Editorial Writing Related to EI - file 2
This is the first of two editorials critiqueing the work of Mayer, Salovey and Caruso. Originally written in March, 2002
For the past few years I have been one of the biggest fans of the work done by Mayer, Salovey and Caruso. Recently though I have had a few concerns. I've been reluctant to voice these concerns publically, or even privately to them, both because I don't want to damage my relationship with them and because I don't want to damage this new field of research any more than it has been damaged by others such as Dan Goleman. Increasingly, though, I feel a little guilty or "unintegritous" about not voicing my concerns. So I am writing this to clear my conscience and to present a more balanced view of EI. It is my hope that instead of feeling hurt, betrayed or defensive, Mayer et al will feel challenged to do even better work in the future.
I have mulled all of this over for quite some time. As you may have noticed I have not added anything new to the site for over a month. I didn't want to work on anything else till I finished this editorial, which has been difficult for me to write. When I originally started writing, I wrote: "I am writing spontaneously now, so please forgive any lack of organization." I then put the piece away for several weeks and am just now feeling ready to finish it. What follows is primarily my first attempt at writing this.
I will start though by saying that one of my first real concerns was that when they designed their test they may have been deliberately trying to make it correlate with IQ tests. They might have done this to help show that EI was a legitimate intelligence, since by their own definition EI must correlate positively, but not too highly with IQ. It seems it would be fairly easy to manipulate this correlation on the section on understanding emotions, for example, by asking certain questions in certain ways and by dropping others which did not correlate with IQ. I expect that a person with a high score on a verbal IQ test would do better on this section of the Mayer et al EI tests, but this would not convince me the person actually had higher innate EI.
This leads me to the concern I have already expressed, but it is a growing one so I will repeat it. Mayer et al still have not acknowledged publicly that one can start out with a high level innate of EI and then have this damaged by a dysfunctional environment. In other words, they have not publically discussed the difference between one's innate potential and one's ability later in life. Two of the three researchers have acknowledged this privately to me, however.
Importantly, they do not have a test for children. There was evidently a version of the MEIS for adolescents, but even this is now apparently unavailable. Their latest test, the MSCEIT, is only available for adults. Even testing adolescents, though, does not address the possibility that a child could have high EI and then have their emotional management abilities damaged by the time they are teenagers. To my knowledge, Mayer et al have never worked with children or teens in any capacity and have never had the kind of exposure I have had to seriously abused adolescents. I am afraid their work is missing an critical aspect of reality. Because of this shortcoming, I encourage someone to begin work on developing an ability test for children and I offer my assistance to researchers in such a project.
I believe the failure to test children is a serious flaw in their theory and test. As I have written previously, the development of a child's emotional intelligence is quite different than the development of their math or verbal potential. A child with high potential in math rarely goes to school and learns that 2+2 =6. Yet in an emotionally dysfunctional family this is the kind of teaching a child gets in the area of managing emotions. I feel very sure that a child who is regularly subject to emotional invalidation is going to perform worse on a test of EI than a child who is regularly validated, for example, everything else equal.
Another concern I have with Mayer et al's work is that they have never addressed the issue of how one develops their EI. Nor have they addressed whether some people start out life with higher EI. One of the authors did tell me privately that he speculated that if EI were like IQ then there would indeed be a genetic difference. I may be mistaken when I say they have "never" addressed this, but I know their work about as well as anyone and I don't recatll them giving this issue much, if any, attention. I invite them to comment on this, as well as on all of my concerns.
Another issue they have avoided, for reasons which are obvious given they are working and living in the "politically correct" USA, is the issue of race differences. I asked one of the authors what he knew about the difference in their test scores based on race and he told me he didn't know and didn't want to know. This reminds me of a friend of mine I visited once. She lived in an expensive apartment complex in Florida. Normally when I visited her I would have to wait at a gate and call her so she could open the gate by from her apartment to let me drive in. But one day I just followed another car through. When I knocked on her door she exclaimed, "How did you get in!?" I told her I simply followed another car in and that it was quite easy to do. She then said, "Don't tell me that!" In other words, she did not want to be informed of reality. She would rather live in her make-believe world that her apartment complex was safe and secure!
