Introduction to the special issue

To construct this special issue on emotional intelligence (EI), the editors invited leading researchers to contribute a paper presenting their recent research investigations. No editorial steer was given on what the content of these papers should be, apart from specifying that the study reported should be on EI, and the authors did not consult with each other about topic choices. Nonetheless, the resulting six papers turned out to display a high degree of thematic coherence, and can be regarded as providing a good reflection of current research priorities in this field. Interestingly, one area of consensus was a focus on trait rather than ability EI, with all the studies reported using trait EI measures. Trait EI is measured by self-report and is a component of personality, emerging as a separate factor within established personality models (Petrides, Pita, & Kokkinaki, 2007). In contrast, ability EI is measured by tests that resemble standard intelligence tests, and has been proposed as a new intelligence component. Some further discussion of ability EI, and why trait measures are currently more widely used than ability measures, appears at the end of this introduction. The themes that emerged from the papers in the special issue, and the cross-linkages between them, will now be considered.

One major theme of these papers is how EI relates to wellbeing and positive life outcomes. Here both theoretical considerations and earlier research studies led to the expectation that EI will be positively correlated with positive indicators such as life satisfaction and negatively with indicators of psychological distress. This is because intrapersonal EI (related to understanding emotions in oneself and emotion regulation) should promote stress management and adaptive coping, while interpersonal EI should also contribute to positive psychological processes because high-EI individuals are able to form better social support networks. This expectation has been confirmed in many studies in which EI has shown the expected correlation pattern: positive with life satisfaction and negative with anxiety, depression and loneliness and other measures of low psychological wellbeing (e.g., Bastian, Burns, & Nettelbeck., 2005; Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Saklofske, Austin, & Minski, 2003; Schutte, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Bhullar, & Rooke, 2007). Positive associations of EI with adaptive coping have also been found (Bastian et al., 2005; Saklofske, Austin, Galloway, & Davidson, 2007). Previous work has also shown positive associations of EI with academic success and retention at university (Parker, Hogan, Eastabrook, Oke, & Wood, 2006; Parker, Summerfeldt, Hogan, & Majeski, 2004), and negative associations with problematic behaviours in schoolchildren (Petrides, Fredrickson, & Furnham, 2004). Findings of this type are consistent with the view that the EI-related benefits of psychological adjustment feed forward into life outcomes.

In the current set of papers, Schutte et al. (2010) examine how EI relates to subjective wellbeing (SWB), finding that EI acts as a mediator of the influence of processing style on SWB, while Gardner and Qualter (2010) examine the associations of EI with a range of measures of psychological functioning, including aggression, loneliness, eating disorders, alcoholism, and life satisfaction. The results presented by Downey, Johnston, Hansen, Birney, and Stough (2010) on adolescents show EI as protective against the occurrence of problem behaviours, while the studies of Austin. Saklofske, and Mastoras (2010) and Hogan et al. (2010) on student stress and academic performance, respectively, show that EI is associated with better academic performance, lower stress levels and higher levels of satisfaction with courses. In the Austin et al. study, EI subcomponents (in composite factors also containing coping style) were found to mediate the association between personality and stress in university students, while Hogan et al. found that EI subcomponents mediated the association between IQ and Grade Point Average (GPA), although only for male subjects in their adolescent sample. Both the Austin et al. (2010) and Downey et al. (2010) papers examine associations between EI and coping. Consistent with previous findings (Bastian et al., 2005; Saklofske et al., 2007), EI was found in this work to be associated positively with coping styles, which are generally regarded as adaptive (e.g., task-focussed coping) and negatively with those that are generally less adaptive, (e.g., emotion-focussed coping). The Austin et al. paper also explores the issue of communalities between EI and coping, with a factor-analytic approach leading to the examination of three higher order composites of EI and coping scales.

