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Emotional Intelligence: Read the Room, Rule Your Emotions · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

0:05
Welcome to Professor Peterson's Psychology Classroom,
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connecting the science of human behavior to everyday
0:12
life. Here's Dr. Curtis Peterson. Now I
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want to talk about the something that I hope that
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we all kind of learn and develop more because
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it's really the base of all the skills
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that we're going to learn. Because all the skills we're going to learn
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starting next Saturday require a high
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level of this thing we call emotional intelligence.
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All right. And emotional intelligence
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has actually received a lot of research in about the last decade or so,
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mainly responding to criticisms that come out
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of the business arena. So I want to make
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sure how we're defining emotional intelligence,
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just in case you want to go Google it or something like that at
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a later date. Okay. Emotional intelligence
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is not emotional reactivity.
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It's not about being emotional in
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every single situation. And that
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is what has confused a lot of the business literature
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on emotional intelligence is They study emotional
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reactivity and that kind of,
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that reactivity can affect things like making
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good business decisions, those kinds of things.
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But it is very clear that even within the business arena, this emotional
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intelligence thing is something that even on
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corporate levels, they're trying, starting to train their
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top executives on. So what
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is it? What is this thing we call emotional intelligence?
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And I'm going to read this definition from
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Mayer, Salovey, and Curcio. It's the ability
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to perceive and express emotion,
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assimilate emotion in thoughts,
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understand and reason with emotion,
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and regulate emotion in self and others.
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If I were to kind of put it in more human terms,
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it is the ability to walk into a room and
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have a complete recognition of your own emotional state
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and then be able to read the emotional states
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within the room and then successfully
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navigate that. And be able to,
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at times in a situation,
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your own emotional tone, your own emotions are not
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what is going to create a productive discussion
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with someone. And at other times,
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it's about using your emotions, your natural reactions
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in a room to really help stop the conversation.
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And be able to say, listen, this conversation
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is making me very uncomfortable. And I feel
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the emotions in this room are starting to get tense.
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Okay. So really what we mean when
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we mean emotional intelligence is really having
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an intimate understanding of your own emotions and
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then being able to walk in the room and look and be able to detect
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the emotions in the room and successfully
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navigate that. So let's look at this
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a little bit closer. Like I mentioned, this is
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now being trained in a lot of executive competency
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trainings. It's a mixture of
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interpersonal communication,
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relational relationship management,
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social intelligence, meaning that you know
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how to react to a given social cue
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in an appropriately emotional or cognitive
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way. Okay. And leadership
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development, being able to make sure that
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everyone in the room is heard and that everyone
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has say in what's going on. Okay.
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So if we look at this, just to kind of differentiate
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what we usually mean between what we call IQ
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and what is called the emotional quotient or EQ,
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when we're looking at EQ, we're not really looking at
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things like cognition, intellectual abilities,
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logical abilities, or analytical abilities. What we're looking
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at for when we look for people with
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high EQs is emotional, social,
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and communicative types of abilities,
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but importantly, the relational abilities.
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Okay. When we look at IQ, we look usually at
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personal information, memory,
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vocabulary, And again, with EQ,
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we're grasping own as well as others'
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wants and needs. So we're understanding
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that it's not an individual task.
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And again, with IQ gauges how well one acquires
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and organizes new knowledge, where EQ gauges
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how well one copes with environmental demands
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and pressures. All right. So if we were to put
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it kind of on a 2 by 2 display,
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we would see up here in these column areas, we would have our personal
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competencies and our social competencies.
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Okay. And then in the rows, we see
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recognition, what I see,
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and regulation, what I do.
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So the recognition
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of what I see is that self-awareness in the personal
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competency, being very in tune with who you are
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as an individual and have an intimate knowledge
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of your own emotional schemas, your responses
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to others. We've talked about this before, our own biases,
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and in some cases, our own prejudices.
