Intelligence, intelligence... Humph... What is intelligence ? The first temptation, served by the Latin etymology intellĕgō (to discern, unravel, understand), is to define intelligence as a set of cognitive capacities: learning knowledge, speed of reasoning, conceptualization, anticipation... We would have stopped there if such provisions made it possible to make good decisions for sure. Except that, on the one hand, experience has shown that IQ champions turn out to be particularly stupid in situations (or even make catastrophic decisions); and that, on the other hand, on everything that constitutes this " classical " intelligence, humans are today seriously challenged by artificial intelligence.
And suddenly, at the dawn of the 1990s, the notion of " emotional intelligence" appeared. Is this the future of human intelligence? A simple return to common sense ? A Cartesian reconciliation? The announced revenge of those who have never managed to grasp the equations of the third degree or the beginning of a chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason? We go back through the history of the notion and with that of the perception and valuation of emotions to understand what emotional intelligence means... And how to develop it.
Rehabilitating emotions !
In 1990, psychologists Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer published a major article in the journal Imagination, Cognition & Personality, entitled " Emotional Intelligence ," the first words of which set the terms of the debate : " Is emotional intelligence a contradiction in terms ?" . And to point out all the suspicions, even rejection, that emotions inspire in collective mentalities that have inherited a whole philosophical literature hostile to affects. Associated with visceral reactions, sentimental temptations, pathetic agitations, feverish passions, uncontrollable excitements, even mental disorder, emotions have acquired over time an unfortunate reputation for disturbing the organization of thought and for being an evil genius for the ability to decide. The emotional is disqualified as soon as we detect in his words or actions the trace of some form of irrationality !
But, say Salovey and Mayer, this distrust of emotions stems from an original error in definition. Emotions are not the expression of an internal chaos that would overflow without warning, but belong to a system of " organized responses" to " an event, internal or external, positive or negative for the individual" allowing the latter to adapt in a given situation, but also to transform himself in the longer term. In other words, the experience of joy, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, pride, etc. are learning moments. About oneself and about relationships with others.
Emotional intelligence, definition
Salovey & Mayer gave an initial definition of emotional intelligence in their 1990 paper, which they clarified in a 1997 publication : " the ability to perceive and express emotions, to integrate them to facilitate thinking, to understand and reason with emotions, and to regulate emotions in oneself and in others ."
Emotional intelligence is therefore 3 successive faculties:
- Access to one's own emotions: what do I feel ? What does this or that situation arouse in me ?
- The transposition of feeling into understanding: why do I feel this ? What is at stake in this situation that " affects " me in this way ?
- The transformation of understanding into a skill to act and interact : how can I use my knowledge of emotions to make decisions about myself and involving/impacting others ? How can I work on my emotions so that they respond appropriately to my needs, those of my interlocutors and those of the collective ?
Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence
As soon as it is implemented in an interpersonal context, emotional intelligence is intertwined with what is called social intelligence, i.e. all the qualities that allow us to better know/understand ourselves and others.
It was psychologist Edward Thorndike, a pioneer of " behaviorism " (or " behaviorism "), who coined the term in a 1920 article in Harper Monthly Magazine. This precursor of the theories of " multiple intelligences" (popularized by Howard Garde in the 1980s) went through ethology, the science of animal behavior, before becoming interested in education... And he is surprised by the way in which humans raise their young, feeding them with abstract knowledge and assiduously developing their individual skills while leaving their innate abilities to communicate with others, to fit into a group and integrate new members, to cooperate by processing emotions...
Nearly a century before the success of Céline Alvarez's The Natural Laws of the Child in bookstores, Thorndike would like us to start by putting ourselves at the level of children to listen to and understand them, to hear their resistance to the acquisition of knowledge as signals of a failure of the teaching method and not as laziness or whim of the child... By the way, Thorndike would also like to see the development of learning by " trial and error ", in a context that is both stimulating and reassuring so that mistakes can be more learning than disqualifying. Yes, yes, it's the famous " right to make mistakes " that everyone is talking about today, in the discourse on innovation !
(Re)learning the fundamentals of emotional and social intelligence: " soft skills "
A soft skill in itself, emotional intelligence is also the umbrella skill of all these qualities expected in professional life today, and especially in management :
- Presence: ability to be fully engaged in an activity, to focus one's attention on the situation and the people involved.
- Communication: the ability to convey information clearly, but also to create an environment conducive to the flow of information between stakeholders and dialogue.
- Listening: the ability to hear all forms of signals emitted by the environment, the individuals and the collectives that evolve in it, without prejudging their value.
- Empathy: the ability to look at the world from the other person's point of view and to integrate this perspective into the relationship and in one's actions.
- Trust: ability to secure oneself and others, so as to authorize and encourage boldness, creativity, initiative, etc.
- Negotiation: ability to express one's interests and integrate those of the other to build a concerted decision.
The list of these " soft " skills that call on relational, emotional and social intelligence is still long... All of them have two markers in common : consideration of others and adaptability to different or changing contexts.
Critical Perspectives on Emotional Intelligence
The fortune of the notion of emotional intelligence, an essential seasoning of any current discourse on management and personal development, when it is not the main course, requires that we also take a critical look at it.
Since the publication of the first works of Salovey & Mayer, and especially after the phenomenal success of Daniel Goleman's book that democratized emotional intelligence, several academics, led by Edwin Locke , have expressed serious doubts about the scientific validity of the concept and the studies that claim to support it. This is a perilous criticism because, by definition, emotional intelligence would gladly send back to the ropes the proponents of " classical " methods of objectification through rationality and argumentation.
It is this hegemonic temptation, induced by the rejection of critics of " reason ", that is also worrying... Because emotional intelligence confers considerable power. In an article entitled The dark side of emotional intelligence, psychologist Adam Grant usefully reminds us that the ability to play on emotions to suspend the critical judgment of individuals and crowds is the hallmark of great manipulators and the most sinister dictators.
This point of vigilance was confirmed in 2011 by a study by the University of Toronto , which revealed that employees with the best emotional intelligence are also the most Machiavellian : skilled at masking their intentions by mastering the expression of their own emotions, they are just as good at striking an emotional chord with others if it will allow them to achieve their ends. not always noble.
This is the key point of Adam Grant's critique: let's not expect emotional intelligence to guarantee moral leadership!
Cultivating emotional intelligence... In contact with conscience and ethics
Therefore, in order to be exercised in a balanced way and from a responsible perspective, emotional intelligence needs to be accompanied by an awareness... Consciousness defined by Confucius as " the light of intelligence to distinguish good from evil ". It is here that the philosophers, whom Salovey and Mayer told us, in their original plea in favor of emotions, that they had forgotten them in favor of intellectual thought alone, deserve to be rehabilitated in their turn.
Starting with the most caricatured of them : Descartes, who is accused of having separated the body from the mind and imposed strict rationality as a dogma, but of whom we forget that he is also the author of a treatise on the Passions of the Soul, passions that he qualifies as the " salt of life " while he introduces the notion of " intellectual emotion", suggesting that thinking and doubting generates genuine sensations and affections.
Let us also return to Aristotle, a philosopher of ethics (understood as the search for a better life) who makes room for emotions alongside " deliberative and social skills" to achieve virtue, both a source of happiness and justice.
Let us listen again to Spinoza, a thinker of rational ethics but also of joy and who today inspires a whole section of the literature on commitment : " The better you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you are in love with what is."