Another theme that arises from the papers is that of comparing EI tests, and of the importance of considering subscales as well as full-scale scores. There are a number of EI instruments available based on different theoretical conceptualisations of the construct, and there is no consensus in the current literature as to the best choice of EI scale in particular contexts. Gardner and Qualter (2010) undertake an extensive validity comparison of three EI scales: the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998), the Multidimensional Emotional Intelligence Assessment (Tett, Fox, & Wang, 2005), and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaires (TEIQue) (Petrides, 2009). This includes examination of the use of total EI score versus EI subcomponents as predictors, with the finding that larger validity coefficients were obtained when using lower level subcomponents. The incremental validity of each measure over age, gender and personality, and the ability of each scale to increment the other two were also examined. The results showed that, although all the scales showed concurrent validity, the TEIQue generally had the greatest predictive power, the most likely explanation for this being its broader coverage of the EI domain. These results suggest that more comparative research on EI models and scales needs to be undertaken. As noted by Gardner and Qualter (2010), the issue of the best EI scale for a particular application is a complex one, involving considerations such as scale length, parsimony (many vs. fewer subscales) and cost, as well as strength of association with the relevant criteria. The additional understanding that can be obtained by focusing on EI subcomponents rather than total scores is also highlighted in some of the other papers. Austin et al. (2010) identify the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) (Bar-On, 2002) subscales of Intrapersonal, Stress Management and General Mood as loading with emotion-focused coping on a higher order Emotion Regulation factor, with this factor being a key predictor of level of stress and SWB. Similarly, Downey et al. identify the Emotional Recognition and Expression, Understanding Emotions, and Emotional Management and Control dimensions of the adolescent Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT) (Luebbers, Downey, & Stough, 2007) as particularly salient to problem behaviours, and Hogan et al. (2010) find that the Adaptability and Stress Management subscales of the Youth Version of the EQ-i (Bar-On & Parker, 2000) are predictive of GPA in adolescents.

Group differences in EI are considered by Sánchez-Ruiz, Pérez-González, and Petrides (2010), who examined the EI profiles of students in different faculties, finding significant group differences for overall EI and also for some subscales. The findings included an interesting Gender × Faculty interaction, with female social science students scoring higher than male students on emotionality, but female humanities students scoring lower. Sánchez-Ruiz et al. suggest that the examination of EI profiles of different student groups can inform career counselling, and may also be relevant to academic adjustment and to course design for particular groups of students (e.g., differences in empathy and emotional expressiveness between Social Science and Technical Studies students may mean that collaborative group tasks work better with the former). These findings and those discussed above suggest that for university students a two-pronged approach to integrating research findings on EI into student support might be appropriate. Group differences as found by Sánchez-Ruiz et al. can be used to suggest approaches that are on average most suitable for students with particular academic interests. At the individual level, Austin et al. (2010) suggest that EI profiles can be used to identify students who are likely to be vulnerable to academic stress, allowing interventions to be targeted more effectively The results from that study suggest that interventions on EI and coping subcomponents related to emotion regulation are likely to be most effective, while the results of Hogan et al. and Downey et al. similarly provide suggestions for EI subcomponents for the interventions that appear most promising to promote academic success and reduce problem behaviours in adolescents. The findings of Schutte et al. (2010) on EI and processing style preferences suggest another possible research direction in the study of EI profiles and intervention targeting.

The above summary of the content of this special issue of the Australian Journal of Psychology as a snapshot of current research on EI indicates a lively and expanding area (see Stough, Saklofske, & Parker, 2009). As mentioned above, the focus of these papers was trait EI, and no studies on ability EI tests were reported; this omission is an interesting one that is worthy of a brief discussion. It reflects in part the greater difficulty of running large-sample studies including ability EI measures. The selection of EI tests for these studies may, however, also have been influenced by the current problematic status of the theory and measurement of ability EI. As discussed above, trait EI is well-established as part of the personality domain. This means that researchers understand what the use of trait EI measures will contribute to their research. Ability EI is theoretically characterised as a new form of intelligence, covering the cognitive processing of emotional information (e.g., Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008). Currently there are issues with the validation of ability EI, because the evidence for its convergent validity with respect to intelligence exists but is by no means overwhelming. The most robust results are for ability tests of emotional understanding, which have been found in a number of studies to be correlated with intelligence, particularly with crystallised ability (e.g., Austin, in press; Farrelly & Austin, 2007; MacCann, Roberts, Matthews, & Zeidner, 2004; Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999; Roberts, Zeidner, & Matthews, 2001). The actual measurement of ability EI has raised concerns; in particular the scoring of tests by consensus methods (due to difficulties in constructing emotion problem-solving items with unique right answers) raises questions about the possibility of constructing EI tests that can truly assess a form of intelligence (e.g., Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2007). Taken together, these issues mean that researchers generally feel less confident with the current generation of ability EI measures than with trait measures. Future developments in the theory and measurement of ability EI could change perceptions, but the situation reflected in the current collection is one in which researchers feel more willing to focus on the study of EI as a dispositional trait rather than of EI as a putative new intelligence.

Finally, we thank all the authors for contributing papers to this EI special issue. Their commitment to providing cutting edge research papers in a timely fashion made our job as guest editors both interesting and enjoyable. A special thank you to Dr Patrick Heaven who invited us to serve as guest editors; we trust that he and the readers of AJP will be pleased with the papers that follow.