History of Emotional Intelligence, Part One

1848: Phineas Gage – Emotional Center

In Antonio R. Damasio’s book he describes the case of Phineas Gage, a construction foreman who in 1848 survived a freak accident in which a 3 ½ foot iron rod passed through his head. Although Gage’s intellectual capacity was not affected, his emotional center (the prefrontal cortex) was damaged. He was no longer able to make good decisions since he lacked his emotional center.

1875: Charles Darwin – The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animal

Charles Darwin made the observation that in man and animals, the expression of emotions was similar. He was the first to posit that emotions were universal. Although the idea was dismissed by anthropologist Margaret Mead who believed that the expression of emotions changed from culture to culture, we now understand (through the work of people like Paul Ekman, author of Emotions Revealed) that emotions among humans are universal although the cultural display of emotions is not.

1936: Robert Thorndike – Social Intelligence

During World War II, Robert Thorndike worked as a psychometrician and was an Air Force Major. At the time, testing for pilots and bombardier crews was ineffective. Thorndike’s work included analyzing multiple abilities and developing more subtle techniques to test aircrew performance.

1940: David Wechsler, Ph.D. – Nonintellectual Intelligence

David Wechsler is best known for having developed tests that measure intelligence, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). He was responsible for developing the 100 point scale in intelligence testing. However, he also acknowledged and paid attention to the non-intellective abilities such as affective, personal, and social factors. He proposed that those non-intellective abilities were largely responsible for predicting success in life.

1972: Paul Ekman – Study of Emotion in the Human Face

In 1965, Paul Ekman was a graduate student and he received a grant to do cross-cultural studies of nonverbal behavior. He started the project believing that expression and gestures were something we learned from those around us. He asked a revered group of research psychologists and cultural anthropologists for advice, including people such as Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Edward Hall, Ray Birdwhistell, and Charles Osgood.

Ekman is reported to have remembered that Charles Darwin had made the opposite claim, but reportedly did not read Darwin’s book, because he was so convinced that Darwin was wrong. Ekman travelled to Papua, New Guinea and discovered that what Charles Darwin said was true. He went on to map all of the emotions on the face in work that is often referred to in police investigations, by human resources interviewers, and others. His work was also relied upon heavily in the short-lived TV show “Lie to Me.”

1972: Candace Pert – Molecules of Emotion

Candace Pert wrote the book Molecules of Emotion and was the first to discover that emotions create a chemical change in the body that affects our health.

1973: Peter Sifneos – Alexithymia

Alexithymia literally means no words for emotion. In 1973, psychotherapist Peter Sifneos found that psychosomatic patients tended to have documentable constriction in emotional functioning, a “poverty of fantasy,” and an inability to find appropriate words to describe emotions.

1983: Howard Gardner – Multiple Intelligence

Howard Gardner formulated a list of seven intelligences. The first two have been evaluated and applied in terms of education and schooling, the next three often applied to the arts, and the last two often used in terms of our ability to work with others, and then to understand ourselves.

Linguistic intelligence (involving language abilities)
Logical-mathematical intelligence (involving analysis and math skills)
Musical intelligence
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (involving mental and physical co-ordination)
Spatial intelligence (involving pattern recognition skills)
Interpersonal intelligence (involving the ability to work with others)
Intrapersonal intelligence (involving the ability to understand oneself)

Complete and Continue