Emotion Review

Since 1990, research on emotional intelligence (EI) has generated both controversy and promise. Yet little is known about its early conceptual history. This article addresses that shortcoming by tracing the origins and evolution of EI through literature, arts, philosophy, and early social science, outlining how diverse references gradually coalesced into a recognizable construct. We identify “proto-EI” instantiations—precursors that resonate with today's “four-branch” model—and trace how they developed across domains, culminating in a more focused scholarly interest in the late 20th century. Our contribution is threefold: (a) documenting imprints of EI and proto-EI, (b) clarifying the trajectory of EI as a concept rather than an essence, and (c) opening avenues for future research by highlighting forgotten dimensions and interdisciplinary and intercultural possibilities.

This paper identifies and characterizes a commonplace but philosophically neglected aspect of human emotional experience, which I call emotional self-dissonance. I start from the position that emotional experiences generally involve taking things to matter in ways that reflect what we already care about. Building on this, I suggest that our various projects, pastimes, commitments, relationships, and habits together comprise an evaluative orientation through which we experience things emotionally. Although this orientation is for the most part cohesively organized, tensions within it are inevitable. I suggest that emotions of familiar kinds often incorporate a sense of these tensions. In addition, emotional self-dissonance can amount to a form of emotional experience in its own right, one that encompasses considerable variety.

Social sharing of emotion (SSE) is widespread, yet digital contexts may selectively foreground certain traditional motives and alter how they are expressed. This paper proposes an integrative model explaining how traditional SSE motives are enacted, prioritized, and organized on social media. Drawing on SSE theory and perspectives on self-presentation, hyperpersonal communication, social presence, and media richness, the model distinguishes antecedent factors that activate sharing from structural conditions that shape how sharing unfolds and is interpreted. Heightened visibility, indeterminate audiences, and anonymity selectively foreground five digitally salient SSE motives, taking the form of identity signaling, risk-managed disclosure, networked problem-solving, validation seeking, and visibility mobilization. These forms are conceptualized as context-specific expressions of traditional SSE motives rather than novel psychological needs, preserving theoretical continuity while capturing how these motives are differentially prioritized and expressed on social media.

Hatred is widely condemned as an unambiguous evil, yet this paper asks whether it might also serve constructive functions. Drawing on philosophical, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, we argue that hate evolved as an adaptive response to threats of domination and to challenges to shared meaning systems posed by individuals or groups. Hate fulfills this role by motivating action, sustaining focus, fostering coalitional cohesion, providing meaning, and operating as a power-based emotion that can mobilize the subordinated. We then illustrate how hate has been used in revolutionary social movements. While acknowledging its dangers, we contend that dismissing hate as purely toxic overlooks its possible role in signaling injustice and galvanizing resistance. The challenge is understanding when hatred cures rather than poisons.

This paper reconceptualises evaluative processes pertinent to empathy as empathic perception: an evaluative, dynamic, and embodied process that provides morally neutral information as a perception to guide action and manage relationships. Traditional models often treat empathy as prosocial, yet it can enable both cooperation and exploitation. Empathic perception addresses this complexity by reframing evaluative processes used to understand another as a means of gathering intelligence rather than as an inherently benevolent force. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, and social theory, we develop a model of empathic perception and an empathic perception–action matrix that shows how sociocultural context and personal motivation shape outcomes. This reconceptualization advances theoretical understanding by positioning empathic enquiry not as a moral virtue, but as a perceptual process that informs decision-making across contexts.

There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary theory defending the view that engagement with literature promotes readers’ empathy. Until the last century, few of the empirical claims adduced in that tradition were investigated experimentally. Recent work in psychology and neuropsychology has now shed new light on the interplay of empathy and literature. This article surveys the experimental findings, addressing three central questions: What is it to read empathically? Does reading make us more empathic? What characteristics of literature, if any, affect readers’ empathy? While experimental studies have delivered no conclusive answers to these questions, it has exposed their psychological complexity and constructed a more nuanced picture of the diverse ways in which literature interacts with our empathic capacities.