January 2003
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Maybe one of the most important lines in present-day psychological research is that dedicated to Emotional Intelligence (EI). Over the last ten years we have witnessed a substantial increase in the production of works devoted to this topic. Daniel Goleman's work Emotional Intelligence (1995) is normally cited as one of the most successful works in this area for having introduced the theory of EI as if it were a complete novelty to the Psychology of Intelligence: a fast-evolving field with links between educational and evolutionary or social psychology and many other branches. Recently some authors, such as Stephen Jay Gould (1997) The Mismeasure of Man, have questioned if Spearman offers an excessively rationalistic frame to understand Intelligence. Centered mainly on three classic works by C.E. Spearman, The Nature of Intelligence and the Principles of Cognition (1923), The Abilities of Man: Their Nature and Measurement (1927) and A History of Psychology in Autobiography (1930), we can discover some emotional aspects in his conception of Intelligence. Finally, we introduce a debate about why an important theory may go unnoticed if it does not appear in a critical historic period or in an adequate social context (Mora, 1995; Danzinger, 1997; Rappard, 1997).