I am starting to think that in a similar way my friends and colleagues who are leading the research in EI are not living in the world of reality. I am not sure if any of the three researchers have ever spoken to, say, a teenager who is intelligent, sensitive and suidical. Or to one who has been raped by her father and brother as a child and now cuts herself with razor blades as a way of dealing with her emotional pain. How would such a teen score on the MSCEIT test? I don't know. But I would not let the test convince me that she was not born with high EI.
Here are a couple of ways a child with high EI could be emotionally damaged. Let's say he grows up in a family where whenever he needs attention his mother ignores him, and she believes this is a way to make him strong or self-reliant, or to simply teach him not to bother her with his needs. Sadly, based on my experience and observation, this may rule rather than the exception, at least in dysfunctional families. Let's compare this lesson in emotional managment with an actual situation: A six year old girl was sitting at the table. She put her feet up on the table. Her mother sharply reprimanded her, but the girl defied her mother's orders. I said something like, "That looks pretty comfortable." Her mother then said, "Ignore her, she is just trying to get attention."
I got up from my chair and went and tickled the little girl, saying, "Well, my theory is that if a child needs attention, you give it to them!" The little girl quickly removed her feet and returned to eating with a smile on her face having received the attention she sought and needed. This is a much different way of managing emotions and emotional needs than the mother's approach. I believe it is safe to say that the two differing approaches will result in significantly different scores on a test like the MSCEIT by the time the child is an adult.
This also brings up the issue of cultural problems. If it is a widespread cultural belief to ignore a child when it wants attention, then the consensus of people might chose such a response on a test. Even a pool of "experts" from basically the same culture, say the Judeo Christian culture, might share the same misguided (in my opinion at least) beliefs. Does this mean that it is the "right" answer though, or the healthiest in terms of the best interest of the child, the society and the species? I say, "No, it does not."
Take another example of an emotionally dysfunctional home. Let's say feelings are simply never discussed. The child doesn't learn the names of her feelings, or of anyone else's. Or she might just be told that nearly everything is "anger" and that it is not nice to be angry. This might be equated to a child who never learns the names of the colors, or who only knows the names of a few of them. Say the child is raised in an environment where few words are used to describe the colors either at school or at home. Or let's say the culture is filled with colorblind people. Yet this child has an ability to see the different colors and is reprimaned or punished for trying to describe them and to convince others of their existence. Eventually she gives up and goes along with the crowd to see only a few colors as she looks at the world. Can we say that this child had a low level of innate verbal intelligence or that she had a low level of ability for perception of colors? Would psychologists come up with a fancy name for this inabity to vebalize colors, implying it was a genetic defect or a "disorder." (The word alexithymic comes to mind...)
Returning to the issue of the researchers' unwillingness to take a strong stand, I believe this unwillingness has not only created some problems for them, but it has hurt the field. I say this for several reasons. For one thing, Mayer et al were very slow to harshly criticize Daniel Goleman's exploitation and misrepresentation of the term "emotional intelligence." Even in what is perhaps his most strongly worded attack, (in his book with Joseph Ciarrochi) Jack Mayer has resorted to sarcasm and indirect attacks on Goleman.
Mayer said, for example, when criticizing the work of others who claim to have created EI tests, that even though it would be "nice, optimistic and persistent" to say other tests are measuring EI, it may be "more realistic to view them as haphazard descriptions of desirable personality..." In this indirect and sarcastic attack, Jack fails to clearly identify those he is criticizing. Only those few of us who follow the field closely will even know who he is talking about. This brings to mind the saying that "Sarcasm is anger in disguise." I encourage the researchers to be more direct in the future.
