650497

research-article2016

EMR0010.1177/1754073916650497Emotion ReviewMestre et al. Towards a Comprehensive Emotional Intelligence Framework

Special Section

Models of Cognitive Ability and Emotion

Can Better Inform Contemporary Emotional
Intelligence Frameworks

Emotion Review
Vol. 8, No. 4 (October 2016) 19
The Author(s) 2016
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073916650497
er.sagepub.com

Jos M. Mestre

Departamento de Psicologa, Universidad de Cdiz, Spain

Carolyn MacCann

School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Australia

Roco Guil

Departamento de Psicologa, Universidad de Cdiz, Spain

Richard D. Roberts

Center for Innovative Assessments, Professional Examination Service, USA

Abstract
Emotional intelligence (EI) stands at the nexus between intelligence and emotion disciplines, and we outline how EI research might
be better integrated within both theoretical frameworks. From the former discipline, empirical research focused upon whether EI is
an intelligence and what type of intelligence it constitutes. It is clear that ability-based tests of EI form a group factor of cognitive
abilities that may be integrated into the CattellHornCarroll framework; less clear is the lower order factor structure of EI. From
the latter discipline, research linking EI with theoretical frameworks from emotion research remain relatively sparse. Emotion
regulation and appraisal theory may be key to explain how EI may reflect different processes. We propose a research agenda to
advance the EI study.

Keywords
appraisal theory, CattellHornCarroll model, emotion management, emotion regulation, emotional intelligence, validity

Jerome Bruner (1986) warned about the common tendency to

draw strong conceptual boundaries in thought, action, and emotion as independent regions of the mind, requiring scholars to
build conceptual bridges to connect what should never have
been separated. Since it was first proposed as a psychological
entity, the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) has been seen
as an attempt to build a theoretical bridge between human emotional experience and cognitive abilities. However, this particular bridge is still under construction. A cogent framework for
theory development and empirical research around EI requires
consideration of both assessment principles and the conceptual

underpinnings of this construct. In this article, we provide some

suggestions for crossing an arguably artificial, and perhaps
unnecessarily cumbersome, chasm.
Early research on EI questioned whether an intelligence
dealing primarily with emotional information could feasibly be
an intelligence at all (Davies, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998). This
early focus on the status of EI as an intelligence led to prolonged debate, including whether ability-based assessments of
EI could meet these criteria (see e.g., MacCann, Joseph,
Newman, & Roberts, 2014). However, the emotion element
of EI received less attention. Few, if any, efforts were made to

Author note: We would like to thank Alicia Ogilvie for assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. All statements expressed in this article are the authors and do not
reflect the official opinions or policies of any of the authors host affiliations.
Corresponding author: Jos M. Mestre, Departamento de Psicologa, Universidad de Cdiz, Campus Universitario de Puerto Real, Puerto Real, CP, 11519, Spain.
Email: josemi.mestre@uca.es

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2 Emotion Review Vol. 8 No. 4

develop a comprehensive conceptual map that included theories of emotion (see, however, Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts,
2003). Instead, much of the research focused on whether EI
could predict a broad range of meaningful outcomes linked to
both normal and abnormal functioning in the school, workplace, and home (e.g., Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008).
Concurrently, a large number of EI instruments were developed, sometimes with careful consideration of psychometric
principles (e.g., focusing on reliability and validity considerations as is required by the various versions of the Standards for
Educational and Psychological Testing; see Matthews, Emo,
Roberts, & Zeidner, 2006), and sometimes not. Perhaps because
a subset of these instruments did not pass scientific muster,
there was a nonnegligible amount of skepticism and criticism
within academia around these measures (Gignac, 2009). We
contend that this early backlash may now have abated, and it is
worth reconsidering the extent that current developments support the assessment of emotional intelligence.
In this manuscript, we begin by describing how EI might be
fully integrated into existing frameworks for cognitive ability
research, before moving to consider something similar for emotion models; that is, how consistent with emotion theories are
emotional intelligence models. Throughout, we review empirical evidence and emerging research testing such cross-links.
The article concludes with a series of recommendations for
moving the field forward.

