Avances en el estudio de la Inteligencia Emocional

Avances en el estudio de la Inteligencia Emocional
Trait Emotional Intelligence
Adrian Furnham
Department of Psychology. University College London
Introduction
It is quite clear that the enormous success of the emotional
intelligence movement in academia, business
and the lay imagination is that it clearly “struck a
cord with most people”. Most people know a highly
intelligent, well-educated, technically-sophisticated
person whose lack of “people skills” means they are
surprisingly ineffective both at work and in their private
lives. They seemed to be both emotionally illiterate
in that they could not “read the signals” nor
could they manage their own and others’ emotions.
It is frequently observed that failed and derailed
managers tend to have poor social skills and are
weak at building bonds. They lack EQ.
Thus it was that Goleman’s (1995) blockbuster
book “chimed with the zeitgeist”. It has
many core messages but one central one was that at
work relationships building is more important than
having technical skills. The idea was that in their effort
to master many technical disciplines and qualifications
many people neglected everyday social intercourse
which is where they could best learn to be
emotionally intelligent: to read emotions and respond
to them.
The application of the EI concept to work
meant Goleman (1998) hurried out another book
focused very much on that issue. He was not the
only one to spot that niche in the market (Sternberg,
1997; Weisinger, 1998).
Popular books made simple but very important
claims. The first is that EI is a better predictor
than IQ of success at work. It is argued both explicitly
but also by inference that EI is perhaps the single
best predictor of success at work. This is stronger
than the idea that EI has merely incremental validity.
It is perhaps this “article of faith” that has most
encouraged the EI consultants and those who purchase
their services. It will be argued that there is absolutely
no evidence in support of this claim and in
fact all the data suggest it is IQ that is the single best
individual difference predictor of work success.
Whilst it maybe true that for a category of cognitively
able, well educated managers, EQ appears to
be the factor that makes or breaks them. What is
conveniently ignored is that they have already been
highly selected to be bright. If it was argued that
within groups of highly intellectually able managers
their EQ was (among) the best predictors of
success at work, that would be a much more empirically
reasonable and sustainable proposition.
There are as a result now many more measured critiques
of EQ (Ashkanasy & Davis, 2005; Ciarrochi,
Chan & Capuli, 2000; Conte, 2005;
Greenspan, 1989; Locke, 2005; MacCann et al.,
2004). Matthews et al (2002) noted five years ago
“Currently, there are no published empirical studies
showing that EI measuring full predicts job success
above (and beyond) that predicted by ability
and personality measures” (p. 478).
The second claim is that EI can (and should)
be trained, no doubt to ensure success at work.
Goleman (1995) did argue originally that technical
training is comparatively easy compared to training
EI but that it is both possible and highly desirable.
Depending on how EI is conceived and understood
this claim is partly true though there seems to
be a great dearth of papers that attempt to demonstrate
this. In this chapter it is argued that for many
people in business the EI movement has simply relabelled
and re-packaged “interpersonal” or “social
skills” as EI. One interesting challenge to throw at
EI practitioners is how their concept or training differs
from classic social skills training taught for
over 30 years. Further if one examines that literature
it is far from clear whether social skills training
and, therefore, EI training is very successful.
In this sense EI is neither easily trainable nor
crucial for success at work. This idea flies in the face
of a great deal of popular writing and a huge still
growing consultant industry.
Explaining the popularity of the EI concept
Goleman’s (1995, 1998) two books on Emotional
Intelligence have been phenomenally successful internationally.
Furnham (2000) suggested, rather
cynically, that authors who want their popular
books to sell well, should obey various rules. Furnham
(2006) noted how this applied to Goleman’s
first and second book. They are:
• Simplicity: The book should have a simple
message supported with plenty of memorable
anecdotes, vignettes and stories. Goleman’s
book is indeed an example of anecdotal
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