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Definition of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel,


use, communicate, recognize, remember, describe,
identify, learn from, manage, understand and
explain emotions.

Introduction Recent Items

Hein Definition of Emotional Intelligence

Applying the Hein Definition of EI to a Baby Dec 17, Update to definition

Dec 15, 2007 "Explain


Ability, Skill and Potential feelings" added to Hein
definition
Potential EI vs. Actual EI Skills (EI vs EQ)
July 9 - Ability, Skill and
Innate Emotional Intelligence vs "EQ" Potential

The Mayer - Salovey Academic Definition July 7 Competencies, Skills


and Intelligence

My Concerns about the Mayer - Salovey Definition March 2006 - The common
definition of EI
Comparison between the "corporate" definition
of EI and my "socially responsible" definition June 1 - My new defintion of
emotional intelligence
The common definition of EI, and my cynicism

Competencies, Skills and Intelligence

Editoral about Motivation, Defining EI, Gods and Education

Other definitions of EI on the Net

Hein Definition of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel,

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use, communicate, recognize, remember, describe,


identify, learn from, manage, understand and
explain emotions. - S.Hein, 2007

This is a new definition as of December 17, 2007. It is based on the academic work of the Jack
Mayer and Peter Salovey. This definition differs from the Mayer Salovey definition in one very
important way because it emphasizes that emotional intelligence an innate potential.

In other words, each baby is born with a specific and unique potential for these components of
emotional intelligence:

1. Emotional sensitivity

2. Emotional memory

3. Emotional processing ability

4. Emotional learning ability

Because the definition offered here is based on an innate potential, it makes a very important
distinction between this inborn potential and what actually happens to that potential over a
person's life.

For more on this see Potential EI vs. Actual EI Skills (EI vs EQ)

--

Dec 15, 2007 note - Today I realized that the ability to explain your feelings is also a part of emotional intelligence.
As with the other components of EI, one's ability to do this later in life depends both on one's innate potential and
one's life experiences. Here is one example, if we ask a person how they feel and they tell us they feel
uncomfortable with something, but they cannot tell us why, it could be more because they lack innate emotional
intelligence or because they were never taught to understand their feelings, to label their feelings and to analyze
the cause and effect relationship between events and their feelings.

December 17, 2007 - I got an email from a reader suggesting I add "describe". I agree with him, so I have added
that, plus "identify". Here is his email.

Here are some earlier definitions I offered.

Applying the Hein Definition of EI to a Baby

As a practical example of emotional intelligence, and to see how even one baby’s innate level
of emotional can be different than another’s, let’s look at a baby’s feelings of fear.

Fear, of course, is a natural feeling. Its purpose, as designed by nature, is to help the baby
survive. A baby has a natural fear of abandonment because the baby knows its life depends
on others. When it is left alone, it feels afraid. A baby is also afraid of being separated from its

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parents, so if a stranger tries to take the baby away from them, it is natural for the baby to feel
afraid. But not all babies respond to fear in exactly the same way. Let’s consider a baby’s fear
as we look at each of the components of emotional intelligence. First, here is a reminder of my
definition of EI.

Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel,


use, communicate, recognize, remember, learn
from, manage and understand emotions.

Feel Emotions Feeling afraid is the first step in the baby trying to meet its sur
needs. If it does not feel afraid, it won't take the steps needed
ensure its own safety and survival.

Use Emotions A frightened baby uses its fear to take needed action.

This action is typically crying, or screaming when very, very af


Communicate Emotions
baby will do a better job of communicating its fear, and thus w

A baby with high emotional intelligence will quickly learn to rec


Recognize Emotions
angry.

The highly emotionally intelligent baby will remember the deta


Remember Emotions
when they are angry, how their voices sound and what movem

The highly emotional intelligent baby will quickly learn when it


Learn from Emotions
parent.

A baby with high EI will more quickly learn to manage its own
Manage Emotions parents. For example, it will learn not to cry, even though cryin
parent.

While all of the above components can be found in an emotionally intelligent baby, the final
component, understanding emotions is probably reserved for later in life, when a child begins
to develop its ability to reason.

