Emotional Intelligence: Toward a Consensus of Models and Measures

This article outlines the many different ways that emotional intelligence (EI) has been conceptualized, measured, and used from the early antecedents of emotional abilities such as facial expression research to the recent multimedia assessment paradigms. The divide between models describing EI as a character trait versus modeling EI as a form of information processing or knowledge is described, with both kinds of models evaluated based on theory and empirical evidence. It is concluded that the latter type of model, exemplified by the four-branch hierarchical model of EI, is the only logical construct to bear the label ‘EI’. Potential emendations to the way EI is currently conceptualized and measured are discussed, with this review covering emotion recognition assessments, situational judgment tests, and multimedia assessments such as the empathic agent paradigm. The article concludes with a suggested agenda for future research in the EI field.     

Philosophy of Education in a Poor Historical Moment: A Personal Account

Under the post-metaphysical sky “old” humanistic-oriented education is possible solely at the cost of its transformation into its negative, into a power that is determined to diminish human potentials for self-exaltation. Nothing less than total metamorphosis is needed to rescue the core of humanistic genesis: the quest for edifying Life and resistance to the call for “home-returning” into the total harmony that is promised to us within nothingness.     

Are Individuals Always Aware of Their Trauma-Related Intrusive Thoughts? A Study of Meta-Awareness

Individuals are not always aware of their mental content. We tested whether lack of awareness occurs in those who have experienced trauma, with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We also examined the role of proposed cognitive mechanisms (working memory and inhibition) in explaining unnoticed intrusions. Individuals with PTSD (n = 44), and varying levels of symptoms (high posttraumatic stress [PTS]: n = 24; low PTS: n = 37) reported on intrusive thoughts throughout a reading task. Intermittently, participants responded to probes about whether their thoughts were trauma related. Participants were “caught” engaging in unreported trauma-related thoughts (unnoticed intrusions) for between 24 and 27% of the probes in the PTSD and high PTS groups, compared with 15% of occasions in the low PTS group. For trauma-related intrusions only, participants lacked meta-awareness for almost 40% of probes in the PTSD group, which was significantly less than that observed in the other groups (～60%). Contrary to predictions, working memory and response inhibition did not predict unnoticed intrusions. The results suggest that individuals who have experienced significant trauma can lack awareness about the frequency of their trauma-related thoughts. Further research is warranted to identify the mechanisms underpinning the occurrence of unnoticed intrusions.