The first articles on emotional intelligence were published just as psychologists grew receptive to the idea that human beings employed multiple, partly distinct mental abilities to understand the world. Earlier in the 20th century, Charles Spearman advocated for a single general intelligence; his work raised doubts about the plausible existence of, for example, a social intelligence, or the possibility that there existed an ability at emotional communication.
In 1990, Peter Salovey and I argued for the potential existence of an emotional intelligence—one that, we believed, might integrate lines of work involving emotion and cognition. More radically, we hoped that it might describe a potentially valid new intelligence related to but partly distinct from general intelligence. Our idea spread in the popular press, along with sometimes hyperbolic claims that triggered both enthusiasm and disdain among psychologists.
As emotional intelligence became accepted among serious intelligence researchers, it opened a door to consider additional mental abilities about people—including especially personal intelligence (reasoning about personality), and a reevaluation of social intelligence (about social relations).
As the intelligences have become better understood, the effect of education and training in heightening mental abilities has become better appreciated, as has the need to assess a spectrum of such broad intelligences. This talk will conclude with a look forward to how people-centered intelligences can help us better understand, appreciate, and develop the full range of human potential.