Goleman's
bio: Goleman was born in Stockton, California and earned his PhD
at Harvard. For many years he was a science journalist at the New
York Times. He is currently an independent/freelance author.
Key point: Your emotional intelligence (EQ) can matter more than your intelligence quotient (IQ)
In this book author Daniel Goleman sets out to add light to an issue that goes back to at least the days of Aristotle. Goleman says that Aristotle's challenge, laid out in his book The Nicomachaen Ethics, is for us to manage our emotional life with intelligence. Goleman writes, “As Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression.”
Have you ever been so angry, frustrated or anxious that you couldn’t think straight? If you have, then your brain has experienced an emotional high-jacking. And this experience should have given you some idea as to why Goleman claims that control of our emotions (emotional intelligence) can be more important than the often tested Intelligence Quotient (IQ). What good is all the smarts in the world if your brain is constantly being overtaken by your emotions? Ever known a person with genius level knowledge who’s angry, bitter, crass, condescending, nervous or sad and listless? A person can have a tremendous grasp on information and book smarts but very little control over their emotions.
What is an emotion and what are they for? According to Goleman, “All emotions are, in essence, impulses to act, the instant plans for handling life that evolution has instilled in us” Emotions result from the wiring in our brains. And these connections can be formed, and reformed, from the cradle to the grave.
“The interactions of life's earliest years lay down a set of emotional lessons based on the attunement and upsets in the contacts between infant and caregiver,” says Goleman. Speaking about children with low emotional intelligence he writes, “Despite their intellectual potential, these are the children at highest risk for problems like academic failure, alcoholism, and criminality – not because their intellect is deficient, but because their control over their emotional life is impaired.” The goal is to be able to identify when we're thinking with our emotional brain versus when we're thinking with our rational brain. Then we'll be able to adjust to the mix that's best suited to the situation at hand.
Researchers conducted a study with about 450 boys from Somerville, Massachusetts. These boys were surveyed as youth and then followed into adult life to monitor their development. The results were surprising. Goleman writes, “To be sure, there was a general link (as there always is) between IQ and socioeconomic level at age forty-seven. But childhood abilities such as being able to handle frustration, control emotions, and get on with other people made the greater difference.”
So, what are we to do? Goleman explains, “Socrates's injunction 'Know thyself' speaks to this keystone of emotional intelligence: awareness of one's own feelings as they occur.” Reflecting on Aristotle's challenge Goleman writes, “A sense of self-mastery, of being able to withstand the emotional storms that the buffeting of Fortunes brings rather than being 'passion's slave,' has been praised as a virtue since the time of Plato.”
It would be impossible to give any sort of exhaustive list on techniques for handling emotions. However, let's point out a few related to anger. Goleman quotes some results from the research of Diane Tice, “Tice found that reframing a situation more positively was one of the most potent ways to put anger to rest.” Goleman also mentions, “One way of defusing anger is to seize on and challenge the thoughts that triggered the surges of anger.” The last one I'll mention, in the case of anger, is Goleman's reference to the findings of University of Alabama professor Dolf Zillman. Goleman writes, “Distraction, Zillman finds, is a highly powerful mood-altering device.”
Key point: Your emotional intelligence (EQ) can matter more than your intelligence quotient (IQ)
In this book author Daniel Goleman sets out to add light to an issue that goes back to at least the days of Aristotle. Goleman says that Aristotle's challenge, laid out in his book The Nicomachaen Ethics, is for us to manage our emotional life with intelligence. Goleman writes, “As Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression.”
Have you ever been so angry, frustrated or anxious that you couldn’t think straight? If you have, then your brain has experienced an emotional high-jacking. And this experience should have given you some idea as to why Goleman claims that control of our emotions (emotional intelligence) can be more important than the often tested Intelligence Quotient (IQ). What good is all the smarts in the world if your brain is constantly being overtaken by your emotions? Ever known a person with genius level knowledge who’s angry, bitter, crass, condescending, nervous or sad and listless? A person can have a tremendous grasp on information and book smarts but very little control over their emotions.
What is an emotion and what are they for? According to Goleman, “All emotions are, in essence, impulses to act, the instant plans for handling life that evolution has instilled in us” Emotions result from the wiring in our brains. And these connections can be formed, and reformed, from the cradle to the grave.
