. When he got to ten I smiled and shook his hand. Then we went from 11 to twenty. I had him read the numbers along with me. They were spelled out, for exampe, seventeen. He read them and I also said them
to help him hear how they sounded. one = satu Soon a woman came to talk to me. I felt a little preyed upon by her. She was asking me questions like the typical "Where do you come from" but also, "Are you alone...., single...? etc." I wasn't at all attracted to her and felt uncomfortable with her from the start. Then she started trying to correct Budi. She would say "No..." and try to show him that he made a mistake. Twice I put my finger over my mouth and said "Shh." She understood and said "Sorry." I explained to him that he was very smart, very clever and that he can figure things out for himself. If he makes a mistake I just use my facial expression to show that there is a problem. I don't shake my head "no" and I don't say "no". Instead I twist my mouth or scratch my chin, more like a sign of feeling puzzled, seeing something strange, unusual so it will draw his attention to it. Then if he doesn't see the mistake
I point to the word in the book. He will look at it, then
look at the screen, then back to the book till he sees
his mistake. Then he corrects it. He also seemed to remember where
some of the letters were because he didn't seem to take
long to find them as he was typing. They were all staring at Budi typing and talking about him. Sometimes asking him questions. He kept concentrating on his typing though. It was amazing to me to see his level of concentration. I didn't know how long he would
type before he got tired of it. He surprised me with his
attention span. We talked about how patient Budi was. The man from Philly told me that some of the boys he works with get frustrated very easily and start swearing. That helped me realize how special Budi was in comparison. I already knew he was special, but this was just more evidence for me. He kept working even when I moved to the other end of the table to talk to the man from Philly. Then I saw that Budi had stopped working and started looking around. So I said to the man, excuse me but I want to check on him. When I looked at the screen I saw
that he had somehow erased nearly everything. I tried to
get it back but was afraid it was lost. He didn't make any loud exclamations when he saw that he had lost his work. Nor did he ask for help. Budi doesn't feel helpless. That is one thing for sure. I suspect that he was pretty satisfied with what he had typed, just for having typed it and seen it once on the screen. I don't think he cared if the file was saved or not. He might have even been experimenting with keys once he got to the end of the page in the book. I think this was his goal. I let him set his own goal. I would have thanked him for even typing two words. But he typed from three to twenty, or more, but twenty was all I could see when I finally recovered some of the file. I was afraid I was too late to recover any, actually. I was feeling a little unhappy with myself for neglecting him for so long and not checking to see how he was doing while I was talking to the other man. The software automatically makes back ups every so often. Maybe every five or ten minutes. I am not sure. But what I was afraid was that it would make a back up of the file that had been erased on top of the last good file. If I had waited longer this is what would have happened. But I was able to save the numbers
up to twenty. I showed him and he smiled, but he didn't
care too much. Not as much as I did. I am starting to believe that this
kind of quick emotional reaction, show in the face, is a
sign of emotional intelligence in children. I really
noticed this at the school in Malaysia with the girl who
was so attentive and expressive. He agreed but wanted to get two of
everything. Two cups of water, two bags of peanuts and
two rolls. I didn't want to say no, I will only get you
one of each, so I said okay. It cost a little less than a
full dinner and was much simpler so I was okay with it.
Then I said "Okay goodnight I am going to sleep.
They said goodbye and thanked me. We all felt good,
unlike the last night when I had been afraid of them
getting too depedent on me and always expectimg me to
feed them, so I had only got three dinners for four
people and asked them to share, which didn't work very
well when the left out the girl completely! So later I
got her her own dinner and indicated my unhappiness to
the boys. About a half hour later he checked again. When he saw a prospect he came in and asked the man if he wanted his shoes shined. The man said no and Budi went on his way. He doesn't get discouraged easily. I think even Daniel Goleman would say this boy is emotionally intelligent. At least as long as he didn't see him in a classroom where Budi would be like a fish out of water. Budi is used to his freedom now and he has told me that he doesn't want to be in school. I told him I didn't like school either, but I am not sure if my translator that night told him this or not. Still I think Budi can tell that I either don't like school or don't think it is important. I don't interrogate him about it. I don't lecture him about it like the person who said "Do you want to walk around like this all your life?" That was such a destructive thing to say. She was helping him feel ashamed of himself; inferior to others who have shoes or clean clothes. I think Budi feels accepted by me, liked by me, cared about by me, understood by me. Though we don't speak the same language, we have connected. When he smiles, I can't help but smile. His smile is so adorable. And I think it is still sincere. I am afraid he will learn to be manipulative and could become a "con artist" if no one serves as a role model and guide in his life. Right now he seems to be the leader of this seemingly loose band of friends. Someone told me that boys like this are organized by an adult who takes the money. I don't know if this is the case or not. I would like to spend 24 hours with him or close to it, or have someone spend time with him in shifts or something. -- End of section on Budi |
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| JW JW March 1999 It is hard for me to write about JW. I have put it off for over a year now. I had three vivid memories of him. They keep replaying in my mind. The tears are coming to my eyes already. Well, I got three sentences out, anyhow, before they started. So I take a deep breath and tell myself to continue, even though I know this will hurt. The stories keep resurfacing, quietly beckoning me to tell them. But each time the scenes appear in my mind's eyes... The tears form again. One drop runs down my left check. I stop to wipe my eyes and cover them with both of my hands. The scenes run together, they become one, even though they happened on three different visits to the school. Well, I want to get through this. I have put it off for so long. There are so many things I would "rather" do right now. Go investigate the creek, wash my hands, shave, take a shower, go to the grocery store, read a book, clean out my car. But I feel a sense of determination to finish this right now. Partly out of a sense of responsibility, partly out of a sense of negligence for not telling these stories sooner, partly out of a sense of urgency in the thought that I might help one child