Integrating Theory and Research From the

Field of Intelligence
On the one hand, intelligence has encompassed various definitions: taxonomically, as a system of mental abilities; operationally, as performance in carrying out abstract reasoning with
data; or theoretically, as a capacity to learn (e.g., Roberts &
Lipnevich, 2011). On the other hand, a historical dichotomy
between emotion as an irrational force and reason as its rational
polar opposite made EI appear an oxymoron (Matthews etal.,
2003). However, most modern theories of emotion treat cognitive processes as an essential element of emotion; cognition or
reason is an integral part of how emotions are generated and the
meaning that such emotions possess (see e.g., Moors, Ellsworth,
Scherer, & Frijda, 2013). Accordingly, it appears entirely plausible that cognitive processes pertaining to emotions may differ
meaningfully across people and in turn, constitute a particular
type of intelligence.
Indeed, early in the debate over EIs place with respect to
other cognitive ability constructs, Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey
(1999) proposed three criteria that EI must meet to be a legitimate form of intelligence. These criteria were:
1. Operational: EI should have an operational definition as
an ability measure.
2. Correlational: EI should demonstrate positive correlations with other kinds of intelligence constructs.
3. Developmental: EI should demonstrate developmental
progression (though, curiously, if other intelligence

constructs are used as models for such progression, this

could take the form of either improvement or decline
over the lifespan).
Although other criteria might have been listed (especially
biological concomitants and test criterion validity evidence),
the field seems broadly to have accepted these criteria, with
research frequently directed at resolving these issues. In what
follows, we summarize current perspectives with respect to
these three criteria. Note, however, in so doing, we simultaneously acknowledge that other logic arguments and criteria
(e.g., consequential validity evidence; convergent and discriminant validity evidence) might be equally important elements
for consideration within this domain (see Zeidner, Matthews,
& Roberts, 2009).

Evaluating the Operational Criterion for an

Intelligence
This criterion was arguably met upon inception when Mayer and
Salovey (1997) developed a measurement model that broadly followed the assessment development rules of engagement outlined
in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
(American Educational Research Association [AERA], American
Psychological Association [APA], & National Council on
Measurement in Education [NCME], 2014). However, it should
be acknowledged that there are competing theoretical and measurement models of EI that likely do not meet the operational criterion. Theoretical models in the mixed model tradition of EI
delineate a concept that is much broader than a set of abilities. This
concept includes character traits, beliefs, social cognitions, attitudes, and other noncognitive attributes that contribute to emotional functioning (Matthews etal., 2003; Zeidner etal., 2009).
Moreover, rating-scale measurement models do not assess actual
abilities (generally aligned with maximum performance) but
rather self-efficacy or self-perceptions of ability (usually aligned
to typical performance; Roberts, Schulze, & MacCann, 2008).
With these caveats in mind, we refocus on the theoretical
model suggested by Mayer and Salovey (1997), known as the
four-branch model. This framework contains four related abilities:
1. Perception: Accurately perceiving/recognizing emotions
from sensory stimuli from oneself and others (i.e., tone,
facial expression, posture, or other environmental cues);
2. Facilitation: Using emotions and mood to facilitate,
improve, or enhance task performance;
3. Understanding: Comprehending how emotions combine, progress, and change over time and situations; and
4. Management: Managing or regulating ones own or others emotions to experience greater positive affect and
enhance personal growth (both emotional and intellectual).
These abilities are operationalized by the Mayer, Salovey,
and Caruso (2002) Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT)

