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Thorndike (1920) kept a special place for social intelligence away from other types of intelligence and defined it as "the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls to act wisely in human relations" . He found that social intelligence was a complex of several abilities, His references to social intelligence included three elements. the individual's attitudes towards society; social knowledge such as being well versed in contemporary issues and general knowledge about society; and the individual's capacity for social adjustment such as interpersonal relations and family bonding. However, it may be clarified that Thorndike's definition included almost everything related to human intelligence ranging from social, psychological, economic, and emotional affective and non-affective. As far as the present discussion is concerned, we may infer that Thorndike did refer to emotional aspects of intelligence in his definition of social intelligence way back in 1920. His contentions are of great scientific help to the modern researchers trying to establish the modern researchers trying to establish the construct validity of emotional intelligence.
There is an old term in clinical psychology that tends to relate to the current models of emotional intelligence. It is alexithymia coined by Sifneos (1973). However, the origins can be traced back to the clinical reports by Ruesch (1948). Maclean (1949), Horney and Kelman (1952). Ruesch (1948) and Maclean's (1949) clinical reports were based on their observation among the patients suffering from psychosomatic diseases. Horney and Kelman's (1952) reports were based on psychiatric patients who were often engaged in alcohol abuse or other compulsive behavior. Their behavior was not guided by personal values, feelings, and wishes. The construct of alexithymia reached to a consensus after a lot of debate and accordingly, it consists of difficulty identifying, feelings and distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal; difficulty describing feelings to others; lack of fantasy and a stimulus-bound, externally oriented cognitive style (Taylor, Bogby and Parker 1991, 1997). Salovey and Mayer (1990) argue that the construct of alexithymia neglects positive feelings, mixed emotions or neutral states and instead focuses on negative emotions. They also claim that the relationship between ego-threatening feelings of all types and alexithymia are not clear.
Wechsler (1940) defined intelligence as the aggregate or global capacity of the...