Gong Zhun, Jiao Xinian
Department of Psychology, Normal College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
Front Psychol. 2019 Jul 16;10:1655. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01655. eCollection 2019.
Since Salovey and Mayer (1990) first proposed the emotional intelligence (EI) as an independent intellectual component, research on the field of EI has developed rapidly. A large number of studies have shown that emotional intelligence is an important predictor that affects our lives, such as job performance, mental health, and so on. However, we observed that some effect sizes in the field of emotional intelligence decreased over time. Is this kind of decline simply due to random errors, or is emotional intelligence field undergoing decline effects? The present study analyzed 484 effect sizes based on the responses of 102,579 participants from nine meta-analyses in emotional intelligence field to estimate the average effect size, and evidence for decline effects in this field. This study finds that the average effect size of EI is 0.244 ( < 0.001), and the average effect size of mixed EI ( = 0.272, < 0.001) is significantly higher than that of ability EI ( = 0.160, < 0.001). Effect sizes in the field of EI decrease with time, there are decline effects in emotional intelligence field. Furthermore, there are also decline effects in mixed EI field. However, we find no evidence that there are decline effects in ability EI field. Base on the significant average effect size of mixed EI, the most likely explanation for the decline in effect sizes is that effect sizes of mixed EI in the original studies were overestimate. This study considers decline effects in mixed EI research as inflated decline effects. To sum up, decline effects in the field of emotional intelligence are mainly due to the choice of emotional intelligence model and measurement method.
自萨洛维和梅耶（1990 年）首次将情商（EI）作为一种独立的智力成分提出以来，情商领域的研究发展迅速。大量研究表明，情商是影响我们生活的一个重要预测因素，如工作绩效、心理健康等。然而，我们观察到情商领域的一些效应量随时间下降。这种下降仅仅是由于随机误差，还是情商领域正在经历衰退效应呢？本研究基于情商领域九项元分析中 102579 名参与者的回答，分析了 484 个效应量，以估计平均效应量以及该领域衰退效应的证据。本研究发现，情商的平均效应量为 0.244（<0.001），混合情商的平均效应量（=0.272，<0.001）显著高于能力情商的平均效应量（=0.160，<0.001）。情商领域的效应量随时间下降，情商领域存在衰退效应。此外，混合情商领域也存在衰退效应。然而，我们没有发现能力情商领域存在衰退效应的证据。基于混合情商显著的平均效应量，效应量下降最可能的解释是原始研究中混合情商的效应量被高估了。本研究将混合情商研究中的衰退效应视为夸大的衰退效应。综上所述，情商领域的衰退效应主要归因于情商模型和测量方法的选择。