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Mestre et al. Towards a Comprehensive Emotional Intelligence Framework 3

measurement model, which consists of two tests for each

branch. However, in evaluating the theoretical model, some
scholars have suggested that the facilitation branch may be
redundant with (or a subset of) the perception and management
branches (Allen, MacCann, Matthews, & Roberts, 2013; Joseph
& Newman, 2010; MacCann etal., 2014). Specifically, management is mainly the down-regulation of negative emotions (and
occasionally the up-regulation of negative emotions such as
anger; Tamir, Mitchell, & Gross, 2008). As such, the generation
of emotions to assist with task performance (i.e., facilitation)
necessarily entails such emotion production.
Structural analyses of the MSCEIT and its precursor (the
Multi-Factor Emotional Intelligence Scale; Mayer, Caruso, &
Salovey, 1998) generally do not support including a facilitation
branch (e.g., Fan, Jackson, Yang, Tang, & Zhang, 2010). There
are also measurement issues with the perception branch, which
has low, negligible, and even negative relationships with other
assessments of emotion recognition (e.g., Roberts etal., 2006).
Also, the face (and ecological) validity of emotion understanding and management tests has been criticized (e.g., Matthews
etal., 2003). However, such concerns about measurement are
not theoretical issues negating the existence of EI as an intelligence. Instead, they can be addressed through ongoing research
and development. For example, there are a significant and
growing number of well-constructed tests of emotion recognition, many of which are theoretically grounded in emotion theory (e.g., the Geneva Emotion Recognition Test; Schlegel,
Grandjean, & Scherer, 2014). Furthermore, there are promising
recent efforts to assess emotion management by using multimedia stimuli (MacCann, Lievens, Libbrecht, & Roberts, 2015;
Mortillaro & Schlegel, 2014).
In sum, meeting the operational criterion for an intelligence
is an ongoing process of research and test refinement. There are
currently ability-based tests of the four-branch model that meet
this criterion, with ongoing research ensuring that this will continue. However, there remain doubts about the separate status
of facilitation as a key component in the four-branch model.
Whether the status of this construct in widely adopted EI
frameworks is a measurement or substantive problem likely
still requires empirical investigation (though we suspect it is a
combination of both factors). Regardless of this pointanticipating a consistent theme throughout this manuscriptfurther
measures beyond the MSCEIT are needed, minimally to supplement, and possibly to replace at least some branches of that
assessment.

Evaluating the Correlational Criterion for an

Intelligence
One of the earliest lawful rules of intelligence is the principle of
positive manifold: All maximum performance tests of intelligence are positively correlated with all other tests (Spearman,
1927). Therefore, for EI to be an intelligence, EI test scores
should correlate positively with scores on other intelligence
tests. There is clear meta-analytic evidence that this is the case
(e.g., Joseph & Newman, 2010; Roberts etal., 2008). Maximum

