FROM STRUCTURALISM TO EMOTIONAL THINKING: THE FORMATION OF IDEAS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

This article explores the early 20th-century intellectual developments that laid the conceptual foundations for what would later be termed “emotional intelligence”. It investigates how differing approaches to emotion shaped emerging psychological theory: Edward Titchener’s structuralist psychology emphasised the reduction of feeling to elemental sensations, privileging detached observation over integrative understanding; Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic model highlighted the unconscious regulatory role of affect in human thought and behaviour; and Heinrich Maier’s theory of emotional thinking articulated emotion as adaptive cognition, capable of guiding judgment and action. Complementing these perspectives, the work of Carl Jung and Max Scheler advanced the view that feeling functions as a form of evaluative and moral knowledge, providing the philosophical and psychological groundwork for empathy, social awareness, and moral intelligence.By tracing the interplay of these diverse intellectual currents, the article demonstrates how early psychology gradually reconceived emotion not as a primitive or disruptive force, but as a central component of human cognition and ethical reasoning. The analysis underscores that what later became formalized as emotional intelligence did not emerge suddenly in the late 20th century; rather, it was the culmination of a century-long reorientation in the understanding of mind and affect. This shift reflects a broader transformation in early modern psychology: from the isolated dissection of emotion toward an integrated recognition of its cognitive, moral, and adaptive significance. In doing so, the study situates emotional intelligence within a rich historical and philosophical tradition, highlighting the enduring interplay between theory, practice, and the human quest to understand the emotional dimensions of intelligence.