Understanding Emotional Intelligence

A Brief Historical Context of Emotional Intelligence:
by Sgt. Vuzzo, Ph.D.

While I will concentrate on law enforcement officer's stress this is a good point to get a better understanding Emotional Intelligence.


Since psychologist Edward Thorndike began his work on social intelligence in 1920 there was a shift in attention from assessing social behavior to understanding interpersonal behavior and its effects on adaptation. Thorndike’s influence on social intelligence began with this definition, social intelligence is the ability to perceive one’s own and others’ internal states, motives, and behaviors and to act toward them optimally on the basis of that information.  This influence in understanding and conceptualizing social intelligence is described by Bar-On (2006) as being the conception for emotional intelligence today. In Mayer’s (2001) “Field guide to emotional intelligence” there is a convenient overview of  activities by psychologists that have breathed life into emotional intelligence from 1900's to the 21st  Century.

The adaptation from social to emotional intelligence found itself a niche in the rhetoric of psychologists such as Gardner, Salovey & Mayer, Bar-On, and Goleman.

Are there other fields of work that would require as much or more ability to utilize EI than law enforcement?