performance measures of EI undoubtedly assess a type of intelligence. However, it is still unclear whether tests of EI capture a
new and distinctive element of intelligence that is separate from
other known abilities. This is a second and more nuanced aspect
of the correlational criterion. It is necessary to consider some
background in intelligence theory to describe what other
known abilities may consist of and therefore ascertain whether
EI is entirely independent of this set of constructs.
The CattellHornCarroll (CHC) model is the most comprehensive and empirically supported psychometric theory of
the structure of cognitive abilities to date (Flanagan & Dixon,
2013, p. 368; see also Roberts & Lipnevich, 2011). In this
model, intelligence consists of several broad abilities, such as
fluid reasoning (Gf), acculturated knowledge (Gc), visual processing (Gv), auditory processing (Ga), and multiple factors
representing memory and mental speed (McGrew, 2009). Each
of these broad, second-order abilities encompasses several narrower primary mental abilities (PMAs). For example, reading
comprehension, phonetic coding, and general information are
some of the PMAs underlying Gc (see left half of Figure 1).
It is possible to imagine a parallel structure for emotional
intelligence (see right half of Figure 1) where perception/
expression, understanding, and managing emotions are broad
abilities, each consisting of underlying PMAs (with facilitation excluded or potentially a PMA of management, in line
with our earlier evidence). In 1997, Mayer and Salovey
depicted such a model, describing potential PMAs for each of
the four branches of their EI model. For instance, emotional
understanding (Branch 3) includes: (a) labeling emotions, (b)
interpreting situational meaning from emotions (e.g., loss may
precede sadness and unfairness may precede anger), (c) understanding complex blends of emotions, and (d) understanding
transitions among emotions. This model is currently a theory
to be tested rather than an empirically proven structure, as
there are insufficient marker tests for each PMA to verify a
factor structure. An alternative model integrating EI within
CHC theory treats EI as a broad ability (with equivalent status
to Gf, Gc, or Gv) where each of the branches constitutes a
PMA of EI. MacCann etal. (2014) tested such a model using
five broad abilities from CHC (Gf, Gc, Gq [quantitative
knowledge], Gv, and Glr [learning efficiency and retrieval fluency]) and the perception, understanding, and management
branches of the MSCEIT. This model showed better fit to a
large data set than several competing models, supporting the
idea of EI as a group factor of intelligence within the CHC
model (see Figure 2, where EI abilities are modeled within the
second stratum of the CHC model).
Using a theoretical model of intelligence such as CHC theory allows a more nuanced answer as to whether EI is an intelligence and also what type of intelligence it is. Much of the
existing research suggests that EI constitutes knowledge rather
than reasoning or information processing. For instance, EI tends
to show a stronger relationship with Gc than with Gf, and this
relationship is particularly pronounced for emotional understanding (MacCann, 2010; Roberts etal., 2008). In fact, some
scholars claim that EI needs to incorporate more fluid, perhaps

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4 Emotion Review Vol. 8 No. 4

Figure 1. CattellHornCarroll (CHC) theory of cognitive abilities with emotional intelligence (EI) as a conceptual category.

Figure 2. CattellHornCarroll (CHC) theory of cognitive abilities versus hierarchical model of EI as Stratum II ability.

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Mestre et al. Towards a Comprehensive Emotional Intelligence Framework 5

even information processing, components (e.g., Ortony, Revelle,

& Zinbarg, 2008).
In sum, if measured using maximum performance assessments, there is sufficient correlational evidence to consider EI a
form of cognitive ability. Moreover, emerging data suggest that
EI has similar status as Gf, Gc, Gv, and other constructs within
the CHC model. An obvious next step in this line of research is
to investigate primary PMAs of a broad EI factor. There is a
clear need for more studies of this nature, with a range of assessments in addition to the MSCEIT. This is necessary both for
empirical reasons (three marker tests are generally minimally
necessary to factor each branch and the MSCEIT contains only
two), and to address issues of mono-method biases that limit the
generalizability of empirical findings.

Evaluating the Developmental Criterion for an

Intelligence
While different broad cognitive ability factors show different
developmental trajectories, the following general trends are
apparent:
1. Fluid reasoning (Gf) ability and speed-related factors
(like Gs) increase rapidly through childhood and adolescence before stabilizing and going into a slow decline.
2. Knowledge-related factors (like Gc) increase less rapidly (but still quickly) in childhood and adolescence but
continue to increase across the lifespan. Specific, differentiated knowledge structures (expertise, vocational
knowledge, domain-specific knowledge) show relatively greater growth in adulthood compared to more
general acculturated knowledge.
3. Factors based on sensory modalities (Ga, Gv) show the
greatest decline in older adults, with developmental trajectories otherwise similar to Gf (Horn & Cattell, 1967;
Salthouse, 2005).
Thus, the developmental trends that characterize specific EI
branches provide information about what types of abilities are
involved in each branch. Two recent cross-sectional studies of
the MSCEIT suggest that emotion management shows larger
increases across the lifespan than do the other three abilities
(Cabello, Bravo, Latorre, & Fernandez-Berrocal, 2014).
Similarly, research on emotion regulation supports the idea that
emotion management abilities increase across the lifespan.
Older adults report greater use of anger regulation strategies and
reappraisal but less use of ineffective regulation techniques such
as suppression (John & Gross, 2004; Phillips, Henry, Hosie, &
Milne, 2006). In contrast, older adults experience deficits in
emotion recognition tasks but not in decoding emotions from
verbal material (Phillips, MacLean, & Allen, 2002). Such a
result suggests an age-related decline in emotion perception but
not emotion understanding.
In sum, these results suggest that emotion perception follows
a developmental trajectory similar to that of sensory-modality
abilities (with decreases in adulthood), what CHC sometimes