Potential EI vs. Actual EI Skills (EI vs EQ)

As written in my defintion section, I believe each child enters the world with a unique potential
for these components of emotional intelligence:

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1. Emotional sensitivity

2. Emotional memory

3. Emotional processing and problem solving ability

4. Emotional learning ability.

The way we are raised dramatically affects what happens to our potential in each of these
areas. For example a baby might be born with a very high potential for music -- he or she
might be a potential Mozart -- but if that child's potential is never recognized, nurtured, and
enouraged, and if the child is never given the chance to develop their musical potential, they
will never become a talented musician later in life. The world will then miss out on this person's
special gift to humanity.

Also, a child being raised in an emotionally abusive home can be expected to use their
emotional potential in unhealthy ways later in life. (See the "Dark Side of Emotional
Intelligence")

Because of these possibilities, I encourage you to make a distinction between a person's


inborn emotional potential versus their actual emotional skills and use of emotional intelligence
later in life. I suggest we use the term "emotional intelligence" only for a person's inborn, innate
emotional potential. When we want to talk about their actual emotional skills and emotional
management as we see by their behavior, I suggest we use the term "EQ" since it is already
often being used talk about a person's practical emotional skills.

See this article about the words ability, skill and potential.

Here is more writing on this idea of mine from a couple years ago....

And here is a bit of history on what seems to be the first published use of the term EQ, written
by Keith Beasley in 1987 for Mensa Magazine in England. I like Keith's concept of EQ. It is
more practical than the academic concept of emotional intelligence and more humanitarian
than the corportate concept promoted by Dan Goleman.

Innate Emotional Intelligence vs "EQ"

Most writers interchange the terms "EQ" and "emotional intelligence". I believe, however, it is
useful to try to make distinction between a person's person's innate potential versus what
actually happens to that potential over their lifetime. I believe each baby is born with a certain
potential for emotional sensitivity, emotional memory, emotional processing and emotional
learning ability. It is these four inborn components which I believe form the core of one's
emotional intelligence.

This innate intelligence can be either developed or damaged with life experiences, particularly
by the emotional lessons taught by the parents, teachers, caregivers and family during
childhood and adolescence. The impact of these lessons results in what I refer to as one's
level of "EQ." in other words, as I use the term, "EQ" represents a relative measure of a

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person's healthy or unhealthy development of their innate emotional intelligence.

When I say "EQ" I am not talking about a numerical test score like IQ. It is simply a convenient
name I am using. As far as I know, I am the only writer who is making a distinction between
inborn potential and later development or damage. I believe it is possible for a child to begin
life with a high level of innate emotional intelligence, but then learn unhealthy emotional habits
from living in an abusive home. Such a child will grow up to have what I would call low EQ. I
would suspect that abused, neglected and emotionally damaged children will score much
lower on the existing emotional intelligence tests compared to others having the same actual
original emotional intelligence at birth.

As I see it, I believe, then, that it is possible for a person to start out with high EI, but then be
emotionally damaged in early childhood, causing a low EQ later in life. On the other hand, I
believe it is possible for a child to start out with relatively low EI, but receive healthy emotional
modeling, nurturing etc., which will result in moderately high EQ. Let me stress however that I
believe it is much easier to damage a high EI child than to develop the EQ of a low EI child.
This follows the principle that it is generally easier to destroy than create.

In comparison to say, mathematical intelligence, it is important to note that relatively few


people start out with high innate mathematical abilities and then have this ability damaged
through misleading or false math training or modeling. I say relatively few because I mean in
comparison to the number of emotionally sensitive children who receive unhealthy and self-
destructive emotional imprinting from any number of sources. Parents and television shows
don't generally teach that 2+2=968. But they do often teach emotional lessons which are as
equivalent in unhealthiness as this equation is in inaccuracy. Or we might say which would be
as damaging to an intimate relationship as the false equation would be to the career of an
accountant.

At present, all other models of emotional intelligence, including even the most "pure" of the
group, the Mayer/Salovey/Caruso model, combine the measurement of the innate emotional
variables (sensitivity, memory, processing and learning) with the environmental affects on
those same variables. Certain writers have defined intelligence in general as "potential." I
agree with this and this is why I want to distinguish between EI and EQ.

--

See this article about the words ability, skill and potential.

The Mayer - Salovey Academic Definition of EI

Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey have been the leading researchers in emotional intelligence
since 1990. In that year they suggested that emotional intelligence is a true form of intelligence
which had not been scientifically measured until they began their research work.

