foreign have you known anyone who is highly skilled at making people feel comfortable or a person who is exceptionally perceptive if anyone is in discomfort a person who can describe how they are feeling with tremendous Clarity if you do it's likely that you know someone who is emotionally intelligent there is a lot of discussion these days about this concept and a lot of research in Psychology has centered around it in recent years in today's lecture we are going to learn about what emotional intelligence is and why it is important to have emotional intelligence Daniel Goldman in 1995 wrote a book titled emotional intelligence why it can matter more than IQ this book became a bestseller very soon and people in Academia Industries education and all fields of psychology were talking about emotional intelligence as a better predictor of success at work than IQ before the term emotional intelligence came into being intelligence was thought about as the ability to carry on abstract thinking or the ability to act purposefully think rationally and to deal effectively with the environment emotion was thought to be completely opposed to rationality and was seen as something that caused a loss of cerebral control obviously the tests that measured intelligence the traditional IQ tests measured purely cognitive intelligence and so even the term emotional intelligence looked like an apparent contradiction in itself but just before Daniel Goldman published his book there were two very significant contributions in the field of psychology that had begun to explore this concept of intelligence in a very different way one of them was Dr Howard Gardner Dr Gardner had argued that besides the intelligence that traditional IQ tests measured there were other types of intelligence that people had and that the these intelligences were good predictors of how successful people could become he had proposed the concept of multiple intelligences he said that people have different types of intelligence he listed down these types of intelligences one linguistic intelligence two logical mathematical intelligence three naturalistic intelligence four musical intelligence 5. visual spatial intelligence 6. bodily kinesthetic intelligence and seven and eight were two social intelligences intra-personal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence for a detailed description of Gardner's multiple intelligences you can refer to this resource what is particularly relevant to our discussion about emotional intelligence is that Gardner had included two intelligences in his list of multiple intelligences intrapersonal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence by intra personal intelligence Gardner meant the ability to understand one's own emotions and to be able to regulate them you may wonder whether it is possible that people actually do not understand their own emotions well sometimes people may experience a general discomfort but they may not be able to recognize if they are feeling anxious or annoyed or just physically tired and sometimes people may insist that they are not tensed or anxious but their bodily symptoms show otherwise for instance they may have high blood pressure or frontalis muscle tension but they may not be able to acknowledge their anxiety also sometimes people may be able to recognize their own emotions but may not be able to regulate them for example they may know that they have a tendency to lose their temper often and also that they regret saying hurtful things to others when in a fit of anger but they may not be able to regulate their anger when it arises on the contrary some people may be highly aware of their emotions and even no shades of differences between their own emotions for instance they may be able to tell easily if they are experiencing purely physical fatigue or whether they are feeling tired because they are emotionally upset some people may be good at regulating their emotions so that they do not deny them yet they are able to express them in ways that are constructive and healthy this ability to recognize one's own emotions and to regulate them is called intrapersonal intelligence the second type of intelligence that Gardner mentioned is interpersonal intelligence this refers to the ability to understand other people's emotions and to manage relationships some people have a highly developed ability to discern other people's emotions they may be especially good at understanding people's emotional states through their body language tone of voice and micro expressions this ability can lead the person to being alerted to signs and cues of emotions early on in an interaction and thus avoid conflict or lead the interaction to a more authentic and fruitful level think for a moment about an employee who is killed at making out if a co-worker is upset angry or anxious such a person would be much better at handling interactions because they are able to recognize others emotions early as compared to a person who is unable to understand such cues around the same time Peter salawi from The Yale University and John Mayer from the University of New Hampshire were developing their ideas about emotional intelligence they also found Gardner's concept of social intelligence is very useful and exciting in one of the studies which was done by Sternberg convey ketron and Bernstein lay people were asked to describe an intelligent person many lay people described an intelligent person's characteristics as accepts others for what they are admits mistakes and displays interest in the World At Large these are actually characteristics of social intelligence salovey and Maya thought that these characteristics actually help people to lead successful lives because they can also think more flexibly it is not only the cognitive intelligence that helps people to think rationally and take decisions logically but also the ability to work effectively with emotions that helps people lead Better Lives first and foremost they say that emotions are organized responses crossing the boundaries of many psychological subsystems including the physiological cognitive motivational and experiential systems they typically arise in response to an event either internal or external that has a positively or