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And being able to understand that I maybe go
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into a situation where those things
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need to be set aside in order to have
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a successful conversation. And that goes into the recognition,
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what I see as social awareness
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under the social competency, that you're aware
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that other people exist, They also have their
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own unique emotions and feelings
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and ideas, and they're not always separate from
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our— and they're always separate from our own. If we look at
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this from a developmental perspective,
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it kind of starts at around 24 to 36
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months of development. Okay, and this is where the whole EQ
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starts to develop. Because around 24
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to 36 months of age, we start to develop something that developmental
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psychologists call theory of mind.
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And with theory of mind, we come to be able to recognize
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ourselves as unique
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individuals. And we start to have
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this idea that if I have my own emotional
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states, then others must have their own
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emotional states. And this is where the idea
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of theory of mind comes into play because we
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start to wonder why that other person
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is having the emotions and the behaviors that they're having.
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When we're not. So let's just go with a 24-month-old
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who's a little bit verbal. Before 24
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months of age, a little child walks
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into the room. They're really happy, but let's say they see mom
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on the chair and she's crying.
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Okay. This is a dilemma for someone 24
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months 24 months of age and below, because there shouldn't
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be incongruency between my emotions and someone else's emotion.
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So the little child will more likely go and say something to
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mom like, hey mom, we're happy. It's happy
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time. So you see that there's a kind
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of this demand that there's congruency
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in emotions. After about 24 months,
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the little guy will go up to mom and wonder why mom
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is crying, why she's having that state,
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because that's not how I'm feeling.
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So instead of saying, hey mom, you should be happy,
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they'll go up and ask mom, mom, why are you crying?
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And it's that why question that becomes significant.
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Because they're recognizing the difference between the self
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and others. Okay. Now this goes,
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if you want to take kind of some of the logical in behind
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this, this is the basis of something we call empathy.
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Empathy is the ability to feel other
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people's experiences without needing to experience
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them ourselves. Okay.
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And I know there's a lot of stuff on Facebook
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about developing empathy and all of these kinds of things, but I want to be
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clear about what empathy is
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as it's studied. Okay.
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Empathy is the ability to
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really feel the emotions and the plights of others.
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Deeply. Okay. But empathy in
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and of itself does not lead to helping behaviors.
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And I want to make this really clear. Just having empathy
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is not enough for a person to engage in
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helping. Because if you think about what empathy
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is doing, you're feeling the
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plight of someone else. And you're more likely to do
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what that person is doing. You will try to escape
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that emotional feeling. Okay.
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So for example, someone who is highly empathetic
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is a person who will more likely walk away from
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people who need help because they themselves
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are feeling it so much it's unbearable and they want to escape
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it. Okay. This is where the emotional
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intelligence component really comes
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into play, is we can be highly empathetic,
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but if we don't recognize our own feelings,
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emotions that are separate from these emotions
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that they're having, and given this,
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there's something that I need to do. So what is it
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in a situation where we're completely feeling what another
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person is feeling? Well, this is what the regulation
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of what I do component comes in. Okay. On the
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personal competency, it's self-management.
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Okay. It's understanding that,
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okay, I'm feeling what they're feeling,
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but that just tells me something about
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them. Not something about me.
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And then that goes into the relationship management component
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that now that you've made this distinction,
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you know, they're in pain. How do we create
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a scenario that can help
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them through their problem? Okay.
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Probably the people who I find to have quite
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a bit of emotional intelligence, especially ones that are very
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highly empathetic. Are individuals like EMTs
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who go to a scene and
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they go into self-management and relation management mode.
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They go in and understand, okay, this person is laying on the
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ground, they're struggling breathing. I need to do
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A, B, and C. In the relationship management
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part, they let the patient know that they're there for them.
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And they walk them through step by step what
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they're going to do to try and help that person. Okay. If you
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think about that, that takes an incredible amount of self-management
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and relationship management at the same time.
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Okay. In the group setting,
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it's making sure that we do understand the emotions
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in the room. That people are having some positive reactions,
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some are having negative reactions, and we
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ourselves may be having some emotions of our own
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in managing that so that we can do the relationship management
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to be between the group members that seem to have
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these conflicting emotions within the room. Okay.
