A closer look at ability emotional intelligence (EI): What are its component parts, and how do they relate to each other?

In this review, we focus on two key questions about the nature of emotional intelligence (EI). First, we consider what the different parts of EI might be, suggesting a taxonomy that builds on the well-known hierarchical four-branch model to include six narrow abilities (emotion perception, emotion expression, emotion attention regulation, emotion understanding, emotion regulation of self, and emotion regulation of others). Second, we review evidence for the interrelations between these six narrow abilities. The interrelationships of the EI narrow abilities are a key criterion for viewing EI as a kind of intelligence, rather than a typical way of behaving. Our review concludes that the six narrow abilities comprising EI are all positively interrelated—the component parts of EI converge to form a whole. In addition, the level of interrelationships shows that emotion expression and emotion perception are clearly separate, with weaker evidence for the separation between emotion regulation of self versus emotion regulation of others. Using the older research tradition of emotion recognition (which predates EI), we present a detailed overview of the relationship between emotion perception and other narrow abilities of EI. We conclude that the narrow facets of EI converge with each other, providing one form of evidence to support the validity of EI as a type of intelligence.