negatively balanced meaning for the individual emotions are also adaptive mechanisms let us now try to understand what this means an animal that feels a strong emotion such as fear in response to the perception of some danger in the environment is more likely to flee or save itself and thus more likely to survive than an animal that does not feel this emotion a child who is able to feel the embarrassment of being scolded by a teacher is more likely to take care of completing their homework thus avoiding that embarrassment than a child who does not feel this emotion a doctor who is able to feel her patient's pain empathically is more likely to prescribe medication or surgery carefully thus minimizing her patients discomfort then a doctor who cannot feel these emotions a teacher who is able to make out that a child is doing poorly in academics and is not being lazy but is probably going through some emotional turmoil is more likely to support and guide the child and motivate him to try his level best than a teacher who cannot feel with the child through all the examples cited above we can easily make out that emotions are adaptive processes they permeate all our systems our physiological cognitive motivational and experiential systems they provide the impetus for us to carry out adaptive actions and now we can understand the concept of emotional intelligence salovey and mayor Define emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others feelings and emotions to discriminate among them and use this information to guide one's thinking and actions we constantly receive information from the environment which is related to feelings either our own or someone else's this information has to be processed and it has to be processed differently than cognitive information and people differ in their ability to do so the better people are at recognizing their own and others emotions and use this information to guide regulate and motivate themselves and others the more emotionally intelligent they are at this point let us take a little break and check if we have understood what has been taught so far please grab a paper and pencil you will now see some statements on the screen and your task is to say if these statements are true or false one intrapersonal intelligence was one of the multiple intelligences given by Dr Gardner 2. emotions are organized responses crossing the boundaries of many psychological subsystems including the physiological cognitive motivational and experiential systems three emotional intelligence is a subset of naturalistic intelligence for emotional intelligence is not a predictor of people's success at work and the answers are first statement true second statement true third statement false and fourth statement false well after understanding the concept of emotional intelligence let us now try to understand the components of emotional intelligence as salawi and mayor have put it forward you can now see this diagram on the screen this model proposed by salawian mayor shows that there are three major components of emotional intelligence one appraising and expressing emotions in self and others two regulating emotion in self and others and three using emotions in adaptive ways let us understand each of these components and the sub components in more detail the first one is appraising and expressing emotions in the self some people can be extremely skilled at understanding their own emotions and also expressing them people Express their emotions in two ways verbally or non-verbally verbal expression means giving these emotions appropriate labels thus a person who is able to say I'm not really angry but just disappointed in myself is adept at describing their emotion verbally non-verbally people can show how they are feeling through their facial expressions body language and intonation people who are highly accurate at understanding and expressing their emotions are also able to respond to their own emotions quickly and now let us understand the concept of appraising and expressing emotions in others other people are also showing us how they are feeling through their expressions and body language and emotionally intelligent person is able to make out these expressions and this leads to better interpersonal cooperation and ultimately better relationships this ability to appraise others emotions is closely related to empathy empathy is the ability to not only understand another person's feeling but also to re-experience them in oneself needless to say a person develops better and closer interpersonal relationships is considered to be a good co-worker a good leader parent educator or therapist when they are being empathic in fact patients are more willing to accept the advice of their therapist if they feel that the therapist is empathic we now come to the second component of emotional intelligence that is regulation of emotion in self a person who can recognize their own emotions or even moods is in a better place to be able to regulate them emotionally intelligent people are better able to make out what makes them feel a certain emotion or what puts them in a certain mood consider that a person understands that when they are in the company of people who are highly materialistically driven and ambitious they start feeling bad this recognition will help them to choose the company of people more wisely so that they avoid people who are materialistic and the chances of them feeling bad go down significantly let us take an example of an emotionally intelligent student this student recognizes that if he begins to think about his college and teachers in a negative way and imagines disastrous scenarios where he is failing or performing badly in an upcoming exam he begins to get more and more anxious and that prevents him from studying with concentration being emotionally intelligent he decides not to overthink and recognizes that if he focuses on the lesson at hand and changes his self-talk to more constructive and positive statements he is able to relax and study well such a student is in a better position to regulate his own anxiety than a student who cannot recognize the link between his self-talk and his anxiety levels people thus have the ability to take charge of their own mind stop