Abstract
Emotional intelligence can be comprehensively redefined based on the componential emotion approach. The componential emotion approach defines emotions as processes that are elicited by goal-relevant situations and that consist of an interplay between appraisals, action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, and feelings. Within the componential emotion approach, emotional intelligence can be redefined as the ability (a) to identify emotions based on information from one or more of the five emotion components, (b) to understand emotions in terms of the likely appraisals, action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, and feelings that are elicited by goal-relevant situations, and (c) to know how to regulate emotions by modifying one or more of these five components.
One of the central suggestions of Mestre, MacCann, Guil, and Roberts (2016) is to further develop the emotional intelligence (EI) construct based on appraisal theories. My comment proposes to take this suggestion much further and to use the componential emotion approach (CEA; which also encompasses appraisal theories) to redefine EI. Each of the three main facets of the EI construct—understanding, identification, and regulation knowledge—can be redefined based on this approach.
The CEA defines emotions as multicomponential processes that are elicited by goal-relevant situations. The most commonly recognized components are the appraisal, action tendency, bodily reaction, expression, and feeling components (e.g., Scherer, 2005). The CEA is a good candidate for redefining EI because it forms a comprehensive framework that encompasses very different emotion theories. Moreover, it forms a very natural framework. When emotion terms are used in daily language, people across cultural and linguistic groups infer information about appraisals, action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, and feelings. This was first demonstrated in three western languages (Fontaine, Scherer, Roesch, & Ellsworth, 2007) and later in 34 samples representing 23 languages from 27 countries across the world (Fontaine, Scherer, & Soriano, 2013).
Based on the CEA, emotion understanding can be redefined as understanding the likely appraisals, action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, and feelings in response to goal-relevant situations. Current instruments, such as the Situational test of Emotional Understanding (STEU, MacCann & Roberts, 2008) and the changes subtest of the MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) focus only on whether test takers understand the relationships between situational antecedents, appraisals, and feelings. To assess EI in a representative way, instruments should also assess understanding of action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, and how these relate to situational antecedents, appraisals, and feelings.
Emotion identification can be redefined as the ability to identify an ongoing emotion process by making use of information from one or more emotion components. Currently, EI instruments only focus on the ability to identify an emotion based on the expression component, and often even exclusively based on facial expressions, such as the faces subtest of the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002). However, directly observed or inferred information from the other components can also be used to identify an ongoing emotion process. For instance, perceived bodily reactions (such as trembling or sweating), inferences about appraisals based on the antecedent goal-relevant situation, and interferences about action tendencies based on actual behavior can be used for emotion identification. Based on the CEA, emotion identification should thus go beyond perceiving emotions in (facial) expressions, and assess the ability to identify ongoing emotion processes by perceiving or inferring information from each of the emotion components.
Emotion regulation knowledge 1 can be redefined as the ability to know how an ongoing emotion process can be regulated by intervening in the flow of one or more emotion components, or by changing the antecedent situation that caused the emotion. Emotion regulation strategies can thus be organized in terms of the emotion component(s) they affect. Most proposed regulation strategies focus on changing the antecedent situation (e.g., situation selection and situation modification), changing the appraisal component (e.g., attentional deployment and cognitive change), or on changing the expressive component (e.g., expressive suppression; e.g., Peña-Sarrionandia, Mikolajczak, & Gross, 2015). However, there also exist regulation strategies for the other three emotion components. For instance, one can think of relaxation exercises to reduce bodily arousal, counting to 10 to suppress the tendency to act aggressively, or listening to melancholic music to change one’s feelings.
Compared to existing conceptualizations, a reconceptualization of EI based on the CEA allows for a much more precise definition of EI and offers a unifying framework for emotion identification, understanding, and regulation. This refined definition can be used as a point of reference to evaluate the relevance and representativeness of existing instruments and to develop new instruments in the future.