Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Emotional Intelligence - A Deeper Understanding

Psychologist Sternberg and Salovey have looked at Intelligence, not as IQ, but in terms of what it takes to lead life successfully, and brought to fore how important Personal Intelligence is. 

Daniel Goldman expands this into five main domains: ( these are five separate chapters in his book Emotional Intelligence)

1.Knowing One's Emotions. Self Awareness:

Recognizing a feeling as it happens. Understanding the causes of feelings. Recognizing the difference between feelings and actions.   People with greater certainty about their feelings are better pilots of their lives, having a surer sense of how they really feel about personal decisions. Inversely an inability to notice our true feelings leaves us at their mercy.

2. Managing Emotions:

Handling emotions so that they are appropriate is an ability that builds on self awareness. The capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom or irritability is part of this, and people who are poor at this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life's setbacks and upsets.

3. Motivating Oneself:

Marshaling emotions in the service of a goal is essential for paying attention for self motivation and mastery, and for creativity. Being able to get into the Flow State enables outstanding performance of all kinds. People who have this skill tend to be more highly productive and effective in whatever they undertake.

4. Recognizing Emotions in Others:

An ability that builds on emotional self awareness, an ability to better take in another person's perspective. Also involves getting better at listening to others.

5. Handling Relationships:

The art of relationships is, in large part, increased ability to analyze and understand relationships, getting better at resolving conflicts and negotiating disagreements and warrants a high skill at communication. These are the abilities that undergird popularity, leadership, and inter personal effectiveness. People who excel in these skills do well at anything that relies on interacting smoothly with others; they are social stars, as they are more democratic in dealing with others.

Ofcourse, people differ in their abilities in each of these domains; some of us may be quite adept at handling, say, our own anxiety, but relatively inept at soothing someone else's upsets.

The underlying basis for our level of ability is, no doubt, neural, but the brain is remarkably elastic, constantly learning. and to a great extent each of these domains represents a body of habit and response that, with the right effort, can be improvised on and developed.

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