themselves from entertaining gloomy thoughts Count Their Blessings or look at the good side of life now we'll look at regulating emotion in others one of the other abilities related to regulation of emotion is the ability to influence other people's feelings consider how an emotionally intelligent orator can immediately grip the attention of the audience and elicit strong reactions in the audience emotionally intelligent employees know just how to present themselves and their work to others in a convincing manner they are able to impress their superiors by the way they dress by the way they are prompt or by the way they connect emotionally with others an emotionally intelligent parent knows how to soothe an upset child an emotionally intelligent person knows how to motivate a friend who is losing heart thus the ability to regulate one's own and other people's emotions definitely leads to more adaptive functioning and better mood States let us now look at the third component of emotional intelligence which is utilizing emotional intelligence the final domain of emotional intelligence is the ability to use one's own emotions to solve problems like we have seen earlier in the lecture emotions are adaptive and they permeate all other levels of our functioning such as physiological cognitive motivational and experiential they can be used as guides in generating solutions to problems or for redirecting energy to deal with things that are more urgent or important salary and mayor describe at least four ways in which emotions can be profitably used they can be used as guides in generating solutions to problems or for redirecting energy to deal with things that are more urgent or important salawi and mayor describe at least four ways in which emotions can be profitably used the first one is flexible planning we know that when we are in a positive mood we are more likely to perceive positive events as more likely to happen and negative events as less likely to happen on the contrary when in a negative mood we are more likely to expect more negative events and less positive events to happen emotionally intelligent people are more perceptive of their own mood swings and because their mood fluctuates they are able to come out of the one set way of thinking about future events and thus generate many more possible plans their mood swings help them to look at things from multiple perspectives for example they are able to look at things optimistically when in a good mood a pessimistic perspective when sad and from a threat oriented perspective when anxious thus they are able to generate many more creative problem solving strategies than people who have more stable moods the second component is creative thinking modes can help people to solve problems by helping them organize and store information in memory when they experience Pleasant mood they are better able to see connections between the features of a problem various experiments in Psychology have shown that people are able to generate more and also more Creative Solutions to problems when they are in a good mood mood redirected attention powerful emotions can help us focus on things that are more urgent and important by directing our attention away from other problems let us consider an example an employee who is working on a project in a company realizes that the project is causing harm to the environment she begins to feel increasingly uneasy and can no longer ignore her emotional signals she begins to redirect her attention away from her work but in the process recognizes her need to do something that she finds more in tune with her existential need of meaningful work eventually she quits her job and gets involved in work related to Environmental Conservation work that she finds personally meaningful and does gratifying this shift towards something more rewarding was possible thanks to the strong dissonance that she felt while working on her project emotions can thus help people re-prioritize the internal and external demands on their attention and allocate attentional resources accordingly finally motivating emotions some emotions can be used to motivate oneself for example the anxiety that one feels before an important event such as a performance or a test can be used to motivate oneself to work hard and Excel at these events fear about ill health can be used to motivate oneself to exercise and maintain a good diet positive emotions such as feelings of self-confidence can be used to perceive your tasks which one finds difficult and in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences and with this we come to the end of our discussion about what emotional intelligence is and how it is useful for people in all walks of life let us now consider some of the developments around the concept of emotional intelligence there are two ways in which researchers have approached this topic some feel that emotional intelligence is a personality trait that means that people are either born emotionally intelligent or otherwise this position has been taken by Professor Reuben Baron from Denmark Daniel Goldman himself and by Professor Richard Cooper other researchers believe that emotional intelligence is a set of skills that can be cultivated professors Jack Mayer Peter salawi and David Caruso are the pioneers of this approach several tests and inventories have been developed to measure emotional intelligence Baron's emotional quotient inventory Goldman's emotional competency inventory and Cooper's EQ map are some of the inventories that measure emotional intelligence as a personality trait salawi mayor and Caruso have given the mayor salawi and Caruso emotional intelligence test msceit and the multi-factor emotional intelligence scale m-e-i-s which both measure emotional perception emotional integration emotional understanding and emotional management this concept has been used widely in industrial clinical and educational settings and trainings have been conducted worldwide to help people make fruitful use of their emotions to lead healthier happier and more harmonious lives well with this we come to the end of our module on emotional intelligence hope you have found it interesting and it has ignited your interest in researching about it more thank you