Emotional intelligence and the construction and regulation of feelings

Abstract

Emotionally intelligent people are defined in part as those who regulate their emotions according to a logically consistent model of emotional functioning. We indentify and compare several models of emotion regulation; for example, one internally consistent model includes tenets such as “happiness should be optimized over the lifetime.” Next, we apply that internally consistent model to the way a person can intervene in mood construction and regulation at non-, low-, and high-conscious levels of experience. Research related to the construction and regulation of emotion at each of these levels is reviewed. Finally, we connect our concept of emotionally intelligent regulation to its potential applications to personality and clinical psychology.