somewhere. But that leads me back to the other reason I haven't written about JW. I feel a complete sense of powerlessness to help him. I don't even know his last name. I just know he was called "JW." I decided not to change his initials. Somehow it seems unfair to him to do so. Perhaps one day when he is older he will happen upon this story and realize that it is him who I write about. I expect he will always have some memory of me. I feel almost shameful now when I think that I have perhaps abandoned him. Could I have been more help to him? Should I have reported what I saw? But to who? I tried talking to the directors of the school on more than one occasion, but I came to realize they weren't interested in my critique of their school. They felt defensive and I believe they realized that they weren't doing all they could to help the children. I believe they knew on some level that there were problems which they could have addressed, but which would have been difficult for them. They would have been inconvenienced if they would have had to, for example, fire one or two of the teachers. How could they have replaced them in the middle of the year? Who would take over the classrooms? Probably they would have to and this would mean they would have to leave the comfort and safety of their offices. So I said nothing to them about what I witnessed. I have told only a few people the story. Mostly I have kept it inside. To me it is a case of extreme verbal and emotional abuse. But, you see, another dilemma is that most people would say, "Oh, that is not such a big deal. Things like that happen sometimes. The teacher was just having a bad day. JW probably did something to deserve it. He won't remember it. Children are resilient. The teacher needs to show who is in charge every once in a while. The teacher needs control in the classroom and blah, blah, blah." It was on one of the last days which I visited the school. The school visits just got too painful for me. I blame myself for not being stronger, for not having more self-confidence. For allowing myself to feel discouraged and powerless. I just stood there and watched from a distance. Could I have walked over casually and said, "It looks like JW really didn't want to come inside today." Or, "It sounds like JW is a little scared of you. Is that right JW?" Or, "How are you feeling, JW? Scared? In trouble?" Or could I have been more to the point and said, "Are you feeling a little abused JW? Emotionally and physically?" This kind of minimizes the situation though. It makes it sound about as casual as asking, "Are you a little sleepy, JW?" Threatened is probably an accurate word for how he was feeling. I am sure that is exactly what the teacher, though I hesitate to call her that, wanted him to feel. I have to say a few words about this "teacher." She was hired because the school needed someone in a hurry. So they found a someone they knew from their church, a church widely known for its emphasis on authority, fear and punishment. This person was tired of her job as an office administrator and was available so this was all the qualification that was needed. I once asked this person what she liked about teaching. She said, "Because I can go home at 2:30," but I think she also liked it because it gave her a place to partially satisfy her unmet emotional need for feeling powerful and in control. I will call this person X, because I really can't remember her name right now. Perhaps my mind tried to intentionally repress her name. I am sure I have her name in my journal notes, but I don't really care to remember it, to be honest. What I do remember is how she would go outside and smoke her cigarettes when the children were sleeping. And I remember the beat-up old car that she used to drive. It was one of those half-car, half pickup trucks. And I remember that her husband was a construction worker. I don't have anything against people who drive beat up cars. In fact I admire some people for choosing not to spend their money on the appearance of their car when they give other values a higher priority. But in this case the car fit with the rest of the picture of this person: rough, uneducated, unenlightened, uncultured. I am not sure if she ever attended a university. To be a pre-school teacher in the US, that is not a requirement. Why the general public seems to believe that it takes less education, training, and skill to work with children than with high school or college students is a bit of a mystery to me. I tend to agree with the statement that we have things exactly backwards. The higher you go in education the more the teachers are paid. In other words, more value is assigned to university professors than to pre-school teachers. Yet it seems to me that if my natural desire and need for learning is fueled as a child; if this need and desire is nurtured and supported and encouraged, then it will become truly a love of learning. Then by the time I am a teenager, if not before, I will be an adept independent learner. But back to the teacher, Ms. X. I am not sure what her values were, really. Obedience seemed to be high on the list. Education certainly wasn't. Individuality certainly wasn't either. She herded the children around from one task and one place to another. And this was in a special, private school where they allegedly promoted individual instruction. So, let me now turn to my first experience with JW. I was inside the building when I heard one boy crying loudly. I asked Ms. X what happened. She said, "That one bit this one on the playground." I looked over to see who the perpetrator was. I saw a blond-haired blue eyed, somewhat roundfaced boy sitting alone by the wall. His look was a mixture of stunned, quizzical, and, anxious. I walked over to him and asked if I could sit down. His eyes fixed on me, but he remained silent. I interpreted this as tacit permission. When children are upset, I always try to ask if I may approach them. I have never yet been turned away. It is a small gesture of empowering them and respecting them. I believe they understand and appreciate this on an almost subconscious level, partly because it is so rarely done to them. Looking back, I imagine JW was feeling apprehensive, yet in need of comfort. If he could have expressed himself he might have said, "I don't know you. Who are you? Well, okay, it doesn't matter. You can sit here as you aren't going to yell at me or hit me." The thought that JW might have been hit at home, brings tears to my eyes again. I have no idea what his homelife was like. I never met his parents and never heard anything about them. I had very few interactions with him, as you will see, but yet he will always be with me, and I believe the bond we formed will always be there between us. I wonder if I could find him now if I tried. Probably I could contact the school and they would give me his name. There is still some trust left in the United States, not everyone is completely ruled by fear. But it would probably be "illegal" to give out his name or his parents' phone number. I'd say there is about a 50-50 chance I would get it if I asked for it. If I were persistent, maybe I could convince the school directors to call the family for me. But then, would the parents want to talk to me? Would they feel suspicious? Who knows in the United States today. And would they understand what I had to say? And if they did, what