Emotional Intelligence: Key Readings on the Mayer and Salovey Model

When Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer first formally defined the term “Emotional Intelligence” (EI) in an academic journal in 1990, they described it as “the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions,” and presented an empirical model demonstration of how EI could be tested as a mental ability. Since that time, the term has captured the interest of the media and the general public, as well as researchers and professionals in fields of education, psychology and business, however others who have written about EI over the years have a much different, loser conception of the construct than what was originally proposed by Mayer and Salovey .The editors created “Emotional Intelligence: Key Readings” in order to clarify the Mayer and Salovey's ability model of EI, which strictly focuses on four branches of emotion-related processing: 1) Accurately perceiving and expressing emotion; 2) Using emotion to facilitate cognitive activities; 3) Understanding emotions; 4) Managing emotions for both emotional and personal growth. They present 13 articles that introduce the theory, measurement, and applications of the Mayer and Salovey four-branch ability model of EI, and distinguish it (both theoretically and empirically) from other “mixed” conceptions that permeate the field.