Why Emotional Intelligence Needs a Fluid Component

There is something intuitively appealing and " right " about the idea of emotional intelligence (EI), but what is that something? Before we can answer this question, and especially before we raise issues about what exactly the construct of EI is or ought to be and the problem of how to measure it, it will be helpful to address the question of how to characterize the presupposed notion of " emotion. " There is much disagreement among emotion theorists as to exactly what emotions are (and even as to which psychological conditions are emotions), and insofar as different theorists have different conceptions of what an emotion is, their instincts as to what EI is are likely to be different. Certainly this is the case with respect to our own conception of EI as compared to the one introduced , elaborated, and extensively investigated by Mayer and Salovey and their colleagues (e. We believe that differences in conceptions of EI ultimately come to rest in different conceptions of emotions. Once we have addressed the question of what an emotion is, we review Mayer and Salovey's construct of EI and its measurement, suggesting that, at least in principle, both could be strengthened by introducing an additional, critical, ingredient. What Is an Emotion? We view emotions as states that result from value-laden appraisals of a person's environment. Of course, this is a very broad, general statement, and it turns out to be We gratefully acknowledge extensive discussions on these issues with Nisha Moody and helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter from Shlomo Hareli. This chapter is based in part on a talk given by the fi rst author at a symposium on " Computing With Emotions " held in Haifa, Israel, in June 2005.