refers to as vulnerable abilities. By contrast, emotion understanding and management follow a developmental path similar
to that of knowledge-like factors (continued increases across the
lifespan well into old age; i.e., consistent with maintained abilities). As with other cognitive ability constructs, different aspects
of EI have relative strengths and weaknesses at different stages
of the lifespan. In sum, developmental trends indicate that different branches (or PMAs) of EI may represent distinct types of
abilities. This evidence adds further weight to our belief that
further research should focus on the PMA level of EI and separately consider both the theory and empirical evidence for the
separate branches.

Integrating Theory and Research From the

Field of Emotions
If EI is a concept that reflects how people process emotional
information (Mayer etal., 2008), it is important to integrate
theories of affect into the EI framework. This is the flip-side of
the intelligence criteria outlined in the previous passages. This
call to action first presented in Matthews etal. (2003) but has
only recently started to gain momentum.
Among a range of possibilities, we discuss two broad emotion-related theories that might guide research on the emotional aspect of emotional intelligence: (a) the emotion
regulation modal model (ERMM; Gross & Thompson, 2007)
and (b) appraisal theories of emotion. While there are other possible emotion-related frameworks to consider, we believe that
these two theories show promising theoretical links to known
PMAs of EI (perception, understanding, and management). The
reader should be aware of this caveat as we discuss these models.

Emotion Regulation Modal Model (ERMM) and

Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Emotion regulation (ER) predates EI. ER focuses on the processes
people use to influence which emotions they have, when they have
them, and how they are expressed (Gross & Thompson, 2007). In
contrast, EI has focused on individual differences in the ways people perceive, understand, and manage emotions. Recently, PeaSarrionandia, Mikolajczak, and Gross (2015) suggested integrating
ER and EI to simultaneiously consider: (a) who manages emotions
(i.e., the EI perspective of individual differences) and (b) how this
is done (i.e., the ER process perspective).
Like the earlier transactional model of stress and coping
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1987), ERMM describes emotion as a
transaction involving a situation and a persons attention to the
goal-relevant elements of the situation, which activates both
their interpretation of such elements and their behavioral, cognitive, or physiological response to the situation (Gross & Barrett,
2011). ER occurs when a person intervenes in this situation
attentionappraisalresponse sequence to change the emotion
that is experienced. In this model, there are five broad classes of
ER, which primarily occur as specific points in any given emotional sequence. Table 1 shows some sample regulation strategies for each of these five general types of ER.

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6 Emotion Review Vol. 8 No. 4

Table 1. Links between emotion regulation strategies and EI*.

Emotion regulation class

Example strategies

Links to EI

Situation selection
(prior to situation)

Direct confrontation: entering a situation with potential negative emotions, usually with the
goal that this short-term unpleasantness will result in long-term benefits
Avoidance: avoiding or escaping a potentially negative or uncontrollable situation
Direct modification: direct action to change the situation (also known as task-focused coping)
Support-seeking: seeking help from others to modify the situation (also known as instrumental
social support)
Distraction: a shift in attention away from the situation
Rumination: perseverating on the thoughts and feelings associated with the situation
Positive reappraisal: reframing ones interpretation of the situation in a more positive way
Acceptance: acknowledging the situation and ones inability to change it
Emotion sharing: expressing ones emotions
Expressive suppression: suppressing or hiding the visible behavioral traces of ones emotions

Situation modification
(during situation)
Attentional deployment
(during attention)
Cognitive change
(during appraisal)
Response modulation
(during response)

+
++
0

+
+

Note. Effect size is shown as zero (0, d < .15) small (+; d = .15 to .34); medium (++; d = .35 to .69) or large (+++; d > .7). Negative signs indicate similar magnitudes, but in
the opposite direction. Blank cells indicate that, at the time of writing, no data had addressed this relationship.
*See Pea-Sarrionandia et al. (2015).

