Emotional Intelligence
Feeling down? Smile, it’s proven to lift your mood. According to the facial feedback hypothesis,
mimicking the facial movements associated with an emotion will induce the corresponding
emotional state (Nevid, 2018). After I completed the mini experiment, I found that almost all of
group one was significantly happy and on the right side of the “happy” scale. Group two was
more on the left side of the scale, they were not as happy but two of them gave their “happy”
scale a four. On a scale of one to seven, the average rating for group one who was told to smile
with teeth was six out of seven. The average rating for group two who didn't smile with teeth was
three point eight out of seven. Comparing both averages you can see how smiling or frowning
can intensify the corresponding emotion (Nevid, 2018; Davis, Senghas, & Ochsner,
When it comes to happiness and success in life, EQ matters just as much as IQ. Learn how
you can boost your emotional intelligence, build stronger relationships, and achieve your
goals.
Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to
understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate
effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Emotional
intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at school and work, and achieve your
career and personal goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn intention into
action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.
Emotional intelligence is commonly defined by four attributes:
1. Self-management – You're able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage
your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and
adapt to changing circumstances.
2. Self-awareness – You recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts
and behavior. You know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence.
3. Social awareness – You have empathy. You can understand the emotions, needs, and
concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and
recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.
4. Relationship management – You know how to develop and maintain good
relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and
manage conflict.
Why is emotional intelligence so important?
As we know, it's not the smartest people who are the most successful or the most fulfilled in life.
You probably know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and
unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships. Intellectual ability or your intelligence
quotient (IQ) isn't enough on its own to achieve success in life. Yes, your IQ can help you get
into college, but it's your EQ that will help you manage the stress and emotions when facing your
final exams. IQ and EQ exist in tandem and are most effective when they build off one another.
Emotional intelligence affects:
Your performance at school or work.<High emotional intelligence can help you navigate the
social complexities of the workplace, lead and motivate others, and excel in your career. In fact,
when it comes to gauging important job candidates, many companies now rate emotional
intelligence as important as technical ability and employ EQ testing before hiring.
Your physical health. If you're unable to manage your emotions, you are probably not
managing your stress either. This can lead to serious health problems. Uncontrolled stress raises
blood pressure, suppresses the immune system, increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes,
contributes to infertility, and speeds up the aging process. The first step to improving emotional
intelligence is to learn how to manage stress.
Your mental health. Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also impact your mental health,
making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. If you are unable to understand, get
comfortable with, or manage your emotions, you'll also struggle to form strong relationships.
This in turn can leave you feeling lonely and isolated and further exacerbate any mental health
problems.
Building emotional intelligence: Four key skills to increasing your EQ
The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned at any time. However, it's
important to remember that there is a difference between simply learning about EQ and applying
that knowledge to your life. Just because you know you should do something doesn't mean you
will—especially when you become overwhelmed by stress, which can override your best
intentions. In order to permanently change behavior in ways that stand up under pressure, you
need to learn how to overcome stress in the moment, and in your relationships, in order to remain
emotionally aware.
The key skills for building your EQ and improving your ability to manage emotions and connect
with others are:
1. Self-management
2. Self-awareness
3. Social awareness
4. Relationship management
Building emotional intelligence, key skill 1: Self-management
In order for you to engage your EQ, you must be able to use your emotions to make constructive
decisions about your behavior. When you become overly stressed, you can lose control of your
emotions and the ability to act thoughtfully and appropriately.
Think about a time when stress has overwhelmed you. Was it easy to think clearly or make a
rational decision? Probably not. When you become overly stressed, your ability to both think
clearly and accurately assess emotions—your own and other people's—becomes compromised.
Emotions are important pieces of information that tell you about yourself and others, but in the
face of stress that takes us out of our comfort zone, we can become overwhelmed and lose
control of ourselves. With the ability to manage stress and stay emotionally present, you can
learn to receive upsetting information without letting it override your thoughts and self-control.
