Many cultures, particularly Western ones, place a lot of emphasis on intelligence as a barometer of success. We’ve even developed tests to measure our intelligence, resulting in a score known as our intelligence quotient, or IQ. But data suggests that IQ only accounts for about 20% of success in life, with the remaining 80% being made up by other factors, emotional intelligence included. And much more research has been done on IQ than on emotions and emotional intelligence, despite the fact that emotions are hard-wired in the human brain and make us the species we are.
IQ is fixed: what we’re born with is what remains throughout our lives. But emotional intelligence can be taught and learned -- we have the ability to improve upon our emotional intelligence throughout our lives. In this one-page summary, we cover a broad overview of what emotions are, what emotional intelligence is, and how we can use it in a couple different areas of life. The full summary goes into much more detail about each of these categories.
Emotions are strong impulses that urge us to take immediate action. They’re based on fundamental needs (usually survival), and neurologically designed to propel us into action without overthinking: “run from the tiger before considering options gets us killed!”
There’s nothing wrong with feeling emotions -- the problems arise when the emotions are out of tune with the situation and when we don’t express our emotions productively or safely.
The human brain was built from the bottom up:
We essentially have two minds: a thinking one and a feeling one. Our feeling mind is associative, categorical, absolutist, and individual -- and it reacts to information before our thinking mind even gets all the information and has an opportunity to weigh out the best action.
Our feeling mind is more fully-formed at birth, while our neocortex can learn, change, and adjust throughout our lives. This means our emotional reactions to things are formed before we have high-level thoughts to make sense of them. We can’t change our emotional reactions to things, but we can learn how to respond to our emotions differently.
Emotional hijackings occur when our limbic system receives the information first and responds with an emergency alert. This sends our body into panic mode and makes it more difficult for our neocortex to control the actions we take based on our emotional impulses.
Emotional intelligence encompasses the following skills:
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize a feeling as it’s happening to you. Being able to monitor our feelings as they’re occurring helps us understand ourselves and our psychology. The more certain we are about our feelings, the easier it is to make personal decisions.
People who know their emotions are aware of their moods as they happen but can be mindful about how they deal with them. They’re more sure of their boundaries since they know how they’ll feel. They tend towards a positive outlook on life since they know they can manage whatever moods are thrown at them. They don’t dwell on bad moods and can get out of ruts faster. They can be mindful of their emotions and manage them successfully.
The goal is to be self-aware in relation to our emotions, but most people deal with their emotions in one of two unhealthy ways:
Once we’re aware of our emotional responses as we’re having them, we can start to regulate how they influence our actions.
There are 3 emotions that most people find hard to regulate: anger, anxiety, and sadness.
We also need to be able to delay gratification and overcome our impulses to be more productive and effective -- this is where motivation, the ability to push ourselves to do something, comes in. Being able to manage our emotions is the first step to motivating ourselves to finish tasks and achieve goals.
Motivation mostly has to do with what you believe about your own abilities. People who are good self-motivators:
Empathy is the fundamental people skill, allowing us to interpret what others want or need. Empathy changes the way you look at the world: when other people are in pain, you work to understand their pain and help them through it. You also work not to cause people pain: this is where morals and morality begin. Empathy makes you a better person.
Our most basic emotional life lessons are laid down in small, repeated life exchanges between us and our parents. How our parents responded to our emotions is how we respond to others’, and shapes our capacity for empathy and the emotional expectations we bring into our adult relationships. Treating children with empathy creates more empathetic adults in the future.
The culmination of all the previous skills combined, when we recognize our own emotions, manage them, motivate ourselves to do better, and can empathize with others, our personal relationships are bound to improve.
The ability to manage relationships breaks down into 4 distinct and separate abilities:
Relationship strife usually has to do with partners having differing expectations about how emotions will be handled. Agreeing how to disagree or confront each other is the key to a successful relationship.
Here are some things couples can do to improve their emotional intelligence in arguments:
Parents who are emotionally intelligent set better examples for their children. If you want a better life for your kid, work on improving yours first.
3 common difficult situations parents have to deal with are: angry kids, depressed kids, and kids with eating disorders.
Parents who address emotions healthily:
Issues at work usually arise from prejudice in the workplace or friction among employees who have to work together.
Prejudices are any preconceived opinions that are not based on experience or fact, but we see this most commonly in discrimation against other races, genders, sexualities, or classes. Prejudices are passed down from our parents and taught to us emotionally before we understand the logic behind them. It’s nearly impossible to change your own prejudices or anyone else’s on a neurological level -- but it is possible for a workplace to suppress the expression of prejudice for the sake of a healthier and better-functioning workplace.
Friction among employees usually stems from low group IQ, or low emotional intelligence. People with high emotional intelligence are better at working together.
To combat both of these situations, managers must be good at both giving feedback and receiving it. Here’s how:
When receiving feedback, remember that feedback is a tool to help you improve, and an opportunity for you to work with your manager to do your job better.
Family life doesn’t necessarily offer the same connections and instruction it once did, so schools have become the one place communities can depend on to educate their children and correct their behaviors.
High anxiety and emotional distress take a devastating toll on student performance. Emotionally distressed students have a harder time focusing, following through, controlling their behavior, and making friends.
Schools and teachers can do a few things to help combat the low emotional literacy of students:
Emotions are deeply connected to sickness and health. For the most emotionally healthy population, emotional interventions should be routine practice in any hospital or doctor’s office.
3 emotions have extremely detrimental effects on health: anger, anxiety, and depression.
Medical offices that would like to increase emotional intelligence should: