Realizations Inc

Definition

The ability to know what feels good, what feels bad, and how to get from bad to good in a healthy, efficient, and functional manner that results in positive outcomes. (A. R. Taylor) Abilities

Abilities related to Emotional Intelligence or EQ (sometimes seen written as EI) for short, include self-control, persistence, zeal, the ability to motivate oneself, impulse control, empathy, and compassion. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, p xxii)

Alexithymia

The ability to recognize one’s wants, needs, joys, and sorrows. Some are good at recognizing when their feelings are at odds with cultural theories and standards, while others are less skilled at this type of self-awareness. (Wilson, Timothy D. Strangers to Ourselves. England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.,  p 135)

Adolescent Impulsivity (low EQ)

Impulsive boys are 3-6 times as likely to be violent as adolescents. Impulsive girls are 3 times more likely to get pregnant in adolescence. (Benefits of EQ. Compiled by Six Seconds:  List)

Benefits to Brain

Compilation of 50 cited statistics and benefits of high levels of EQ to the brain including:

• 95% drop in discipline referrals to the principals after EQ training
• EQ is a stronger predictor of college academic success than high school grade point average
• 85-95% of the difference between a “good leader" and an "excellent leader" is due to EQ
• Reasons for losing business customers and clients are 70% EQ-related
  

Benefits of EQ -- A Compelling Compilation of Research. List

Brain Damage

Individuals with damage to the brain’s prefrontal-amygdala circuit show that their decision-making ability is terribly flawed (e.g., make disastrous choices in personal and business lives, obsess endlessly over a simple decision), although they show no deterioration in IQ or other cognitive abilities. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995., pp 27-28)

Business Success

In the business world, factors that are really important to succeed in an ethical manner are largely dependent on EQ. These include the quality of leadership and communication, cooperation of employees, creativity and open-mindedness, understanding of another's point of view, and the ability to use empathy in negotiations. (Shepherd, Peter. Emotional Intelligence. Article)

Employers are looking for qualities of personal responsibility, quality, and caring in the people they hire. Given that, schools, colleges, and universities need to offer the basics of Emotional Intelligence in the skill sets they purport to offer. (Goleman, Daniel, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership. MA: Harvard Business School Press. 2002, p xiii)

Common Themes

Common themes of EQ include

• Emotional-Awareness
• Self-Regulation
• Responsiveness to Situational Cues
• Influence
• Decision-making Astuteness

These dimensions are skill based rather than being native aptitudes, which means they can be taught and learned.  (Mallinger, Mark, PhD, and Jess Banks, PHD. Use Emotional Intelligence to Cope in Tough Times, Article)

College Success

Emotional intelligence is a stronger predictor of college academic success than high school grade point average. (Benefits of EQ. Compiled by Six Seconds: List)

Components

EQ is separate from IQ. Components of EQ include:

• Self-awareness
• Managing emotions, motivation oneself
• Recognizing emotions in others
• Handling relationships.

(Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, pp 42-44)

Common themes related to Emotional Intelligence include:

• Emotional-Awareness
• Self-Regulation
• Responsiveness to Situational Cues
• Influence
• Decision-making Astuteness:

(Mark Mallinger, Mark, PhD, and Jeff Banks, PhD. Use Emotional Intelligence to Cope in Tough Times - How managers can help staff deal with job insecurity. CA: Pepperdine University, 2008, Article)

Distress

Distress erodes mental abilities and makes people less emotionally intelligent. People who are upset have trouble reading emotions accurately in other people, decreasing the most basic skill needed for empathy and, as a result, impairing their social skills. (9oleman, Daniel, PhD, with Richard Boyatzis, and Annie Mckee. Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002, pp 13-14)

Emotional Intelligence at Work

Emotional intelligence as consists of three psychological dimensions-emotional sensitivity, emotional maturity, and emotional competency-which motivate individuals to maximize productivity, manage change, and resolve conflicts. (Singh, Dalip, PhD. Emotional Intelligence at Work. NY: Sage, 2000, Summary)

Emotional Intelligence (EI, often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), is a relatively new area of research. It involves an ability, capacity, skill or (in the case of the trait EI model) a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups. (Emotional Intelligence, Article)

Defines EQ as the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence. (Cooper, Robert K., PhD., and Ayman Sawaf. Executive EQ. NY: Grosset/Putnam 1997, pp xii-xiii)

Emotional Intelligences involves the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Working with Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1998, p 317)

Emotional Intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. (Jensen, Anabel L., PhD, et al. Handle With Care: Emotional Intelligence Activity Book. NY:Six Seconds, 1998, Summary)

Employee Turnover

Delnor Community Hospital based near Chicago was able to reduce employee turnover from 28% to 21%, saving $800,000 in less than a year through using stress management and emotional intelligence techniques. (Benefits of EQ. Compiled by Six Seconds: List)

EQ versus IQ

Noted mathematician, logician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead intellect and emotion to the body and clothing. Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies. We could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies. (Whitehead, Alfred North. Dialogues with Alfred North Whitehead. Boston: Little Brown, 1954, p 232)

Failure to Teach

Many have low levels of EQ because society has failed to teach essential of handling anger, how to resolve conflicts positively, empathy, impulse control, and other components of emotional competence. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, p 286)

Gender Differences in EQ

In adulthood, while women tend to be stronger in competencies based on empathy and social skills, males tend to be stronger in competencies based on self-regulation. Men and women are equal in their ability to increase EQ. (Singh, Dalip. Emotional Intelligence at Work. India: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. 2006, pp 59-64)

Guides

Emotions are designed to serve as guides, to help individuals when they face tasks or situations too important to leave to intellect alone. Each emotion offers a distinctive readiness to act and to point people in a direction that has worked well in the past in terms of handling challenges of human life. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, p 4)

Heart Connection

Emotional intelligence likely has its source in the heart. Intelligence and intuition are heightened by input from the neurons in the heart. (Childre, Doc and Howard Martin. The HeartMath Solution. CA: Harper SF, 1999, pp 10-13)

IQ versus EQ

IQ, at best, probably contributes about 20% to the factors that help determine a person’s life success. EQ, on the other hand, can be much more powerful and contributory to success in life than IQ. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, pp 33-36)

IQ is a measure of intelligence quotient. EQ is a measure of emotional quotient. (Singh, Dalip. Emotional Intelligence at Work. India: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. 2006, pp 50, 59-64)

Job Stress

Managers who use emotional intelligence can ameliorate stress related to job insecurity and also help to reframe the situation so that it positively impacts employee performance. In a complex and insecure business environment, available tools to successfully survive and to serve both employees and the companies for which they work include familiarity with and choice of appropriate responses to emotional as well as to cognitive concerns. (Mallinger, Mark, PhD, and Jess Banks, PHD. Use Emotional Intelligence to Cope in Tough Times, Article)

Leadership

The leader in a group has power to sway everyone’s emotions. When leaders drive emotions positively they bring out everyone’s best (resonance). When they drive emotions negatively they spawn dissonance. The leader’s level of Emotional Intelligence is key. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD, with Richard Boyatzis, and Annie Mckee. Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002, pp 5-6)

Leadership Skills

Four learned skills are important to leadership, although no leader ever has equal strengths in all areas:

• Self awareness
• Self-management
• Social awareness
• Relationship management

(Goleman, Daniel, PhD, with Richard Boyatzis, and Annie Mckee. Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002, pp 38-40)

Learned Skill

EQ is not fixed at birth. It is learned (or not learned). You can develop increased EQ through a step-by-step process which is not difficult and not simple, either. EQ can be honed throughout life. (Singh, Dalip. Emotional Intelligence at Work. India: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. 2006, pp 50, 59-64)

Key ingredients of effective programs to teach EQ include:

• Identify, label, and express
• Assessing intensity
• Impulse control
• Delay of gratification
• Difference between feelings and actions
• Appropriate self-talk
• Reading/interpreting social cues
• Understanding others’ perspective
• Positive mindset
• Self-awareness
• Verbal and nonverbal skills

(Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, pp 301-302)

EQ can be cultivated and learned in childhood and at any stage of life. It matters immensely for one’s personal destiny (e.g., more crucial to happiness than intellectual intelligence), although it is routinely ignored in educational institutions in favor of academic abilities. (Koch, Richard. The 80:20 Principle. NY:Currency Doubleday, 1999, p 223)

Myths and Facts

EQ doesn’t necessarily equate with “being nice.” EQ doesn’t mean letting emotions and feelings “all hang out.” Women are not “smarter” in EQ nor are males “superior” to women in EQ. (Singh, Dalip. Emotional Intelligence at Work. India: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. 2006, p 50)

Observation of Behaviors

What most people typically see when observing behaviors of others can be thought of as the “tip of the iceberg.” High levels of Emotional Intelligence help one to see what is underneath or behind the behaviors. (Freedman, Joshua. The EQ Advantage, Article)

On-Off Switch

Emotions such as fear and aggression appear to surface in the right pre-frontal lobe. The brain’s left pre-frontal lobe seems to hold the “off” switch for keeping distressing emotions in check. (Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, pp 25-26)

Personal Intelligences

Gardner had divided personal intelligences into two parts:

1. Interpersonal – the ability to understand other people and work cooperatively with them
2. Intrapersonal – the capacity to form an accurate, veridical model of oneself and use it to operate effectively in life

(Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, pp 39-40)

Present Reactions

Stanford University studies: The emotional mind reacts to the present as though it were the past. The system of psychological adaptations that comprises each individual meets the present only as a version of the past. (Toobey, John., and Lida Cosmides. “The Past Explains the Present”, Ethology and Sociobiology, 11, pp 418-419)

Smart People

All organizations are living systems composed of people who think and feel. Smart people and smart organizations will recognize and seek to measure and balance thinking and feeling. (Childre, Doc and Howard Martin. The HeartMath Solution. CA: Harper SF, 1999, p 243)

Source

Emotional intelligence likely has its source in the heart. Intelligence and intuition are heightened by input from the neurons in the heart. (Childre, Doc and Howard Martin. The HeartMath Solution. CA: Harper SF, 1999, pp 10-13)

Stress

Bologna, Italy study: People with higher levels of EQ tend to experience less stress. In increasingly complex jobs, EQ becomes increasingly important. Three important conclusions:

1. Emotional intelligence predicts high performance
2. Stress reduces performance
3. Emotional intelligence mitigates the effects of stress

(Lorenzo, Fariselli et al. White Paper: Stress, Emotional Intelligence and Performance in Healthcare. 2008, Article)

A reasonable inference emerges that one of the primary benefits of high EQ is the increased ability to function well even under stress. It appears that one way EQ helps improve performance is by mitigating the negative effects of stress. (Fariselli, Lorenzo, et al. White Paper: Stress, Emotional Intelligence and Performance in Healthcare. 2008, Article)

Student Behaviors

University of Washington studies: results of EQ education to students grades 1-5. Results showed improved:

• Emotional recognition
• Thinking before acting
• Self-control
• Cognitive planning
• Social cognitive skills
• Conflict resolution
• Classroom atmosphere

(Goleman, Daniel, PhD. Emotional Intelligence. NY: Bantam Books, 1995, p 306)

Visualizing

Refer to Visualizing and the Brain for additional information