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Emotional Quota

Psychology Degree Guide: Emotional Quota (EQ)

Emotional Quota (EQ) is emotional or social intelligence—the ability to process, evaluate and control one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. There is a significant amount of controversy concerning the precise definition of EQ, the value it has for assessing overall intelligence and its relationship with the more conventional intelligence assessment protocol, Intelligence Quota (IQ).

As part of our collection of psychology resources, we provide an in depth look at the history of EQ, the current debate surrounding its definition and the means by which clinicians assess an individual’s EQ. While IQ testing has become a standard means by which institutions evaluate the intelligence of students or employees such that it determines placement in classes, positions of authority and the awarding of significant opportunity, EQ testing has not been integrated into assessment systems. Our aim is to provide you with the best EQ information available online alongside a discussion of the applications of EQ today and the potential applications tomorrow.

Emotional Quota Explored

Emotional Quota (EQ) is emotional or social intelligence—the ability to process, evaluate and control one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. There is a significant amount of controversy concerning the precise definition of EQ, the value it has for assessing overall intelligence and its relationship with the more conventional intelligence assessment protocol, Intelligence Quota (IQ).

While IQ testing has become a standard means by which institutions evaluate the intelligence of students or employees such that it determines placement in classes, positions of authority and the awarding of significant opportunity, EQ testing has not been integrated into most assessment systems. There is no overarching scientific consensus about whether or not EQ has quantifiable validity in the same way that IQ does.

The Debate

Within the field of EQ, there is debate over whether there is a significant distinction between emotional and social intelligence (interpersonal vs. intrapersonal). There is also debate over how best to measure EQ: through interviews, self reporting or the opinion of multiple observers. In the Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, an attempt is made to describe the three predominant conceptual models of EQ (Salovey-Mayer, Goleman and Bar-On) though the field is rapidly growing and these definitions continue to change substantially as more is learned about the biology behind emotional expression and development.

Beyond the model debate, there is a larger conversation concerning the quantifiable usefulness of EQ data. The validity and importance of an individual’s EQ as it relates to IQ, academic success and personal/social success in life.

Salovey-Mayer Model

In the Salovey-Mayer model, EQ is the ability to manage, perceive and understand emotions to inform thinking, as measured by emotional ability. This ability-based model focuses on four specific types of emotional intelligence.

  • Perceiving Emotions: The ability to detect and parse the emotions of others via faces, voices, images and cultural objects. This is a critical element of emotional intelligence since, an individual must perceive to later understand.
  • Using Emotions: The ability to translate perceived and felt emotions to the appropriate action.
  • Understanding Emotions: The ability to parse emotional perceptions into an appropriate understanding of the emotional landscape. This includes sensitivity to extreme emotional subtlety and to the evolution of emotions over time. An ability to verbalize this understanding is also necessary.
  • Managing Emotions: The ability to control and cope with emotions in one’s self and others, including negative emotions.

The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT)  is a problem-solving test designed to discover the subject’s competency in each of the four types of emotional intelligence. The subject’s answers are evaluated against a consensus model: the social-norm or standard answer set from a worldwide survey. In some cases the MSCEIT is scored against the answers of 21 experts rather than the general population.

Goleman Model

In the Goleman Model, EQ is a broad collection of skills that influence managerial performance. These are learned skills, though this model recognizes the in-born or intrinsic ability that allows an individual to develop these skills. Leadership performance is at the heart of the Goleman Model and it also focuses on four core competencies for emotional intelligence.

  • Self-Awareness: Recognizing and understanding one’s own emotions and using rote emotional “feeling” in decision-making.
  • Self-Management: Managing and controlling one’s emotions dynamically.
  • Social Awareness: Recognizing and understanding the emotions of others as individuals and in social groups.
  • Relationship Management: Conflict resolution and social group building.

The Goleman Model is measured via the Emotional Competency Inventory (ECI) (1999), the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) (2007) and the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal (2001). This last test can be both a self-test or a test administered by others.

Bar-On Model

In the Bar-On Model, EQ is a complex interplay between social and emotional skills that influence behavior, as measured by self-evaluation informed by interviews and multiple observers. This model recognizes both the internal and external manifestations of EQ, from learned behaviors to social success, and hypothesizes that a higher EQ correlates with a greater chance of social success. Bar-On tests for problem solving, reality awareness, tolerance of stress and impulse control. Bar-On recognizes EQ as equivalent in importance to IQ, and sees both as critical for understanding the overall intelligence of an individual. Bar-On is a Darwinian model, recognizing the importance of EQ for social adaptation and, ultimately, survival.

The Bar-On Model is measured via the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i). This test includes 133 questions designed to evaluate a subject’s perception of her own intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, stress management, adaptability and general mood. The scores are evaluated by a computer.

Other Testing Models

While the three models listed above are the giants in the field of EQ, there are many independent tests designed to measure EQ from a wide variety of perspectives. These include the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT), the Schutte EI Model and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) designed to be as comprehensive as possible, melding all of the different approaches. TEIQue is also available in many different languages to study EQ cross-culturally.

Alexithymia

Alexithymia can be understood as the lower range of EQ, the lack of emotional intelligence or awareness. The Bermong-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) measure an individual’s level of Alexithymia.

History

The Emotional Quota concept was first proposed in the early 19th century in response to Charles Darwin’s 1872 work on the importance of emotional intelligence for survival and adaptation. The term “social intelligence” was coined by E.L. Thorndike in 1920. Howard Gardner introduced the idea of multiple types of intelligence with his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983). It wasn’t until 2000 that the distinction was made between emotional intelligence as a trait and ability. See Bradberry and Su’s Ability versus Skill-Based Assessment of Emotional Intelligence.

The field is dynamic and continues to evolve as more discoveries are made into the functional anatomy of emotion.

Anatomical Foundations

Research into the neural circuitry responsible for emotional awareness has lent a legitimacy to the concept of EQ. Different schools of thought on the subject make distinctions between interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence, but that has not yet been decipherable from looking at brain scans. Research has uncovered, however, parts of the brain responsible for regulating the experience of mood. The overarching brain region responsible for emotional processing is the limbic system. The limbic system is comprised of the amygdala, the fear center; the hippocampus, the memory center; and the hypothalamus, the “master gland”.  These classifications are broad and problematic and there is much crossover between systems during emotional processing.

Understanding neural anatomy and cognition is a quickly evolving field that surges ahead with new imaging technology like functional magnetic resonance imaging. However, interpreting this type of imaging is problematic, as scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara discovered during their experiments with fMRI scans of a dead Atlantic salmon. The dead salmon showed electrical brain activity that, under other circumstances, may have been interpreted as cognitively meaningful. This study underlines the importance of scientific scrutiny of imaging, and should serve as a demonstration of the risk of drawing blanket conclusions from fMRI observations.

Discussion on the Relevance of EQ

The subjectivity of EQ testing has raised doubts about its validity, since the answers to EQ questions are not objectively right or wrong. However, denying EQ evaluations when testing intelligence ignores a significant element of human intelligence and experience and paints a two-dimensional picture of the tested brain. Increasingly, researchers are recognizing the complexities of intelligence and the importance of developing comprehensive tests that evaluate intellectual, emotional and social intelligence in tandem. It is also important to use experiential data, such as the career achievements of the subject, when evaluating IQ and EQ.

In one report, W. Lee Grubb III of East Carolina University and Michael A. McDaniel of Virginia Commonwealth University explore the “fakability” of EQ tests, particularly the Bar-On inventory. The possibility that subjects subjectively skew their own EQ results adds another wrinkle of uncertainty to the science of EQ.

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