Here is how they defined emotional intelligence in 1990

We define emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves


the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate

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among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.

In the abstract of the 1990 article they also wrote:

This article presents a framework for emotional intelligence, a set of skills


hypothsized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in
oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the
use of feelings to motivate, plan and achieve in one's life.

They and their colleagues have used various definitions of EI in their academic journal articles
since 1990, but their 1997 defintion is they one they use the most now. First, here are a few
other definitions they have used, then a full presentation fo the 1997 defintion is shown. Pease
be sure to also read this article about the words ability, skill and potential. The article discusses
a fundamental problem with this 1997 definition, ie the problem with their imprecise use of the
word "ability".

Four branches of Emotional Intelligence

The first, Emotional Perception, involves such abilities as identifying emotions in faces, music
and stories.

The second, Emotional Facilitation of Thought, involves such abilities as relating emotions to
other mental sensations such as taste and color (relations that might be employed in artwork)
and using emotion in reasoning and problem solving. (Also: "integrating emotions in thought,"
Mayer and Cobb)

The third area, Emotional Understanding involves solving emotional problems such as knowin
which emotions are similar, or opposites, and what relations they convey.

The fourth area, Emotional Management involves understanding the implications of social act
on emotions and the regulation of emotion in self and others.

The ability to process emotional information, particularly as it involves the perception,


assimilation, understanding, and management of emotion."

The ability to:

1. accurately identify emotions


2. use emotions to help you think
3. understand what causes emotions
4 manage to stay open to these emotions in order to capture the wisdom of our
feelings

The 1997 Mayer Salovey definition

This was the first time Mayer and Salovey detailed their "four branch model" of emotional

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intelligence. The defenition is extremely thorough and deserves close attention. Unfortunately,
this attention has not often been given it though, at least not in publications on the net.

They introduce the model by saying that the four branches in their chart are:

"arranged from more basic psychological processes to higher, more


psychologically integrated processes. For example, the lowest level
branch concerns the (relatively) simple abilities of perceiving and
expressing emotion. In contrast, the highest level branch concerns the
conscious, reflective regulation of emotion."

They add that abilities that emerge relatively early in development are to the left of a given
branch; later developing abilities are to the right." And they also say that, "people high in
emotional intelligence are expected to progress more quickly through the abilities designated
and to master more of them." (From What is Emotional Intelligence, by John Mayer and Peter
Salovey)

Here is a copy of their 1997 chart:

--

The Four branches of EI:

1. Perception Appraisal and Expression of Emotion


2. Emotional Facilitation of Thinking
3. Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge
4. Reflective Regulation of Emotions to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth

Perception, Appraisal and Expression of Emotion

Ability to identify emotion in Ability to identify emotions in other people, Ability to express emotions
one's physical states, designs, artwork, etc. through language, accurately, and to express needs
feelings, and thoughts. sound, appearance, and behavior. related to those feelings.

Emotional Facilitation of Thinking

Emotions prioritize Emotions are sufficiently vivid and Emotional mood swings change the
thinking by directing available that they can be generated individual's perspective from optimistic to s
attention to important as aids to judgment and memory pessimistic, encouraging consideration of a
information. concerning feelings. multiple points of view. r

Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge

Ability to label emotions and recognize Ability to interpret the meanings that Ability to understand complex fee
relations among the words and the emotions convey regarding simultaneous feelings of love and
emotions themselves, such as the relationships, such as that sadness or blends such as awe as a
relation between liking and loving. often accompanies a loss. combination of fear and surprise

Reflective Regulation of Emotion to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth

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Ability to stay open to Ability to reflectively engage or Ability to reflectively monitor emotions Abilit
feelings, both those that are detach from an emotion depending in relation to oneself and others, such by m
pleasant and those that are upon its judged informativeness or as recognizing how clear, typical, enha
unpleasant. utility. influential or reasonable they are. exag

Return to top of page on EI definitions

See my concerns about this definition

My Concerns about the Mayer - Salovey Definition

I have a few concerns about their definition and some suggestions I would like them to
consider.

1. Is intelligence potential, or is it skill and competency?

Here is some of my early writing related to this question:

I would like to see Mayer and Salovey focus more on the idea that intelligence is
potential. An infant can be intelligent, for example, without being able to read, write
or take intelligence tests. In other words, he may have no demonstrable abilities as
yet, but he may have extremely high potential ability. He simply has not had a
chance to develop his potential and his intelligence into competencies which can be
measured by any existing tests.