Calling the tests "haphazard" is about as strong of a criticism as you will ever hear Jack Mayer make. This is not a particulary helpful term, however, and I believe it is actually a bit unfair and offensive to the authors of the tests. While I do not believe people like Goleman and Bar-On have developed a test of emotional intelligence, I believe Mayer could have made a much stronger statement without resorting to sarcasm. (I say this knowing that I am often sarcastic myself! I expect more from Jack though because he is the leader of this field, at least in my eyes.) For example, he could have quoted from any of several other respected researchers who have directly criticized Goleman and Bar-On's tests, and he could have cited actual numbers showing how closely Goleman and Bar-On's tests resemble existing personality tests.
As another example of Jack's reluctance to take a strong stand is his invitation to Reuvon Bar-On to write a chapter for his book with Ciarrochi and Forgas. I have no doubt that had Jack insisted Bar-On be left out of the book, the other authors would have agreed. In fact, if I know Jack, he probably wanted to let Bar-On write a chapter so as to be "politically correct." At the same time Jack criticizes Bar-On in at least two places without naming him (or naming him only in a footnote.)
Going back in time a bit, I believe Mayer et al made a strategic mistake when they wrote their chapter for the Bar-On Handbook by calling the tests designed by Goleman and Bar-On tests of "emotional intelligence." This gave credibility to the tests when in fact it would have been a service to the public had they made it very clear they believed those test were nothing more than personality tests in disguise. This is, in fact, Mayer et al's position on the tests, but they have not made this sufficiently clear to the academic community, let alone the public.
Speaking of the public, I believe Mayer et al have made another strategic mistake by not going directly to the popular press. Instead they continued to write in academic journals which, frankly, almost no one reads. And when they do write in those journals their writing is basically only comprehensible to other psychology researchers. I have been reading these articles for several years now trying to understand what Mayer et al are saying and what the importance of it is. It can be a very frustrating process. Their recent article for Emotion was particularly frustrating for me to read, for several reasons which I will get to later.
But while on the topic of the public I would like to encourage Jack and his colleagues to make better use of the power of the Internet. David Caruso has recently started writing on his own website but Jack Mayer has not yet contributed anything as far as I am aware. I have also offered Jack a forum on my site, but he has so far declined my offer.
At this point I am afraid the field is in disarray. There is one writer on the Internet who has even titled an aritcle, "The Myth of Emotional Intelligence - why EI died." (Stephen Morgan) I do not want to see the term emotional intelligence turn out the way the term "self-esteem" has. In other words, because of people misapplying it, making false claims about it, etc. the term lost much of its credibility. I believe this work is too important to let others destroy its significance by the way they are exploiting it. Has there ever been a time when it was more clear that our intellect and technology has not ensured our survival as a species? If anything it has simply allowed us to kill each other in more rapid and technologically advanced ways.
A related concern of mine is that Mayer et al have never argued that a person who is high in emotional intelligence is necessarily a person who is making a positive contribution to the species. Instead they have stated or that EI can be used for "good" or "evil" so to speak. (Note on "good" and "evil") What bothers me is this: If EI is an intelligence then I would assume that it has evolved within the species because it has survival value. More than that, in fact, because our survival as a species is largely due to our superior intelligence over other animals, it seems clear to me that any form of intelligence must contribute something important to our continued existence. Frankly, I can not think of anything more important to our future than what I would call the healthy development of one's emotional intelligence. To say that a person could have highly developed EI and yet be a liability to humanity suggests to me that one's definition emotional intelligence needs to be reconsidered. Emotional intelligence is not about numbers, objects and spatial relationships. It is about life and death.
Put very simply, I believe that if my innate emotional intelligence has been developed and nurtured in a healthy way, I will make decisions and act in ways which contribute to the advancement of humanity. In fact, I would say something is truely intelligent only if it makes a positive contribution to the species. It might be smart or clever in the short term, but what good is intelligence at all if it does not help us live and continue living?
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Notes
Note on "good" and "evil" (I only use these terms to make my case. I actually do not endorse the concept of "evil." I prefer to look at environmental cause and effect in people's actions, motives, etc.)