A recent meta-analysis demonstrates that peoples level of

EI predicts the types of ER strategies they invoke (PeaSarrionandia etal., 2015). We present a subset of this analysis
in Table 1. We note that such links are both positive and negative, and vary in effect size. High-EI people use more of some
strategies (like positive reappraisal and direct modification)
but less of others (avoidance and rumination). It is not simply
the case that high-EI people regulate more (i.e., use more of
all available strategies). Some of these relationships are
strong, and a few are near zero. These findings show that
emotionally intelligent people systematically use particular
ER strategies, suggesting a mechanism to translate the emotion knowledge of EI into ER behaviors. That is, emotion
regulation may be the process by which EI produces positive
outcomes.
There are several possible ways to merge ER and EI
research. First, existing emotion regulation paradigms may be
used in factor-analytic research on the nature of EI (as alluded
to in the previous section), allowing more detailed modeling
of the EI structure. Second, the EI management branch is usually assessed with situational judgment tests, where situation
responses implicitly represent different regulation strategies.
Making this categorization explicit would allow a direct link
between ER and EIit would be possible to tease apart
whether high-EI people always use the same generally effective strategies, versus whether they adapt strategies to suit the
situation (see e.g., Allen etal., 2015). Third, examining the
strategy use of high-EI people in their actual behavior (rather
than responses to test items) is possible through within-person
paradigms such as experience sampling or the day reconstruction method (see e.g., Burrus etal., 2012). Such methods study
ER as a process, and the effects of EI at each stage of this
process may then be examined. In sum, studying EI through
the theoretical framework of emotion regulation may produce
greater understanding of the mechanisms by which EI capacities influence valued outcomes.

Appraisal Theories (AT) of Emotion and

Emotional Intelligence
Appraisal theories are among the most influential theories of
emotion and are based on the premise that emotions are elicited
by appraisals of situations. AT assumes that: (a) emotions are
elicited by specific patterns of appraisal; and (b) an emotion
process starts when an appraisal is made, and this precedes
physiological and motoric responses. Some appraisal theorists
believe that this system evolved to help people cope and adapt
to their environments (Roseman, 2001). They also propose that
appraisal involves conscious processing and that nonadaptive
emotions proceed from inappropriate appraisals (Roseman &
Smith, 2001).
Appraisals are the cognitive basis for emotional experience, and thus individual differences in appraisals will result
in systematic differences in the emotions experienced. For
example, greater appraised unfairness, other-cause, and goal
blockage results in greater anger (Kuppens, van Mechelen, &
Rijmen, 2008). While there are systematic individual differences in appraisals (Kuppens etal., 2008), the basis of these
differences is not yet known. One possibility is that one or
more EI PMAs underlie such appraisal differences. Research
on appraisal biases supports this ideabiases produce systematic errors in processing emotional information, and may
therefore have a causal role in emotional vulnerability
(Mathews, 2004, p. 1033). For instance, people with anxiety
show more attentional bias than people with depression
(Mogg & Bradley, 2005). However, more explicit memory
biases are apparent in people with depression, panic disorder,
obsessive-compulsive disorder, or posttraumatic stress (Coles
& Heimberg, 2002; Mogg & Bradley, 2005). Thus, research
examining whether EI may underlie differences in appraisals
or appraisal biases seems warranted, and would unlock a
wealth of theory on the mechanisms of EI by linking to the
large literatures on emotion.

