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.