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So, With that, on the personal
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competencies, we'll break these down a little bit more.
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So one is self-awareness. What I
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see, it's the ability to recognize
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your emotions as they happen and understand
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your general tendencies for responding to
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different people and situations.
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So when we feel ourselves closing up,
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but that's a disadvantage to the people we're
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communicating with, an emotionally intelligent
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person will say, okay, I'm going through a crisis.
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I'm feeling maybe attacked or feeling
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like everyone is after me. But if I
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let that rule me, I'll walk away from this instead
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of managing it and working with
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it. And that's really what we want to teach a lot of our clients.
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If you think about the world of addiction, when a person comes
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to a situation where they're starting to go through a crisis,
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what's the obvious solution? I'm out of here. I'm going
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to go drink to deal with these emotions that I
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have. So in a lot of ways,
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I always want to remind you guys that we're always role modeling responses,
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especially when we ourselves feel like we're closing
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up. All right. It's self,
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so that goes into the self-management, what I do,
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using awareness of your emotions to choose what you say and
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do in order to have a positive,
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direct, positively direct your behavior Instead
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of making it look like you are the one
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who needs the crisis management themselves.
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Okay? So this is all components,
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again, breaking down that personal competency column
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that we just looked at. Okay?
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Social competencies, if we were to break those down,
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more is what I see, understanding where other
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person is coming from and whether they agree
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or not. And then what do we do with that information
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to create a successful conversation?
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And that gets into what I do. That's the relationship
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management component. It's using awareness of others'
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emotions to choose what you say and do in order Just
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like with the self-competencies,
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to have your, have behaviors positively
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directed. Okay.
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So if we were to break this, build our 2
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by 2 diagram even larger,
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we would see that under self-awareness, the recognition is
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emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment,
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and self-confidence. In that we understand where
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we're at emotionally. In the regulation,
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it's about self-control,
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conscientiousness. The conscientiousness part
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is addressing other people's place
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in the room, their emotional state,
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and not discounting it. And that creates that
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trustworthiness component. And it requires adaptability
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and innovation in order
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to, you know, sometimes set aside our reaction
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to have a more positive outcome. Okay.
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In the social competencies, we see that understanding of
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others, that empathy component coming in,
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developing others. Having what's called a service
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orientation. We're not there for us. We're there as a
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service to our community or to
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the people in that group. Leveraging diversity
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and different diverse emotional reactions
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to a situation. And then
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organizational awareness. The organizational
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awareness is Who am I representing here
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today? What is the organizing principles
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of us being there? Okay. In a lot of organizations,
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if I go back to executive training, in this component,
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they talk a lot about the organization's mission and
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vision statement. When we're talking about group settings,
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it may be our organization's mission and vision
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and always keeping that in the back of our mind and
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guiding principles, but it's also about what is it
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that we're trying to accomplish in
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this group today and how do we go about doing that?
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And we've talked about it quite a bit last Saturday,
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and I've used this word throughout, consistency,
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consistency, predictability,
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predictability. Okay. And then in the
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relationship management component, it means being a good communicator.
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So I'm going to kind of bring some of
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the skills that we're going to talk more in depth next Saturday.
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Communication is doing those things like reflection and
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giving the person permission to correct you.
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It's about conveying understanding.
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About what the group is processing. And then
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conflict management. This tends to be the number
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one in all my 211 classes
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about how do I reduce conflict when I myself
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may not be comfortable with conflict. Okay.
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Remember that we're there as a change catalyst.
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One of my first mentors when I started working in the
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domestic violence field made a very clear point
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to me, and she said, you yourself
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do not have the ability to change anyone.
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So if you're getting into this field thinking you're going to change someone's
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life for the better, if you think you're going to save
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someone, you're really blind
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to the reality that you can only be
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a catalyst. She used the analogy,
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you can seed the ability to change,
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but you can't make the plant grow. Okay.