would they do about it? Would they try to sue the school? Would they spend a little more time with JW and find out what is really happening at school? Would they talk to his teachers? Would they go find Susan? (I checked my journal and this is the name of the teacher.) Would they ask her on what occasions did she ever use force on JW? When did she ever scream at him? But would she remember? To her I am sure there is nothing unusual or memorable about using force or screaming at a child. Would she even try to answer their questions? Would she say, "I want to talk to a lawyer?" So to continue the story of our first meeting... I don't remember exactly what I said to JW. It was the first time I had been in a situation like that. I felt ignorant myself of what to do or what to say. I tried to remember my own guidelines. These were, more or less, 1) Ask how the child is feeling, 2) Validate the feelings, 3) Ask what would help them feel better, 4) Express your own feelings. I am not even sure I had those guidelines in such a succinct form. They look simple and straightforward now, but at the time I was fumbling around. Whatever guidelines or model I did use seemed to help me find something to start the conversation with, though it never turned out to be a conversation, actually. I think I said something like, "How are you feeling about what happened?" Or, "You must have felt pretty upset to bite the other boy." Whatever I said, I got the same face in response. So I kept talking. Next I tried something like, "You probably feel pretty bad now that you see him crying and realize how much you hurt him." Still, no visible reaction from JW. Then I somehow said something about whether a hug would help him feel better. He face changed and he moved towards me ever so slightly, so I put my arm out and gave him a small, light hug. But quickly he indicated he had had enough. I don't know how I knew this, but it was clear enough at the time. These are the subtleties that are hard to teach. They are perhaps part of our innate emotional intelligence, a part which is difficult to measure, but of incalculable value. For if I had held JW too long or too tightly, if I had made assumptions about him rather than responding to his individual nature at that moment, then perhaps the second experience, which I will describe shortly, might never have occurred. But to continue with this encounter, I also remember saying, "Well, when I do something I feel bad about I feel better when I apologize. Do you think you would feel better if you apologized?" Still nothing. I was feeling very unsure of myself by now. And a little frustrated. But mostly I felt empathy for JW. The other boy was getting lots of attention. One thing which stands out in my memory is "We will have to write a report." But no one was comforting JW, whose name I think I overheard while the other boy was being treated. JW had been sitting there completely alone, and I am sure feeling both alone and afraid of punishment. I don't know what happened to him before he came inside. From what I learned about Susan later, she may have shaken him up quite severely when she first saw what he had done. Who knows what she might have said to him. Perhaps that is why he was sitting there with a stunned look on his face. I am sure that she didn't follow Norma Spurlock's guideline of always validate the feeling first before addressing the behavior. I myself was afraid he was going to get yelled at or "disciplined" (ie punished) for his instinctive response. I felt protective of him and wanted to help him, not hurt him further with lectures, shame, disapproval or punishment. I told him I felt bad for both him and the other child. Still there was no outward sign of how he was taking all of this in. As he sat there in silence I wondered what to say next and felt more and more uncomfortable and unhelpful. I looked at the time and started feeling a little impatient. I said something like, "I am going to go now. I am sorry this happened. I hope you feel better later on." I got up and left, wondering what, if any impact I had on him. It wasn't till the next visit to the school, maybe three or four days later that I received my answer. I was sitting on a table (one of the many things I did which was disapproved of by the directors and staff) watching some children in the front of the school room. I noticed a boy walking towards me. He was walking as if in a trance. His eyes were fixed on me as if they were glued in place. He had his arms out as if he were reaching towards me, as steady as a statue. Only his legs were moving, and this they were doing in a kind of robotic way, as if being pulled towards me with a giant magnet. I noticed how unusual it was for someone to walk this way. JW was about three years old, by the way, so perhaps some of this was partly his newness in walking. At first, I didn't recognize him as being the boy I had comforted the other day. Then, I did. When he sensed that I recognized him, his face lit up with beaming eyes and a huge smile. He stayed on his course which was aimed straight at me. I held out my arms and he reached up to meet me. I lifted him and gave him a big hug. I am sure I asked how he was or said something or other to him, and he may or may not have said anything in reply. I really don't remember. But the message was unmistakable: I was his friend now. I understood him. I tried to help him. I cared about him. And he was showing me in no uncertain terms that he remembered me and appreciated me. I had this "wow" feeling...a memory which fills me with emotion again and waters my eyes. It is one of those feelings I suppose everyone who works with children gets every now and then. I felt affirmed. I knew that whatever I did that earlier day, even in my state of feeling ignorant and helpless, it did have an impact, more than I ever expected. From that moment on, JW and I were buddies. We had a special relationship. I didn't see him often, but when I did, there was a closeness between us. I saw that he was a bright child, a curious child, and generally a happy child. But he was also a strong willed child. This is what his authoritarian teacher could not handle. Before I recount my last memory of JW I will just mention one small thing. One day Susan forced all the children to sit at a table to cut out paper dolls or something. This was of no interest to JW. So he soon got up and found something more interesting to do. When he returned, another child had taken his place at the table. When he protested, Susan said "It serves you right for getting out of your chair." So this is the kind of person who was entrusted with the emotional lives of JW and his classmates. Now we will see another example of her teaching style. One of the last days, perhaps even the last day, I was outside in the playground not watching anything in particular. I heard Susan scream, "JW!" I looked over to see her stomping across the playground. I saw JW sticking his head out from a large pipe, the kind which are made for kids to play in, but it this case JW wasn't using it for play, but for protection. I saw Susan storming over to the pipe, looking ready to explode. She reached in and grabbed JW by the arm. She yanked him out of the pipe. She started dragging him across the playground and screamed at him, "DON'T YOU EVER HIDE FROM ME AGAIN!" She was like an animal, nearly completely out of