Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, use, understand and regulate emotions — in Salovey and Mayer’s 1990 framing — later popularised and broadened by Daniel Goleman (1995).
The ability model has tests (MSCEIT). Mixed and trait models (Bar-On; trait-EQ questionnaires) wander toward personality. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s constructed-emotion work and Damasio’s somatic markers complicate any simple “EQ organ”.
This page treats EI as a useful, contested skill cluster with high trainability claims and mid evidence. It is not a ranking of warm peoples and not a diagnosis.
Profile
Seven chapters
Origins
How emotional intelligence was named, dated and argued — a history of claims, not a verdict on a child.
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Science
Findings, mechanisms and debates around emotional intelligence, with evidence sized honestly.
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Signs
How emotional intelligence is noticed without over-labelling — cues, tests and false positives.
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Develop
Growing emotional intelligence as a system of catalysts, windows and supports — educational, not diagnostic.
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Practice
Designed methods for emotional intelligence — steps, drills and pitfalls, not a promise.
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Exemplars
Historical people in the orbit of emotional intelligence — a set, not a ranking.
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Myths
Misconceptions and real systems around emotional intelligence, across more than three continents.
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