“The interactions of life's earliest years lay down a set of emotional lessons based on the attunement and upsets in the contacts between infant and caregiver,” says Goleman. Speaking about children with low emotional intelligence he writes, “Despite their intellectual potential, these are the children at highest risk for problems like academic failure, alcoholism, and criminality – not because their intellect is deficient, but because their control over their emotional life is impaired.” The goal is to be able to identify when we're thinking with our emotional brain versus when we're thinking with our rational brain. Then we'll be able to adjust to the mix that's best suited to the situation at hand.
Researchers conducted a study with about 450 boys from Somerville, Massachusetts. These boys were surveyed as youth and then followed into adult life to monitor their development. The results were surprising. Goleman writes, “To be sure, there was a general link (as there always is) between IQ and socioeconomic level at age forty-seven. But childhood abilities such as being able to handle frustration, control emotions, and get on with other people made the greater difference.”
So, what are we to do? Goleman explains, “Socrates's injunction 'Know thyself' speaks to this keystone of emotional intelligence: awareness of one's own feelings as they occur.” Reflecting on Aristotle's challenge Goleman writes, “A sense of self-mastery, of being able to withstand the emotional storms that the buffeting of Fortunes brings rather than being 'passion's slave,' has been praised as a virtue since the time of Plato.”
It would be impossible to give any sort of exhaustive list on techniques for handling emotions. However, let's point out a few related to anger. Goleman quotes some results from the research of Diane Tice, “Tice found that reframing a situation more positively was one of the most potent ways to put anger to rest.” Goleman also mentions, “One way of defusing anger is to seize on and challenge the thoughts that triggered the surges of anger.” The last one I'll mention, in the case of anger, is Goleman's reference to the findings of University of Alabama professor Dolf Zillman. Goleman writes, “Distraction, Zillman finds, is a highly powerful mood-altering device.”
Therapists
will sometimes talk to of a 2-D solution to coping with our emotions.
The first D stands for Distract. One way to handle emotionality is by
distracting yourself from the emotions' accompanying thoughts. It's
what professor Zillman was talking about in the previous paragraph.
This is what a good friend will do for you while you're heart-broken
after having been dumped by your significiant other. The other D
stands for Dispute. This is what Diane Tice was referring to when she
mentioned, “reframing a situation,” and, “challenge the
thoughts.” Disputing gets to the meaning of things. So if an old
friend ignores you at a party you might become sad with thoughts
like, “I can't believe Susan didn't say hello. I guess we never
were that good of friends.” You might dispute those thoughts by
coming up with a more charitable explanation of Susan's behavior. You
might tell yourself, “Ya know, Susan always has been rather shy and
introverted. Maybe she's so nervous about all the people here, she
didn't even notice me.” Disputing is definitely more difficult than
distracting but its effects are generally longer lasting, except in
the case of rage. Disputation doesn't really work with high levels of
anger, you're only option is distraction. Specifically you want to
remove the person from the thing they feel is making them mad.
Back to the work of Diane Tice, “Tice found that ventilating anger is one of the worse ways to cool down.” That's really something to consider because a lot of people think it's a good idea to vent. Hopefully if you chose to vent you keep in mind that emotions are contagious. Others can become angry from the simple fact that you're angry. And a dangerous escalation my ensue.
As far as what we should shoot for, Goleman says, “There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, lead to one or another impulse to act.” This brings up a landmark experiment conducted by Columbia professor Walter Mischel. The experiment was conducted back in the late 1960's when Mischel was a professor at Stanford. The experiment is called The Marshmallow Test and it goes like this. Basicaly, children were offered one marshmallow which they could eat whenever they liked. However, the children were told if they can wait fifteen minutes, without eating the marshmallow, they will be give a second marshmallow to eat as well. The children with the willpower to wait for the second marshmallow ended up more successful in life on various measures. Mischel identified the essence of emotional self-regulation and he called it, “goal-directed self-imposed delay of gratification.”
