“Emotional intelligence”: formation of the notion in psychology

The term “emotional intelligence” appeared in foreign psychology in the end of the XX century. At first “emotional intelligence” was understood as ability to process information contained in emotions, to determine the meaning of emotions, their relations to each other, to use emotional information as basis for thinking and making decisions. In the last 15 years Russian and foreign scientists carried out many researches aimed at analyzing and improve the definitions of emotional intelligence, to create the most full model of this construct and also to study the possibilities of using the components of emotional intelligence in the process of creation of various preventive, correctional, rehabilitational programs. The authors presents a brief analysis of development of the notion of “emotional intelligence” in Russian and foreign psychology from the beginning of the XX century until today, and shows how important is the further study of this construct and its structure both for scientific and practical fields of psychology.