control. If it were her own child, I expect she would have beaten him viciously. I am quite sure she would have liked to. I don't think anyone else saw or heard this. If they did, they did nothing. Perhaps this was "normal" for Susan, so it wasn't thought of as anything to be concerned with. After all, she didn't actually hit JW, did she? She didn't do anything "illegal" so why worry about it? But me, I stood there paralyzed. I wondered how anyone could be so brutal, so miserably unhappy and emotionally needy as to punish a child for hiding from you. The most natural instinct of a child is to run and hide from a threat. Yet here was this teacher, this role model of children, teaching... no, demanding... that he not obey his instincts, but to obey her, the voice of authority. There is something terribly wrong in a society which permits such people to be teachers. And in society which thinks this is not that big of a deal, which rationalizes that "worse things happen all the time." Yes, worse things do happen, but is that any reason to allow any abuse to continue? I don't know what it will take in America before they see the cause effect relationships between all of their problems and their parenting, educational and religious systems. Apparently not even children killing one another with guns is enough to make much of an impression on a society which numbs itself with the worlds most extensive and expensive assortment of tranquilizers and distractors. But it is not just America. All around the world, children like JW are punished and frightened rather than comforted and understood. They are pushed away from empathy and security and pushed towards defensiveness and insecurity. What I did for JW that first day was partly instinctive, but mostly it was self-taught. It certainly wasn't the way I was taught to handle children. Yet because of the steps I took, JW not only did not feel a need to hide from me, but he willingly embraced me. Was it partly because I was someone new to JW, and because I never had to take the role of the "heavy" with him? Perhaps so, but the authoritarian ways of the past is dying a slow, but certain death. The old days of beating children in school and in public as a means of controlling them are fading quickly in many countries. In some countries like Sweden, it is now also illegal to beat your children in the privacy of your home. Abuse of all sorts is being more and more exposed and, I hope, less tolerated in most societies. Emotional abuse may be harder to show with photographs in court, but research continues to convince more people of the long term consequences of emotional abuse and dysfunction. As we look for new ways to address social problems on a deeper lever, and even beyond that modest goal, to actually search for the elusive state of happiness, aren't the methods I advocate and employ at least worth a try? S. Hein --- This took place at Belaire Montessori school near Clearwater, Florida. The school which was run by a Catholic mother and daughter. From my knowledge of her beliefs, Maria Montessori would never have allowed this type of abuse to have occured in one of her schools. Because the Montessori name is not legally protected, anyone can use it, even if they do not adhere to all of the Montessori principles. This example of abuse is not, then, any indictment against the Montessori schools in general. In fact, I strongly support the basic Montessori system as, in theory, it allows for much more freedom, choice and individuality than traditional schools. |
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| Emotional
Intelligence Meets Traditional Standards for an
Intelligence, by John Mayer, David Caruso,
Peter Salovey (2000)-- Intelligence, 27 (4),
pp 267-298. --- The authors list the following as necessary criteria for declaring something an intelligence: 1. You must be able to break it down into a set of mental abilities. 2. The abilities coming from the intelligence must form a related set. IE they must be intercorrelated--they must rise and fall as a group. 3. The abilities must have a significant positive correlation to traditional intelligence, without being so highly correlated that they are just another indication of traditional intelligence. 4. The abilities of the intelligence should "develop with age and experience." (In their paper, the authors combined numbers 2 and 3.) Based on their research, Mayer et al have concluded that emotional intelligence does indeed meet these traditional criteria of a standard intelligence. They then offer this definition of emotional intelligence p 2.1 "EI refers to an ability to recognize the meanings of emotions, and to reason and problem solve on the basis of them," and it involves "the capacity to perceive emotions, assimilate emotion-related feelings, understand the information of those emotions, and manage them." 2.2 "EI can be assessed most directly by asking a person to solve emotional problems, such as identifying the emotion in a story or a painting..." The authors then provide some details regarding the terms in their definitions. For example, they say that assimilating emotions includes "weighing emotions against one another", and "allowing emotions to direct thought." Next they discuss their test instrument and go into a considerable amount of detail about the two research studies they conducted. In this article the authors also touch on several of their concerns. For example, they are concerned that writers in the popular press have hurt the scientific field of emotional intelligence research by making unsubstantiated claims, adding their own, unvalidated components to the definition of EI and creating questionable tests which claim to measure emotional intelligence. Mayer et al are concerned that a confusion is being generated about what emotional intelligence is or is not, and that by and including unrelated variables (or at least, variables which have not yet been individually tested for their relationship to those already identified in the authors' previous work) other authors have hampered their efforts to establish EI as a legitimate intelligence. (By legitimate I mean something which is generally accepted by their peers in the academic research community.) The article concludes with the authors saying that in their view, emotional intelligence is "an important candidtate to enlarge the group on which general intelligence is based." They go on to cautiously state, "Perhaps a general intelligence that includes emotional intelligence will be a more powerful predictor of important life outcomes than one that does not." |
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| Peru I lived in South America for 4 years, a lot of which was in Peru. I did a lot of writing there and took a lot of pictures. In many ways it was an example what not to do when it comes to parenting, religion, education, respect etc. |
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This is an interesting term and organization. One of the most interesting things they came up with is this list of what they call the fundamental emotional needs (One need which is noticably missing here is Freedom)
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| Selecting
a Measure of Emotional Intelligence: The
Case for Ability Scales, by J.D. Mayer, D.
Caruso, P. Salovey. "Second Submission"
Version: January 11, 2000 Chapter in: R. Bar-On, & J.