The word "ability" itself can have two meanings. First, it can mean potential, yet
undeveloped ability. Second, it can mean potential which has been developed into
something which can be demonstrated, measured or tested. At present it is
impossible to measure pure potential, thus the MSC tests (MEIS and MSCEIT)
focus on only the second form of ability. (I suspect, though, that one day brain
scanning devices will be able to tells us much more about a baby's potential.)

In 2007 I added this articles to the site.

Ability, Skill and Potential - This article discusses a key problem with the Mayer Salovey
definition of EI and with the Mayer Salovey Caruso test (MSCEIT). The problem is their use of
the word "ability".

2. Innate EI and emotional damage during life

The Mayer Salovey definition, along with the way they discuss EI in their writing, ignores the
fact that a child can start out with high innate emotional intelligence and then be emotionally
damaged. (I discuss this further in my section on EI vs EQ.) I would like to see them address
this more in their work.

3. Emotional Vocabulary

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I would like to see Mayer and Salovey address the fact that an emotionally intelligent person is
capable of mastering an extensive vocabulary of what I call feeling words. By mastering I
mean having the ability to not only perceive an extensive range of feelings in oneself and
others, but also to quickly assign the most specific label to the feeling, for example in
conversation with others or in self-reflection. In some of their writing MSC do include the ability
to express emotion as part of their first branch of EI, but they seem to limit their test to only a
few emotions compared with the much broader available scope of feeling words which are
available in the English language.

In common language we often think a person is "intelligent" when they have a large vocabulary
and can use it precisely. I believe this same concept applies to emotional intelligence. But
again, if a person is never specifically taught to use feeling words, it does not necessarily
mean they did not have high innate emotional intelligence, nor that they cannot later expand
their emotional vocabulary.

4. Emotional Knowledge

in the section on emotional understanding much of this is probably better called emotional
knowledge than an aspect of emotional intelligence itself. Knowledge can be taught but
intelligence represents potential before any learning has taken place. Of course, if one is more
intelligent, emotionally or otherwise, this learning takes place faster and can go further.

5. Testing for EI

This concern is with measuring emotional facilitation of thought and emotional management. I
don't see how you can really do this with a paper and pencil test. The MSC team say they are
measuring some of these things with their tests, but it is hard to say how much their test scores
reflect actual ability in real life situations, or when under extreme stress. And these are the
situations when highly developed emotional intelligence may be the most important.

6. Abstractness

Finally their definition is a bit too abstract for me when it comes to things like identifying
emotion in art and music. I found this section of their CD ROM test a little hard to take
seriously when it asks you to look at a graphic design and try to guess what emotions it is
conveying. Therefore I would like to see them test for something like the ability to identify
emotion in tone of voice or body language instead.

My adaptation of the Mayer Salovey definition

1. Emotional identification, perception and expression

z The ability to perceive and identify emotions in faces, tone of voice, body language
z The capacity for self-awareness: being aware of your own feelings as they are occurring
z The capacity for emotional literacy. Being able to label specific feelings in yourself and
others; being able to discuss emotions and communicate clearly and directly.

2. Emotional facilitation of thought

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z The ability to incorporate feelings into analysis, reasoning, problem solving and decision
making
z The potential of your feelings to guide you to what is important to think about

3. Emotional understanding

z The ability to solve emotional problems


z The ability to identify and understand the inter-relationships beween emotions, thoughts
and behavior. For example, to see cause and effect relationships such as how thoughts
can affect emotions or how emotions can affect thoughts, and how your emotions can
lead to the behavior in yourself and others.
z The ability to understand the value of emotions to the survival of the species

4. Emotional management

z The ability to take responsibility for one's own emotions and happiness
z The ability to turn negative emotions into positive learning and growing opportunities
z The ability to help others identify and benefit from their emotions

Previous Hein Definitions

Here are two of my earlier definitios of EI

The mental ability we are born with which gives our emotional sensitivity and
potential for emotional management skills that help us maximize our long term
health, happiness and survival.

--

Knowing how to separate healthy from unhealthy feelings and how to turn negative
feelings into positive ones.