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Mestre et al. Towards a Comprehensive Emotional Intelligence Framework 7

Scherers (e.g., 2005) componential model of emotion may

help especially to understand the relationship between emotionally intelligent behavior and appraisals. In this model of emotions, emotions consist of five components: appraisals (e.g.,
threat); autonomic physiology (e.g., heart rate increases); action
tendencies (e.g., fighting); motor expressions (e.g., shaking
fists); and subjective feeling (e.g., anger). As such, this model of
emotion encompasses how differences in appraisals may translate to differences in behavior. The experience of emotion
unfolds in a process of sequential appraisals (where each
appraisal is also associated with particular activations of the
other four components; Scherer, 2001). An emotion is thus an
unfolding sequence that differs in cognitive appraisal, conscious
and automatic response, action, and feeling.
This theoretical model of emotion has implications for
assessment developments. According to Scherer (2005), an
emotional measure must: (a) focus on the feeling component
rather than objective details (evaluate appraisal rather than a
concrete response); (b) involve emotional complexity (arousal,
valence, control, and conduciveness, as assessed using the
Geneva Emotion Wheel); (c) rely on standard emotion labels in
natural languages; (d) assess the intensity of the feeling (both
qualitative and quantitative information on emotion should be
sought); (e) avoid arbitrariness of different sets of emotion by
including a full set of emotion labels; and (f) use graphical
forms to aid understanding and shorten response times.
While these guidelines apply to the measurement of emotional experience itself, they appear equally relevant for the
assessment of EI. In fact, developing assessments of emotion
perception based on nuanced appraisal models has been undertaken (cf. Schlegel etal., 2014), and it may be possible to
develop similar assessments of emotion understanding.
Although tests of emotion understanding have been developed
using appraisal theory frameworks (e.g., MacCann & Roberts,
2008), Scherers more detailed model and set of guidelines have
not yet been used in such an endeavor, and might be particularly
useful for developing a theory-driven assessment.
In sum, appraisal theories of emotion suggest two new lines
of research for EI. First, they provide paradigms and guidelines
for developing new measures of EI, which would allow
researchers to focus on the PMA level of EI. Second, they provide a theoretical framework for examining emotion-related
processes that involve EI.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In our view, EI research has benefitted from its integration with
intelligence research and stands to benefit from a similar integration with emotion research. In the case of intelligence
research, we know that EI is a distinct group factor. The higher
branches of understanding and management are most closely
aligned with knowledge and expertise conceptualizations of
intelligence and likely increase across the length of the lifespan.
In contrast, emotion perception may be most closely aligned
with abilities based on sensory modalities, and may show steep
declines in adulthood. In the case of emotion research, much

less is known about how EI might fit within existing theoretical

models and traditions, although we hypothesize that EI may
relate to differences in appraisal processes as well as regulatory
processes. In considering perspectives from intelligence and
emotion research traditions, we make the following recommendations for the future of EI.
1. EI should be studied with multiple assessments rather
than exclusively (or almost exclusively) with the
MSCEIT, as is currently the case. A larger number of
assessments would allow researchers to consider each
branch in detail, potentially developing a structure for
the PMAs of EI.
2. In developing new EI assessments, researchers might
usefully integrate emotion perspectives, particularly
those tied to emotion regulation. Particularly apposite
would appear the recommendations outlined by Scherer
(2007) for developing such assessments; this source
should be better used in the future.
3. Research the subsidiary PMAs of EI, both as an empirical test for the underlying structure of EI, and potentially to increase predictive utility by matching specific,
valued outcomes with the most appropriate branch. We
expect here that emotion facilitation may not survive
such an endeavor, but that other key abilities (e.g.,
empathy) may emerge.
4. Integrate EI theory with research on emotions, which
may allow a focus on the processes that underlie EI. We
have discussed appraisal processes and regulation processes, but there are other key literatures (e.g., those
arising from neuroscience) that are also ripe for inclusion in this undertaking.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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