You'll be able to make choices that allow you to control impulsive feelings and behaviors,
manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and
adapt to changing circumstances.
Key skill 2: Self-awareness
Managing stress is just the first step to building emotional intelligence. The science of
attachment indicates that your current emotional experience is likely a reflection of your early
life experience. Your ability to manage core feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy often
depends on the quality and consistency of your early life emotional experiences. If your primary
caretaker as an infant understood and valued your emotions, it's likely your emotions have
become valuable assets in adult life. But, if your emotional experiences as an infant were
confusing, threatening or painful, it's likely you've tried to distance yourself from your emotions.
But being able to connect to your emotions—having a moment-to-moment connection with your
changing emotional experience—is the key to understanding how emotion influences your
thoughts and actions.
Do you experience feelings that flow, encountering one emotion after another as your
experiences change from moment to moment?
Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations that you experience in places like
your stomach, throat, or chest?
Do you experience individual feelings and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy,
each of which is evident in subtle facial expressions?
Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture both your attention and
that of others?
Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision making?
If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, you may have “turned down” or “turned off” your
emotions. In order to build EQ—and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your
core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them. You can achieve this through
the practice of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment—and
without judgment. The cultivation of mindfulness has roots in Buddhism, but most religions
include some type of similar prayer or meditation technique. Mindfulness helps shift your
preoccupation with thought toward an appreciation of the moment, your physical and emotional
sensations, and brings a larger perspective on life. Mindfulness calms and focuses you, making
you more self-aware in the process.
Developing emotional awareness
It's important that you learn how to manage stress first, so you'll feel more comfortable
reconnecting to strong or unpleasant emotions and changing how you experience and respond to
your feelings.
Key skill 3: Social awareness
Social awareness enables you to recognize and interpret the mainly nonverbal cues others are
constantly using to communicate with you. These cues let you know how others are really
feeling, how their emotional state is changing from moment to moment, and what's truly
important to them.
When groups of people send out similar nonverbal cues, you're able to read and understand the
power dynamics and shared emotional experiences of the group. In short, you're empathetic and
socially comfortable.
Mindfulness is an ally of emotional and social awareness
To build social awareness, you need to recognize the importance of mindfulness in the social
process. After all, you can't pick up on subtle nonverbal cues when you're in your own head,
thinking about other things, or simply zoning out on your phone. Social awareness requires your
presence in the moment. While many of us pride ourselves on an ability to multitask, this means
that you'll miss the subtle emotional shifts taking place in other people that help you fully
understand them.
You are actually more likely to further your social goals by setting other thoughts aside
and focusing on the interaction itself.
Following the flow of another person's emotional responses is a give-and-take process
that requires you to also pay attention to the changes in your own emotional experience.
Paying attention to others doesn't diminish your own self-awareness. By investing the
time and effort to really pay attention to others, you'll actually gain insight into your own
emotional state as well as your values and beliefs. For example, if you feel discomfort
hearing others express certain views, you'll have learned something important about
yourself.
Key skill 4: Relationship management
Working well with others is a process that begins with emotional awareness and your ability to
recognize and understand what other people are experiencing. Once emotional awareness is in
play, you can effectively develop additional social/emotional skills that will make your
relationships more effective, fruitful, and fulfilling.
Become aware of how effectively you use nonverbal communication. It's impossible to avoid
sending nonverbal messages to others about what you think and feel. The many muscles in the
face, especially those around the eyes, nose, mouth and forehead, help you to wordlessly convey
your own emotions as well as read other peoples' emotional intent. The emotional part of your
brain is always on—and even if you ignore its messages—others won't. Recognizing the
nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a huge part in improving your relationships.
Use humor and play to relieve stress. Humor, laughter and play are natural antidotes to stress.
They lessen your burdens and help you keep things in perspective. Laughter brings your nervous
system into balance, reducing stress, calming you down, sharpening your mind and making you
more empathic.