D. A. Parker (Eds.). The Handbook of Emotional
Intelligence. Note from the authors: Pending
Publication, Please Do Not Quote or Cite Without
Permission. Here are some quick notes on this paper. (Last update 06/16/12) In this paper the authors compare their tests to others which also claim to be emotional intelligence tests and then they give a considerable amount of information about their test design. They also give new information on the correlates to emotional intelligence as it is measured by their tests, the MEIS, and the new version, the MSCEIT. Beginning with the comparison between their test and the BarOn EQi test, EQ Map and the ECI (Emotional Competence Test), one of the conclusions is that the other tests are measuring things which have already been measured with personality tests. The authors briefly discuss the issues of content validity and incremental validity, and they address concerns about the validity and reliability of their earlier tests which were raised by Davies, Stankov and Roberts in 1998. With respect to this issue, the authors say
The authors next describe some of the problems with self-report tests, and "informant" tests and offer research to support their position that their ability test is preferable to the three other tests which are a mixture of self-report and informant. Next the problems inherent in designing a good ability test are discussed in an effort to demonstrate that they have given thoughtful consideration to these problems. In particular they address how they came up with the "right answers" for their test questions, this way being a combination of target criteria, expert criteria and consensus criteria, and they discuss correlations between these three methods. Next they answer the question of how they could measure whether someone can identify their own feelings. They answer this by saying that other studies showed that if people could recognize other people's feelings, then they could generally recognize their own as well. The authors concluded that if they could test people's ability to identify emotion in others, then this would imply that a person could identify his own feelings, so this is how their test was set up. Then they go into considerable detail about how each of the four branches of their test works. (Each branch gives it's own score in their tests and then there is a composite score.) The four branches are: Perception of Emotion; Emotional Facilitation; Understanding Emotion; Managing Emotion. These are described in more detail by the authors as follows:
They move on to a quick review of what it takes for something to be considered an intelligence, saying:
On the topic of reliability, they state:
Next, the authors state that "Factor analyses indicate that emotional intelligence can be represented as a two-level hierarchy. At the top of the hierarchy is an overall emotional intelligence factor that represents a fairly cohesive group of skills." (It is not clear to me what the bottom level of this hierarchy is.) On the correlation to traditional forms of intelligence, the authors state that "The MEIS is somewhat related to -- but still reasonably independent of -- verbal intelligence." For example in one study the correlation between the MEIS, and a vocabulary measure was r = .36, p < .01. In another it was r = .45, p <.01. They add that in another study the MEIS score and scores on the Raven Progressive Matrices were found to be unrelated (r = .05, n.s.). The Raven test they say is "generally considered to be a measure of performance or spatial intelligence." They continue by concluding that: "Such findings indicate that emotional intelligence may be related to other specific intelligences to varying degrees. These correlations indicate that the MEIS measures different things than do these other intelligence tests, although there is some relationship between them." As far as development with age, the authors tell us that adults do indeed score higher than adolescents. Next the paper moves to the question of what emotional intelligence predicts, or what it is correlated to. First they review the relationship between "Ability and Self-Report Emotional Intelligence." They say: In work comparing the MSCEIT scores with those of the BarOn EQ-i, a self-report measure of emotional intelligence (Bar-On, 1997), the overall test-to-test correlation in a subsample of 137 was r = .36, which indicates the two tests share about 10% of their variance in common. Next they review correlations for empathy, parental warmth and life satisfaction measures. Empathy. Emotional intelligence (measured by the MEIS) correlates with self-reported empathy (r = .33, p < .01; Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, in press; r = .43, p < .01; Ciarrochi, et al., in press). Sullivan (1999) found that the EISC ability measure correlated about r = .35 with children's self-reported empathy. Rubin (1999) administered an adolescent version of the MEIS (the AMEIS) to 52 seventh and eighth grade students in an urban school district. She found a significant association between emotional intelligence and empathy (r= .28, p < .05).
Studies with the MEIS indicate that emotional
intelligence is significantly related to self-reported
parental warmth (r = .23, p < .01, Mayer, Caruso,
& Salovey, in press; r = .18, p < .05; Ciarrochi
et al., in press). These findings are important because
of the large emphasis we and others have placed on
developmental antecedents of emotional intelligence
(e.g., Mayer & Salovey, 1995; Salovey & Sluyter,
1997). Life Satisfaction Measures. Ciarrochi et al. (in press) found that people scoring
higher on the MEIS had higher levels of life satisfaction
(r = .28, p < .05), and of self-reported relationship
