Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
Does this atlas rank groups by IQ, race or nation?
No. Pathways and evidence stay individual. Scores are browsing aids — never group biological or racial ranks.
Is EQ a second IQ?
Not in the ability model’s careful versions. Mixed models that predict “success” with everything from optimism to politics are the overclaim. g still organises cognitive batteries; EI is a different bet.
What did Goleman change?
Audience and scope. He mixed ability with social competencies and workplace stories. Useful as popularisation; sloppy as measurement.
Do programmes work?
Emotion-labelling and regulation drills can move some behaviours. Branded EQ curricula vary. Size is usually modest — treat like growth-mindset humility, not a miracle.
Bar-On versus Mayer–Salovey?
Bar-On’s EQ-i is a mixed/trait-leaning inventory. MSCEIT tries to be an ability test. They do not measure one thing.
Did Darwin start this?
The Expression of the Emotions (1872) is an ancestor of emotion science, not an EI test.
Research on emotional intelligence runs from Salovey & Mayer (1990) through later critiques. Mechanisms are interacting systems.
Evidence percentages below are relative judgements for this atlas, not fabricated precise statistics. Named studies keep their published bands.
Findings
- 1990 · Salovey & Mayer — Four-branch ability Perceive, use, understand, regulate — the tight construct.
- 1995 · Daniel Goleman — Public vocabulary A cultural fact; a looser scientific one.
- 1997 · Reuven Bar-On — Mixed EQ-i Widely sold; overlaps personality.
- 1994 · Antonio Damasio — Emotion in decision Somatic-marker hypothesis — lab and clinic, not an HR stamp.
- 2017 · Lisa Feldman Barrett — Emotions as constructed A challenge to simple expression-to-label tests.
- 2010s · SEL reviews — Some programmes move some outcomes Modest, fidelity-sensitive — not a second g.
Mechanisms
- Perception of cues — Face, voice, body — culturally trained, test-fragile (Barrett).
- Labelling — Words that make regulation possible — a teachable lever.
- Regulation strategies — Reappraisal, pausing — trainable, not a soul.
- Use in thinking — Mood as information (the “use” branch) — easy to overclaim in business slides.
Evidence
Real, scoring-debated.
Overlap is the problem.
Modest, uneven.
Popularisation.
Overclaim.
Debates
- Ability versus mixed/trait — MSCEIT versus EQ-i. They should not be treated as one thermometer.
- Universal faces versus construction — Ekman-type traditions versus Barrett. Identification tools inherit the fight.
- Workplace magic versus modest d — HR slides versus the size of school SEL effects.
Emotional intelligence: size the claim to the study. Interaction, not a 50/50 slogan, is the default model.
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