Emotional Intelligence: A Psychological Analysis

Emotional Intelligence is a driving force that has become extremely relevant over the last twenty years. The concept was coined as early as 1966 and tested later on the 1990’s when researchers developed ways to test this idea. Emotional intelligence or, “EI”, is the awareness of our feelings that drives humans and animals to act in a certain manner, essentially controlling what they do and how they react to certain situations. Not only has the concept overtaken peoples’ personal lives but has even flooded into the real world as high emotional intelligence is regarded as a very valuable trait to have. Understanding and recognizing others’ emotions has become essential in competitive jobs markets in the twenty-first century, and employers are …show more content…
This article incorporated every counterargument that could be made against emotional intelligence. Matthews, Zeidner, and Roberts started with a biological approach as they target specific brain systems and how “EI” is incorporated with these parts. These psychologists outline three different constraints on biological models and how they work. Moving on to the next section of their argument, they talk about the cognitive bases and how goes hand in hand with emotional intelligence. Matthews, Zeinder, and Roberts state, “Although we might suppose that some individuals are generally superior in maintaining efficient function while emotional, the distributed, modular nature of cognition raises serious difficulties. Processing emotional stimuli depends on many independent subroutines at different levels of the cognitive architecture, some of which are stimulus-driven and automatic, and others of which are strategy-driven and controlled.” This quote can be connected to my life because there are a lot of people I know who can control their emotions better than others in tough times. If you are more superior in maintaining efficient function while emotional, you can make smarter decisions and lessen problematic issues in your life. These psychologists move to speaking about coping and adaptation and say that research does not support adaptive competence. They finalize their argument by talking about personality and how “EI” doesn’t add anything to personality theories. “Instead, traits appear to specialize individuals for thriving in certain environments, at the expense of others. To describe traits as markers for emotional intelligence obscures the subtle balance between dispositional costs and benefits.” These authors end their argument by stating four defining myths surrounding this subject. These four