quality (r = .19, p < .05). The next section is titled: Broader Aspects of Personality. They say one study found the MEIS score to correlate with other measures as follows: The MEIS correlated "at low to moderate levels with tests of a) extroversion, b) openess to feelings, and c) self-esteem as show below: a. r = .26, p < .05 b. r = .24, p < .05 c. r = .31, p < .05 They then say that their own studies show that the MEIS is relatively independent of many of the self-report trait scales of personality as measured by the omnibus personality measure, the 16 PF (Mayer, Caruso, Salovey, Formica, & Woolery, 1999). "In 186 college students, we found that the MEIS full-scale score correlated as follows with each of the 16 PF scales: More specifically they report these findings: [ I have arranged these in order from highest positive correlation to highest negative correlation] r = .22, p < .01 with Sensitivity r = .19, p < .05 with Reasoning r = .14, p = .05 with Openness to Change r = .13, n.s.with Warmth r = .12, n.s., with Liveliness r = .09, n.s. with Emotional Stability r = .09, n.s., with Apprehension r = .05, n.s. with Dominance r = .02, n.s., with Rule-Consciousness r = .01 with Tension r = -.01, n.s., with Abstractedness r = -.02, n.s., with Social Boldness r = -.10, n.s., with Privateness r = -11 with Perfectionism r = -.17, p < .05 with Vigilance r = -.21, p < .01 with Self-Reliance They add: "Importantly, the MEIS correlated r = .01 with the Impression Management scale of the 16 PF. Likewise, the scales of the MSCEIT are, encouragingly, almost entirely unrelated to the Positive Impression scale of the EQ-i (r = .16, n.s.)." Next they give us these correlations: "The individuals in our recent study also completed the FIRO-B, a self-report measure of social skills and needs. The full-scale MEIS correlated r = .14, n.s., with expressed Inclusion (which measures how much the subject expresses interest in people in general), r = .22, p < .01 with wanted Inclusion (how much a subject desires to be with people), r = .05, n.s. with expressed Affection ( a measure of how warm a person is toward others), r = .19, p < .01 with wanted Affection (how much closeness a person desires with others), r = -.09, n.s. with expressed Control (the amount of responsibility and decision making in which the person engages), and r = -.05, n.s. with wanted Control (how much structure or direction the person desires). A brief mood scale administered to these respondents correlated -.09, n.s. with total MEIS scores. This chapter also reports the results of a business study using the MEIS (by C. I. Rice at Pepperdine University) . In that study it was found there was some support to the claim that EI is related to leadership effectiveness, particularly in the area of customer service. In other areas though a higher EI score was actually negatively correlated with productivity and accuracy in handling customer complaints. But what we don't know is whether the customers felt more satisfied when served by those higher in EI. If this is the case it could offset or outweigh the lower productivity and accuracy. Another possibly important finding was reported in this chapter. From the results of two studies it seems that higher EI scores tend to predict lower levels of violence and aggression in children. |
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| Wayne Payne In 1985 Wayne Payne published a doctoral thesis titled, A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence. When I met with Jack (John D.) Mayer in his office in New Hampshire in 2000, he told me that he had contacted the school Wayne went to and ordered a copy of the entire dissertation. Jack told me he also tried to get in touch with Wayne but he learned that Wayne had died. The school where Payne wrote this paper has now been renamed The Union Institute. After I spoke with Jack I found an online copy of the abstract from Wayne's dissertation. At that time I read it a little quickly and then put a copy of it on my site without much comment. Later someone mailed me a PDF copy of the entire dissertation. Reading this dissertation makes it clear that Wayne Payne had done a lot of thinking, and a lot of original thinking, about emotions and what he called "emotional intelligence" at least five years before Salovey and Mayer published their first paper, in 1990, using the term. Wayne was obviously concerned about how society has historically suppressed emotions. This is something that Salovey and Mayer also seemed to be concerned about in their original 1990 paper on EI, though less so than Wayne. Interestingly, Wayne also talked about what he called "emotional ignorance." He said it causes social problems such as depression, addiction, illness, religious conflict, violence and war. I agree, but would add that our problems are not just from emotional ignorance, but are from what we might call emotional poison when we unintentionally teach emotionally unhealthy lessons to children and thus give them emotionally toxic role models to follow. When I read what Wayne wrote in 1985 I have a sense that he was on the right track. I feel sad Wayne is no longer here to offer us his ideas. -- My notes and selected quotes from the abstract The abstract starts with this:
He then says a "theoretical and philosophical framework is developed" to help us understand the "nature and characteristics of emotion and emotional intelligence" and to guide us ways of "developing emotional intelligence--in self and, by way of education, in others." It is interesting to compare this with what Salovey and Mayer wrote in 1990 in their first paper on EI. They said:
With other authors I might feel skeptical that they copied the idea of emotional intelligence from Wayne Payne without giving him credit, but knowing Jack Mayer, this seems unlikely. In any case, later Payne says in his abstract:
Then he says that many social problems are the "direct result of emotional ignorance". He lists as examples depression, addiction, illness, religious conflict, violence and war. I agree, but I would add suicide, especially teen suicide to this list. He then says that "perhaps we humans have tried too hard to "civilize" ourselves, trying to deny our true animal nature--our emotional nature--along the way." He suggests that we have done this "because we have had the wrong idea altogether about the nature of emotion and the important function it serves in our lives." I agree with him on this. He goes on to say, "This work is intended to be a prototype of a guidebook on developing emotional intelligence." He next lists three ways his paper offers this guidance.
