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Running Head: Emotional Intelligence

Does Emotional Intelligence Meet Traditional Standards? Azalea A. Khan California State University, Northridge

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Table of Contents I. II. III. IV. V. What is Reviewed?..................................................................................................pg. 3 The Review of the Topicpg. 4 - 6 Critique of the Topic/ Letter to the Researchers...pg. 7 - 11 The Response from the Researchers...pg. 12 - 13 References .........................................pg. 14

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What is Reviewed I chose to do my critique on an article regarding the standards of emotional intelligence. I chose this topic because it is a relatively new theory put forth in the field of psychology, yet it has so far shown to have much merit. I first heard about the theory of emotional intelligence in a psychology course that I had previously taken. This topic caught my attention because I had only been exposed to the idea of general intelligence. Having never really thought about broader concepts, I had no idea that psychologists had even developed theories about other domains of intelligence. I was under the assumption that intelligence was limited to the various types of skills that most people are familiar with, such as quantitative reasoning, logic reasoning, reading and writing abilities, and problem solving abilities. At first, I was skeptical if emotional intelligence was accurately evaluated and I had no idea on what exactly it was based. However, I came to learn that emotional intelligence is thought to be just as important as general intelligence as it has the ability to predict a persons success in many different areas. I learned that it consists of a persons ability to read and interpret the emotions of others as well as how to properly react to those emotions. It has shown to be extremely beneficial in ones personal relationships and significant in predicting career success. The following article, which I will summarize and then critique, is called Emotional Intelligence Meets Traditional Standards for an Intelligence. It was written by Drs. John D. Mayer, David R. Caruso, and Peter Salovey. They have conducted two separate studies in which the data collected support their hypothesis that emotional intelligence meets the three classical criteria of a standard intelligence.

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Review of the Topic The following studies were conducted in order to determine if emotional intelligence meets the three criteria to be considered a standard intelligence. In order to do this, the researchers conducted two separate studies. The first study operationalized several different abilities which are often associated with emotional intelligence and then analyzed them in order to see if they correlated with more traditional abilities of intelligence. The second study was conducted to determine if adults outperformed adolescents on levels of emotional intelligence; this was done with the intention of supporting the third criterion which states that intelligence increases with age. The first study conducted, used a constructed set of 12 ability measures drawn from each of 4 defined areas of emotional intelligence including perceiving, assimilating, understanding, and managing emotion. The test was administered to 503 adults (164 men, 333 women, and 6 unreported) with a mean age of 23 years (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000). The full sample was roughly representative of the ethnic composition of the United States census, and above average in education. In this study, it was predicted that there would be a moderate correlation among the 12 tasks. It was also predicted that a combination of these tasks correlated with traditional forms of intelligence. This study also examined evidence of whether emotional intelligence predicts empathy, parental warmth, and cultural pursuits. The primary criteria included measures of intelligence and self-reported empathetic feelings, both of which have been predicted to correlate with emotional intelligence. Secondary criteria included measures of several areas in which emotionally intelligent individuals are thought to differ from others. Scoring was divided into three separate parts. First, scoring methods for emotional intelligence were compared. Second, the emotional intelligence tasks were intercorrelated factor

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analyzed. Third, emotional intelligence was correlated with various external criteria. The data were analyzed by comparing the three different methods for identifying a correct answer: according to (a) the group consensus, (b) experts identification, and (c) a targets assessment. The consensus and expert ratings were fairly highly correlated across all tasks. All of the correlations were significant, suggesting that the two criteria are closely related. In general, the three criteria appeared to correlate moderately highly, indicating that some answers were more correct than others, according to any and all of the scoring methods used. Altogether, the results of study 1 indicated that emotional intelligence showed a pattern consistent with a new domain of intelligence. It was able to be operationalized as sets of abilities, and better answers were distinguished from worse answers, as indicated by the three scoring methods. The 12 tasks also intercorrelated with one another, independent of which scoring method was employed. Finally, emotional intelligence was found to be moderately correlated with a measure or verbal intelligence, which indicated that it is related to other intelligences without being the same as them. The second study focused primarily on whether emotional intelligence met the developmental criterion for an intelligence. For emotional intelligence to behave as a standard intelligence, it should be shown to increase with age. To test whether this actually occurs, several portions of the scale used in study 1 were administered to a young adolescent sample in study 2. The performance of the adolescents was then compared to the performance of an adult subsample drawn from study 1. It was hypothesized that the adult sample would significantly outperform the adolescents on the scale. A sample of 229 adolescents (125 young men, 101 young women, and 3 unreported) with a mean age of 13.4 years was used in this study. The sample was slightly deviant from the ethnic composition of the United States census; it did not

