TARGET ARTICLES: "Seven Myths About Emotional Intelligence"

Inspired by an influx of academic research, the writ-ing of several best-selling trade texts, and frequent me-dia exposure, emotional intelligence (El) has emerged recently as one of the most high profile of the psycholog-ical constructs (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002). The concept has also prospered due both to cultural trends and orientations that stress the previously ne-glected role of the emotions (with some claiming it con-stitutes a Zeitgeist) and to increasing efforts at standard-ized assessment of individual differences in El (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000a). Common claims suggest that tests for El are predictive of important educational and occupational criteria, beyond that proportion of variance that general intellectual ability predicts. Thus, the field has increasingly important implications for so-