Joshua Freedman

Joshua Freedman is an author, researcher, and organizational development specialist. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Six Seconds, a nonprofit focused on emotional intelligence (EQ). Freedman has developed several psychometric assessments to measure emotional intelligence in individuals and organizations, including the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment (SEI). He leads the State of the Heart study, a global analysis of emotional intelligence that has tracked EQ trends in more than 160 countries since 2011.

Freedman has identified a pattern he calls the "Emotional Recession," a sustained global decline in emotional intelligence scores and its implications for organizational resilience, burnout, and employee engagement. This concept was published as a peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in Psychology in 2025.

Early life and education Joshua Freedman was born in Berkeley, California in 1967. He attended the Head-Royce School in Oakland. After studying at the University of Toronto, he graduated from the World Arts and Cultures program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),

Freedman co-created the POP-UP Festival in partnership with UNICEF World Children's Day, a global initiative providing emotional intelligence resources for children in more than 190 countries and territories. In 2018, the POP-UP Festival in Italy received the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic.

Research Freedman's applied research focuses on organizational climate, factors influencing individual and team performance, and the effects of emotional intelligence on workplace outcomes. He has conducted studies involving retired U.S. National Football League players, business leaders, and organizations across industries.

In November 2025, Freedman and colleagues published "The Emotional Recession: Global declines in emotional intelligence and its impact on organizational retention, burnout, and workforce resilience" in Frontiers in Psychology. The peer-reviewed study analyzed SEI data from 28,000 adults in 166 countries between 2019 and 2024 and found a statistically significant 5.79% decline in global EQ scores. It reported that individuals with higher emotional intelligence were more than ten times as likely to report strong outcomes across effectiveness, relationships, quality of life, and well-being combined (OR = 10.18).

Additional peer-reviewed publications include research on emotional intelligence in coaching in the Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy (2017), based on a survey of 1,138 coaches and clients in 88 countries; a case study on strengthening social-emotional learning with assessments in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (2017); and a study on emotional intelligence in leadership in the Journal of Leadership Studies (2007).

Writing Freedman has published eight books. His first, Self-Science: The Emotional Intelligence Curriculum (1998), was written with colleagues from the Nueva School. At the Heart of Leadership: How to Get Results with Emotional Intelligence was first published in 2007 and is now in its fourth edition (2018). It has been translated into Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese and has sold more than 50,000 copies.