About the Originator

Reuven Bar-On, Ph.D.

Dr. Bar-On is a world renowned expert and pioneer in the field of emotional intelligence. After embracing a need to better understand why some succeed in obtaining and maintaining better psychological well-being than others, and why some are better able to achieve greater personal and professional success, Dr. Bar-On embarked on a journey to define, measure and apply the various aspects of what we now refer to as emotional intelligence. Since Dr. Bar-On’s seminal work in 1980, the “Bar-On model” of emotional intelligence has been described as one of three leading approaches to emotional intelligence (Spielberger, 2004). After coining the term “E.Q.” (“Emotional Quotient”) in 1985 to describe his approach to assessing emotional and social functioning, he later published the first psychometrically valid and reliable assessment of emotional intelligence, The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i; 1997). The EQ-i has since been peer-reviewed in the Buros Mental Measurement Yearbook and served as the catalyst for more than 200 research and applied manuscripts worldwide with more than one million administrations of the tool.

The work of Dr. Bar-On has helped change not only the testing landscape but that of applied psychology. The development of the EQ-i 2.0 is only made possible by the immeasurable contribution to the psychological sciences of Dr. Bar-On.