Other Definitions of Emotional Intelligence on the Net

Here are other examples of defintions of EI on the Net

My comments
Way too broad. Says
“The capacities to create optimal results in your
Six Seconds nothing about
relationships with yourself and others.” (more)
emotions.
Emotional intelligence is being able to recognize,
name and appropriately deal with the emotions Not too bad, but
Lea Brovedani
that we feel and experience. We may all feel narrow.
anger, emotional intelligence is knowing what to

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do with the emotion of anger to achieve the best


possible outcome.
Non-cognitive means
"an array of noncognitive capabilities,
not related to
competencies, and skills that influence one's
Reuven BarOn iintelligence. saying
ability to succeed in coping with environmental
"to succeed" is too
demands and pressures".
subjective
EI Consortium * need to get
Emotional intelligence is the set of abilities that we
See my full critique of
Maurice Elias like to think of as being on the other side of the this
report card from the academic skills.
Inst. for The ability to sense and use emotions to more Not too bad, but word
Emotionally effectively manage ourselves and influence effectively is
Intelligent Living positive outcomes in our relationships with others. subjective.
A management Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to Impulse regulation isn't
consulting firm in regulate your impulses, face obstacles and part of emotional
Australia empathize with others. intelligence.
Jack Mayer's
* need to get
Website
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to acquire
and apply knowledge from your emotions and the
emotions of others. You can use the information
Byron Stock I like this pretty well.
about what you're feeling to help you make
effective decisions about what to say or do (or not
say or do) next.

Need to find...

Emotional intelligence is your ability to acquire and apply knowledge from your emotions and
the emotions of others in order to be more successful and lead a more fulfilling life.

More from Six Seconds

This is a quote from this page on their site. ** need link

In 1997, Six Seconds’ team sought to take those best-practices and create a
framework for teaching and practicing the skills of EQ. They went beyond the
scientific definition to capture the practical value of the concepts that are worth
teaching and learning. Their definition of emotional intelligence is, “The capacities
to create optimal results in your relationships with yourself and others.”

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Notes

1. For example, Howard Gardner in "A case against spiritual intelligence."

Dec 17, 2007 Email from a reader

Dear Steve,
"Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize,
remember, learn from, manage, understand and explain emotions."

Maybe "the potential to describe emotions" should be in there, too. It may seem at
first glance to be simply a redundant reiteration of 'communicate' and 'explain'
emotions, but I think that the word 'describe' also includes describing emotions -to
oneself-, in order to better understand them, etc., and not merely communication or
explanation of emotions to others. Describing emotions is also not so much tied
with causality and time as explaining emotions, although the two tie in with one
another. The description of an emotion really comprises the use of metaphors and
analogies, including comparison with other, similar emotions, and all manner of
other analogous things, in order to better incorporate an emotion into one's verbal
and intellectual understanding, so that it can be really focussed on as a matter of
concentration.

I think that the description of feelings using metaphors form part of the basis of
human language. It helps refine our understanding of feelings by comparing
feelings to concrete things and already-extant mental concepts. I would bet that all
of our words which we now use to mean certain feelings themselves started off as
metaphors for something, either some object or action which was similar to the
feeling or connected to it in some way, like, for instance, the sound one makes
when one is angry, or some animal or natural process which seems to be 'angry'.
Ancient humans would then have begun developing their self-consciousness and
emotional intelligence, which aided them in caring for their tribesmen, etc., and
probably played and integral role in the survival of the human species through all of
the catastrophes and ice ages of our past.

Peace and Wisdom,

- M.

History

June 2005 Definition

Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember,
learn from, manage, and understand emotions.

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Just in case wikipedia watchers delete this...

An alternative model, which views emotional intelligence as an innate potential has been proposed by
Hein (2005, 2007). This model defines emotional intelligence as "the innate potential to feel, use,
communicate, recognize, remember, describe, identify, learn from, manage, understand and explain
emotions." This model suggests an individual may be born with high emotional intelligence, yet later act
in ways which are unhealthy, anti-social or self-destructive due to their environment and experiences.
The model also suggests that current tests can not accurately measure emotional intelligence by looking
at an adolescent's or an adult's emotional skills, emotional knowledge and behavior, since all of those are
significantly influenced by one's environment and experiences. <ref name="heindef">Hein, S. (2005,
2007) [http://www.eqi.org/eidefs.htm "Definitions of Emotional Intelligence"] </ref>

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