Then in the final line of the abstract Wayne says emotional intelligence "involves relating creatively to fear, pain and desire" and says his dissertation offers guidance on "how to relate to them in emotionally intelligent ways." His choice of the word "creatively" is interesting to me. I can't think of many authors on EI who have said something like this. They usually say something more like "intelligently." To say "creatively" suggest that Wayne had the idea that to be emotionally intelligent meant having the ability to create new ways of responding to emotional situations, as opposed to just repeating patterns that you have seen modeled by those around you. And this, is a very interesting and, I believe, profound thought. |
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Robert Myrick - Notes from
"Caring and Sharing: Becoming a Peer
Facilitator" The feeling words list, now over 4,000 words, grew out of the short list of twenty or so words presented in this book. It is a very helpful, practical book. Quote from someone on first page:
Chapter 1 Contains exercises to help peer counselors get to know each other. For example, who are you, what are your questions about life, what significant things have happened to you, what youth need, what problems they face. Chapter 2 The greatest gift one person can give another is to help them in the discovery of self-love, true happiness and inner peace. [adaptation] [SPH note - To me, counseling involves answering two basic questions. One is,Why do we do the things we do? The other is, How can we change them?] p 16 Myrick lists these 8 principles to understanding human behavior
Our needs:
Principle # 2 Goal Direction "We want to maintain and enhance our personal survival," p 19 We spend most of our lives trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. "Power grows in us the moment a future dream transforms into present day action." Principle 3 - Our self-concept influences all our behavior We feel, think and act based on our perception of ourselves and others. Principle 4 - Our self-concept is learned and can change. .... but change brings threat, anxiety, and fear of self-destruction [I would say in people with low self-esteem] Peer facilitators can help people change. Nothing influences the development of our self-concept more than the consequences of our behavior. [I would change this to "the results of our behavior" since "consequences" generally has negative implications. I might also said that it is more specific to say that it is the resulting feelings which matter more than just the actions.] If the consequences are satisfying and rewarding, we will repeat them to the point they will probably become a habit Principle 7 Increased self-awareness leads to responsible and informed decision-making If you lack self-awareness you may be making alibis, failing to take a stand or be unwilling to accept the consequences of your behavior. -- Being a peer facilitator involves helping others explore their world, who they believe they are, what they want out of life and what they are willing to do to get it [I would add: how they became who they are, what they want to change, what they can change] -- Helping Relationships Research found that in counseling when certain helping characteristics were present, people tended to get better; when they are absent people tended to get worse. This was independent of the counselor's theory and technique. Thus, even those who are not "professionals" but who can achieve these same characteristics in a helping relationship, can and do, help facilitate personal growth in others. People are changed very little by advice, persuasion or threat. We experience the most change when we are with a helping person who is positive, understanding, tolerant, easy to talk with, non-judgmental and who cares about us. [Stated another way: When we are with someone with whom we feel listened to, heard, understood, accepted, safe, comfortable and cared about.] The relationship between the helper and the helpee can be a positive catalyst in its own right. The real key to the helping process is the quality of the relationship. Here are the five characteristics:
Listening: Listening should not mean simply waiting for your turn to talk. Do not jump in to direct the conversation or change the focus from what the person is saying. Try to figure out what the message is, what the person is really saying and what feelings they are experiencing right now. Avoid by all means labeling or judging. Understanding: This includes recognizing or being able to describe the thoughts and feelings of others. Accepting: The person must feel free from the threat of rejection. The fear of rejection and judgment narrows and restricts behavior. The more we are accepted the more likely we are to self-disclose and take risks in the exploration process. The more secure we are the more accepting we can be, since our own self-concepts are less likely to be threatened by anything we hear. (sph adaptation) Accepting them does not mean we condone or agree with them. But we do accept and acknowledge their feelings. Being Genuine: Feeling one thing and communicating the opposite is not being genuine, therefore not facilitative. The more genuine you are the more the other person will trust your responses (check book ). Being non-genuine may turn them off from counseling in general and from you in particular. - A friend is one who knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts who you have become, invites you to grow and supports you in your journey. - Different types of facilitating:
When you are evaluating or advising you assume the role of superiority. Being too quick to rush in with support or reassurance might be interpreted as implying that the feeling is so common the person should not even be concerned with it. For example, statements such as
The message that comes through is you should not feel as you do, and that the person's feelings are of little importance.[In other words the person might be thinking "you don't really understand me you just want to get rid of me.] Be careful in using the "why" question. He says it might be better to ask "What" questions, such as "what is it about school you don't like?" - We cannot adjust the wind, but we can adjust our sails. Ways of summarizing and showing understanding:
Chapter 5 Feedback and confronting
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| Educational Policy on Emotional Intelligence: Does It Make Sense? By J.D. Mayer and Casey D. Cobb, in Educational Psychology Review, 12, No. 2, 2000 pp 163-183 | |
| Models
of Emotional Intelligence, Mayer, J.
D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2000) In R. J.
Sternberg (Ed.). Handbook of Human Intelligence (2nd
ed). pp 396-420. New York: Cambridge -- In this article MS& C review some of the literature being presented as emotional intelligence. They start out by spending a considerable amount of time on defining the words emotion, intelligence and emotional intelligence. They compare various definitions and then compare their model of EI with that of Daniel Goleman and Reuven Bar On. They call Goleman and Bar On's models "mixed models" because they mix in variables which have not been scientifically validated as being related to intelligence. They refer to their own model as an "ability model" because they believe it reflects a person's actual mental ability as directly related to standard definitions of intelligence. They report these findings from a study of their MEIS test:
From the article I also gathered that this is what bothers them the most about Goleman's 1995 book:
In this article the authors also raise the question of what is meant by the word, "success." I was pleased to see them address this critically important question. Other writers on the topic of emotional intelligence, for example Goleman in his 1997 book for business, have talked about success as if meant only material wealth and status. |
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| Emotional Intelligence as Zeitgeist,
as Personality, and as a Mental Ability, by Mayer, Salovey and Caruso, in press, Chapter
to appear in: R. Bar-On, & J. D. A. Parker (Eds.).