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accurately represent minority groups (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000). The participants were given a reduced set of the same group of tasks which were administered in study 1. Data from this study was then compared to a subset of the data from the first study. The main purpose of this study was to determine if adults functioned at a higher level of emotional intelligence than adolescents. The same three scoring procedures were used as in study 1: agreement consensus, expert rating, and target reports. As predicted, scores were higher for adults than for adolescents when using all three scoring procedures. In addition, emotional intelligence in adolescents was shown to have the same relations to verbal intelligence and empathy as with adults.

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Critique / Letter to the Researchers Dear Drs. John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey, and David Caruso, I would like to start off by saying that I greatly enjoyed reading your research article, Emotional Intelligence Meets Traditional Standards for an Intelligence. There were some aspects that I liked, as well as many that concerned me. This research really opened up my eyes to the idea that there are many domains of intelligence separate from the traditional intelligence which with most people are familiar. From what I have gathered, the three major criteria for a standard intelligence are that it consist of mental abilities, that those abilities meet certain correlational data, and that the abilities develop with age (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000). The two studies conducted here show that emotional intelligence meets all three of these criteria. I think that these findings are very significant to the field of psychology because they make a convincing argument in favor of the existence of emotional intelligence. The three primary factors which you measured involve perception, understanding, and managing of emotion. The results of your studies show that these three abilities clearly emerge from the data and appear to be related, although differentially, to traditional intelligence. There were a couple of things which I really liked about the way this research was conducted. First, I like how you divided emotional intelligence into four different branches before manipulating and measuring any abilities. This shows that you considered several aspects of emotions which are thought to be related to emotional intelligence. The four branches that you chose to measure, perceiving, assimilating, understanding, and managing emotions, are highly encompassing of emotional abilities that people utilize every day and I feel that they are ideal for measuring emotional intelligence. Second, I think you chose excellent scales to score these

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abilities: group consensus, expert identification, and target assessment. They were highly correlated among each other, showing that they were very reliable measures. According to your criteria and intelligence measures, you were able to provide evidence that emotional intelligence does in fact show a pattern that is consistent with a new domain of intelligence. Although there were some things that I liked about the research, there were a few aspects that I disagreed with. My main concern about these studies, are that they were based only on self-report measures. Self-report measures can be beneficial at times; however, I think have more disadvantages. Respondents are more likely to lie so that they are viewed in a favorable way. They are often hesitant to reveal private details and may exaggerate answers. Also, this measure is extremely biased by the way the respondent is feeling at the time they answer any questions. If they are in a good mood, their answers are more likely to reflect positivity. I understand that as researchers, this must have been one of few options because it is unethical to intentionally manipulate peoples emotions. The only alternative I can think of would be to observe subjects in real-life settings. Although it would very time consuming, I think it would produce less biased results. However, this would be extremely difficult because there is no promise that the subjects will find themselves in emotion-provoking situations. Even if they do, you probably would not be able to measure all the abilities you would like to. I would really appreciate it if you could explain to me why you used this method and if you considered using any other methods before conducting the studies. Another thing that I disagreed with about this study was the way that the participants were chosen. The adolescents were selected from two secondary schools as well as a religious youth group. Their social class was above average and the subjects were under-representative of ethnic minorities. Of the adults, 99% were all full-time college students, college graduates, or

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had advanced degrees. The education level of this sample was obviously above average. This creates a problem because it is likely that the study lacks external validity, which means that the results are not generalizable to the rest of the population. The results simply could have been produced due to the types of people who were chosen to participate. I think you should have used a random sampling method to choose the subjects. For choosing the adolescent sample, you could have used the multistage sampling method; first, by randomly selecting a specific number of schools from the population, and then randomly selecting students within those schools. For the adult sample, you could have used a simple random sampling method, which is equivalent to choosing names out of a hat. By using these methods, I think that it would much more likely that the samples would be representative of the general population; therefore, ensuring that the results are generalizable. Next, I disagree with the use of a cross sectional design. You compared a group of adults and a group of adolescents in order to determine if there were any differences in intelligence between the groups. Since the adults performed better than the adolescents, you assumed that this difference was due to the age gap. However, you failed to consider or explore any other possible explanations for this difference. I think a longitudinal design would be more appropriate because they involve studying the same individuals over an extended period of time. They are often high in validity and pick up long term changes in the same subjects. On the other hand, cross-sectional studies compare different subjects of different age groups, and assume that any differences between the groups can be attributed to their difference in age. Because of this, longitudinal studies are ideal for studying developmental issues. I think this is extremely relevant to this particular study because the third criteria which you are attempting to meet states that intelligence increases, or develops, overtime. A longitudinal design would allow you to assess