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Building bonds, and that's through recognizing
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the other emotions and, you engaging the entire room
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in conversation. Collaboration and
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cooperation, meaning that, again, one of the
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goals of our group facilitating is
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that we kind of get left out sometimes and the group
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kind of starts to facilitate itself.
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And this especially gets into team capabilities.
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Is understanding when our group is
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ready to start processing this information
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within their own group setting without it necessarily
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being taught or officially
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saying by the facilitator, this is what we're
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going to do next. And of course, we want to have influence
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and leadership. We want to be able to influence others
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so that seed can grow into the plant. And we
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want to provide the ability,
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the ability of people to follow a pathway that
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they can follow in order to get to their goals,
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which are the 2 essentials of leadership.
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Okay. All right. And I kind
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of want to put this after going through all that, helps impact
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and set success, helps individuals in their strive
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for success in living, working, learning,
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and social interactions with self and others.
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And that's really our kind of our primary goals of
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doing the group process to begin with.
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Okay, so we talked about what is emotional
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intelligence, and now I just want to take a few
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minutes and talk about developing emotional intelligence.
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And this really begins with the
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individual. It's about starting to
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listen to yourself and your own emotions.
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Some good ways to do this is to journal them when
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you're in an emotional state, just write it out.
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Other times it may be, okay, what is this
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emotion signaling to me? What is
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around me? What is really making
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me feel the way I feel? Okay.
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And that's where we get into identifying and classify
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emotions. We start to give our emotions names.
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Right? If I were to tell you how to develop emotional intelligence,
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I would come up with your own name list for certain things.
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So don't just label something sad. Give it
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a label of some type, such as a unique
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label that you come up with, such as,
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I am feeling banana today. I don't
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know. It's just an example. But giving that
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emotion its own unique identifier.
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Okay. And then it's noticing the difference between
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having an emotion and acting on an emotion.
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Okay. And this really comes down
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to the self-regulation part of it,
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that we may be angry,
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But it's not advantageous to us to
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respond angrily. Okay? I mentioned
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in the last class that in my 15+
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years of teaching, I occasionally get a
25:46
student who's very upset with me, and they
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will say, I'm a poor instructor. You will da
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da da da da. I don't know why you're in this field.
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It's because your degree, all those kinds of things.
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And as a human, my initial
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reaction is I need to defend myself.
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I can't let this individual tell me all of these things
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that I don't think are true, right?
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But the advantageous response
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is, is to connect with that person,
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figure out why they didn't like the assessment.
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Explaining it in more detail so it's understandable
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to them, sometimes explaining it in different ways
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because that creates growth, not only
26:43
for my students, but also for me. There's many times
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I'm happy that I didn't react with my own little rage
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because I'm being attacked by someone. But instead
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saying, no, I'm going to let that go
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and we're really going to solve the problem. And it does in
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a lot of ways also change the way I'll explain feedback
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and constantly evolve it. Okay.
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Learn to distract. Okay. A good example
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is when someone sends you a nasty text or you feel
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you're being attacked.
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Putting that phone down and doing something else for
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a while, then coming back to it, learning how to
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distract yourself when your, your emotions
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are going to influence your response and
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probably usually escalate
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the situation instead of de-escalate it.
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Okay. And another important one, and this
27:59
one is really developed, my biggest recommendation,
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not only list your emotions when you have them,
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but also write honestly about
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how people react to you when you're
28:15
in certain emotional states. So when
28:19
you're feeling Excited,
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noting how people react to you when you're excited and
28:27
build, building that tool chest of
28:30
knowing if I express this emotion,
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this is the impact I have on someone else so
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that it can become a tool to create
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growth and development. Okay. Set goals
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internally or written small goals.
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Slow down, think, act,
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and keep this kind of, uh, STA in
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mind. What we need to do when we're developing
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emotional intelligence is really in any situation,
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slow down, breathe,
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think, and then act.