The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence. This is the first draft of these notes. Since the article has not been published and may go through additional revisions, please be conservative with how you use these notes. Also, please let me know if you see any typos I would appreciate it. In this article the authors begin by commenting on the broad appeal the term emotional intelligence has had to the world and on the various meanings of the term which have proliferated. They examine three meanings of the term. First, as Zeitgeist, which they define as an intellectual or passionate trend that characterizes the moment. Second, as a set of personality traits, which it seems fair to say most common meaning of the term. Third, as "a set of abilities having to do with processing emotional information." This last meaning is the one the authors are striving to bring to the public awareness. As anyone who reads their articles or this site knows by now, Goleman popularized the second meaning of the term and Mayer et al are fighting an uphill battle. At anyrate, in the article, the authors review both the popular and the scientific literature with the goal of bringing "some semblance of order to the various usages of emotional intelligence and some consideration of how those different meanings might be confusing if ignored, but contribute to constructive cultural and scientific discussion if attended to." (This is one of the most thoughtful and well written comments I have seen in a while!) In the discussion of EI as Zeitgeist the authors trace the history of the public's interest in the term. They begin with the 1995 cover story articles in two popular American magazines which they describe as a mixture of "sensationalism and science." To summarize and combine the authors' comments a bit, the articles which were based on Goleman's best-selling book of that year, gave people back the hope that was taken away from them by the book "The Bell Curve" a year earlier. I found this entire section of the article to be extremely insightful, especially when they then added in a discussion of stoicism, romanticism, religious influences on the suppression of emotion and even the rebellious youth movement of the nineteen sixties. They also touch on the humanistic psychology movement which elevated the importance of emotions and the honest experience and expression thereof. They quote Maslow who asked the question "What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?" (This is from Maslow's book "Toward a Psychology of Being, page 8) To expand a bit on the authors here, they say this was obviously understood to mean that sometimes feelings of rebellion, aggression, assertiveness, disobedience, non-conformity and non-compliance and are necessary and healthy. (The authors actual comment was that "sometimes angry emotions were a necessary signal to injustice.) Then the authors briefly mention the "unmet emotional needs" of the American society during that decade, which put a smile on my face since I have repeatedly emphasized this and have even shortened it to UEN's in my writing since I refer to the idea so frequently! I don't believe the UEN's of America are limited to the sixties, however. The authors also touch on the women's movement and they cite a quote which stressed the importance of staying connected with feelings rather than judging them. We also are treated with some history of the term emotional intelligence. We find out that in 1966 a German article used the term, as well as some other interesting facts about the article itself, such as the author at that time suggested that women who did not compliantly accept their social roles should be treated with LSD-25! We also learn more about the dissertation by W. L. Payne in 1983 which was titled, "A study of emotion: Developing emotional intelligence; Self-integration; relating to fear, pain and desire." I recall this paper was briefly mentioned by the authors in one of their previous writings, but in this article there are several quotes from the dissertation itself, and it seems fair to say the Mayer et al think highly of the work. I have not read it yet myself, but feel more curious about it. The reference is Dissertations Abstracts International, 47, (01), p 203A. (University Microfilms # AAC 8605928) It is at least 400 pages in length, by the way, according to one of the citations used in the present article. The authors conclude this section of the paper by commenting on the various possible senses of an "emotionally intelligent society." They say it could be thought of as one which understand how to integrate reason and emotion or as a "kinder, gentler intelligence, one which anyone can have." In this sense, emotional intelligence might help us "live together in peace." But the authors are not making any exaggerated claims that their scientific research work on EI will lead to world peace, success, prosperity, equality and happiness for every one. Instead they say cautiously, and wisely I believe, that the "scientific understanding of emotional intelligence may or may not support" what I will call any particular utopian scenarios or concepts of what is politically correct at the present moment in history. The next section covers the ways EI has been promoted as a set of personality traits. The authors start out by saying "When we enter the scientific realm from the popular, we are obliged to adjust our standards of terminology and understand the context of our various constructs." As the use of the word "constructs" warns us, this is going to be a technical discussion, much as the authors try to keep it simple. In fact, it is so technical that I got a bit lost in it so I will simply say the next few pages of the article are about personality psychology and models, frameworks and definitions. Then they address how Goleman in his 95 book "redefined and re-described" emotional intelligence, "each time including a somewhat different set of personality attributes." They also cite this sentence by Goleman which I remember troubled me also at the time I first read it,
The authors then say that "It might seem improper to hold up Goleman's (1995) theory as a scientific one. At first, it was presented as a journalistic account of our own theory. Nonetheless many scientists have treated Goleman's work seriously and Goleman has accepted this blended role..." (To put it nicely!) Then they talk about Reuvon Bar-On's version of EI a bit, though they are not quite as hard on him, perhaps because the article is going in his book! They have already written about his work so I won't elaborate here. Next they address Goleman's 1998 book which he wrote for the business market, and they critique his use of the term EI and his laundry list of 25 "emotional competencies" as he calls them when he is not calling them emotional intelligence per se. They also briefly review Cooper's definition of EI and his "EQ Map" which has received some limited acceptance in the business world from what I can gather, most likely because it was the first book written specifically for the business market. When I read it, I didn't see that it had much to do with emotional intelligence at all, no matter whose definition you were using, but rather it was simply a quickly put together repackaging of some of Cooper and Sawaf's pre-Goleman consulting work. The authors understandably have some negative feelings about how these other writers are marketing the term EI. Some of these are no doubt fairly personal, but they do have a legitimate concern, which I share. They put it thus: "If emotional intelligence doesn't refer exclusively to emotion or to intelligence, then it becomes quite unclear to what it does refer." They also say that "labeling personality research as 'emotional intelligence'... directs people away from the relevant research about the claims being made. It allows a person to create a theory that is disconnected from other, similar theories, and so to be very imaginative-- but it can lead to disappointment once the connection between imagination and reality is re-established." --- They continue, "Empirical studies of the
discriminant and convergent validity of scales based on
the above approaches have only begun; they will reveal
whether these new measures have reinvented earlier tests,
or are actually measuring something new." --- An Ability Theory of Emotional Intelligence
"The first branch of emotional intelligence begins with the capacity to perceive (and to express) feelings." p 22 "Emotions are complex organizations of the physiological, emotional experiential, cognitive, and conscious" Emotion is an organized response system that coordinates physiological, perceptual, experiential, cognitive, and other changes into coherent experiences of moods and feelings
Branch 3 involves understanding and reasoning with emotion. p 23 |