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the same individuals at different points in time to see if their own intelligence had in fact increased. The cross sectional design which you used only allows you to assume, not know, that there was an increase in intelligence. The last aspect which I disliked concerns the lack of expressive emotions in the studies conducted. Emotional intelligence is the accurate appraisal and expression of emotions in oneself and others and the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living (Mayer, DiPaolo & Salovey, 1990). Expression of emotions was not incorporated into the measure of emotional intelligence; therefore, it is unclear to me whether you even accurately measured and/or manipulated all possible abilities of emotional intelligence. If emotional intelligence was not accurately measured and/or manipulated, it is questionable whether or not it really does meet the three standard criteria for a traditional intelligence, as suggested by the results of the study. I think you should have incorporated this measure into the study by using verbal self-report measures that ask participants to report their emotions using a set of rating scales. You could have also used instruments that measure expressive emotions. Emotions are associated with patterns of expression. For example, anger comes with a fixed stare, contracted eyebrows, compressed lips, vigorous and brisk movements and, usually, a raised voice, almost shouting (Ekman & Friesen). Facial expression instruments are based on theories that link expression features to distinct emotions; for example, the Facial Action Coding System, which identifies and analyzes visible expressions according to a specific code (Ekman & Friesen). I think if you employed a similar typed of method, it would yield a more accurate measure of emotional intelligence, hence, enabling you to conclude that emotional intelligence in its entirety does in fact meet the three criteria for a traditional intelligence.

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Altogether, I think that you conducted a successful study, although there is still some room for improvement. You took the time to prioritize the abilities you wished to measure, as well as come up with strong scoring methods. However, I think you could have used more accurate methods of measuring emotional abilities, as well as random sampling to choose participants. A different study design and inclusion of additional abilities would probably be helpful and provide more accurate results. Even with the flaws that I believe to have found, I still think there is much merit in your research and I hope that you will try to avoid these problems in the future. I am looking forward reviewing many more studies and I plan on doing my own research into the new domain of emotional intelligence.

Sincerely, Azalea Khan

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Response Letter Dear Azalea, We think that you make some valid points and we are writing to you to help clarify some misunderstandings that you may have. As for our use of self-report measures, you are correct; we were limited in ways to operationalize emotional abilities. And since we must follow certain ethical guidelines, we were not able to manipulate emotions in people in such a way that would be convenient for us. That is why we chose to use self-report surveys. These surveys were carefully designed to ensure accurate measurements and avoid biases. We paid close attention to question wording, formats, and order. For example, we were careful to avoid double-barreled questions and we refrained from using double negatives which cause confusion and reduce construct validity. We incorporated open ended questions which allow respondents to answer how they see fit, as well as rating scales which ask respondents to indicate their level of agreement. Regarding your disagreement with our sampling methods, we would like to remind you that there is only one way to avoid sampling error, and that is to test the entire population. Although the samples in the current study may not be absolutely representative of the general population, we did our best to minimize the error by using two large samples. The facts you stated about longitudinal designs are correct. However, at the time we were conducting our research, a cross-sectional design was most convenient for us to use. We did not have the sufficient funds needed to carry out a longitudinal research design, which can be very costly. Due to time constraints and financing issues, we needed to gather all the data at the same time. Using this design allowed us to complete the research much quicker than if we had opted for a longitudinal design. Lastly, we all agree with your thoughts about including expressive emotions into our measures of emotional intelligence. We like your suggestion about analyzing facial

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expressions in participants as a measure of this ability. We think this would be a good way to incorporate and measure emotional expressions. We appreciate your thoughts and will take them into consideration when conducting future research. Thank you for taking the time to review our work. Sincerely, Drs. John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey, and David Caruso

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References Mayer, J.D., Caruso, D., and Salovey, P. (2000). Emotional Intelligence Meets Traditional Standards for and Intelligence. Intelligence, 267-298. Mayer, J.D., DiPaolo, M.T., & Salovey, P. (1990). Perceiving affective content in ambiguous visual stimuli: A component of emotional intelligence. Journal of Personality Assessment, 772-781. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W.V. (1978). Facial Action Coding System: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.