An important thing that might be on your mind is whether this information can help you. Do we come preprogrammed with a current level of emotional intelligence of is it something we can learn? Like many things, it turns out what you believe to be the answer to that question will become your reality. While we learn emotional coping mechanisms mainly from our parents or caregivers, we are definitelty able to improve our emotional intelligence if we choose to. Goleman writes, “There is ample evidence that emotional skills such as impulse control and accurately reading a social situation can be learned.”
Goleman refers to two great books that give great advice on the how-to's of emotional mastery. I have read both and hope to have overviews up on this site before too long. One is called Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. Seligman is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was one of the original cognitive psychologists. The other book is Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is a professor of psychology at the Claremont Graduate University. Flow is one of my favorite books of all time.
As you might expect empathy plays a huge roll in emotional intelligence. The words are practicing synonymous. Goleman explains, “Empathy builds on self-awareness; the more open we are to our own emotions, the more skilled we will be in reading feelings.” So we are reminder of the wisdom of the words from the Oracle of Delphi, “Know thyself.”
“Being able to manage emotions in someone else is the core of the art of handling relationships,” says Goleman. Paul Ekman is the professor at UCSF who discovered that we literally wear our emotions on our face. (Actually he built off of Darwin, but that's a discussion for another day) The faces we pull as a result of experiencing an emotion are hard-wired into our genes. We know this because Ekman discovered that the faces are universally recognizable regardless of culture or geography. Ekman wrote about this in his book Emotions Revealed. I've read it and I'll have a book report posted as soon as I can.
Goleman's is a book that overviews most of the cutting edge research on emotion. (Mind you, the book was written back in 1995) I can't get into every detail or touch every topic because this overview would be enormous. A shortcut is to mention references that you can pursue if interested.
In the area of intimate relationships and marriage Goleman cites two experts. One is John Gottman, at the University of Washington, and his book The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work. Gottman is a disciple of Ekman and his work is seminal. The other is Aaron Beck at the University of Pennsylvania and his book Love is Never Enough. Beck is the father of cognitive therapy. His work details a methodology for mastering our emotions and is highly recommended.
As you could imagine, emotional intelligence plays a big role in work and business life. Increased levels of emotional intelligence definitely improve our ability to manage and lead people. To get any meaningful done we must work in groups, mastery of emotion certainly assists in the group dynamic. Goleman writes, “The single most important element of group intelligence, it turns out, is not the average IQ in the academic sense, but rather in terms of emotional intelligence. The key to a high group IQ is social harmony.”
Work, as we know, is fundamentally changing. The organizational structure is becoming flat. No longer is the command-and-control strategy ideal. Instead of a chain of command people work horizontally to get things done. A lot of emotion goes into the desire to be higher up on the command ladder. People often find their self-worth in their title. Emotional intelligence is required to create, or allow, a horizontal organizational chart, focused on results.
In the world of physical health, you probably have heard about the link between stress and sickness. Goleman writes, “Stress suppresses immune resistance.” Stress comes from a number of things and all of them are emotions. We know about the role of stress but we use the wrong cure. Let's say someone has anxiety, our system is set up to deliver medication in the form of pills. But anxiety is not the body's reaction to a deficiency of Valium. Knowing the real cause can lead to the true solution. Anxiety is an emotion. What cognitive psychology teaches us is that our thoughts create our emotions. If we correct our faulty thinking patterns we can cure our emotional problems. Goleman states, “Like its near cousin optimism, hope has healing power.” For more depth read Seligman's Learned Optimism.
In closing I leave you with one more quote from Goleman, “The bedrock or character is self-discipline; the virtuous life, as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, is based on self-control.” The preeminent expert on self-control is a gentleman by the name of Roy Baumeister. Roy has written an excellent book titled Willpower and I highly recommend reading it.
Back to the work of Diane Tice, “Tice found that ventilating anger is one of the worse ways to cool down.” That's really something to consider because a lot of people think it's a good idea to vent. Hopefully if you chose to vent you keep in mind that emotions are contagious. Others can become angry from the simple fact that you're angry. And a dangerous escalation my ensue.
As far as what we should shoot for, Goleman says, “There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, lead to one or another impulse to act.” This brings up a landmark experiment conducted by Columbia professor Walter Mischel. The experiment was conducted back in the late 1960's when Mischel was a professor at Stanford. The experiment is called The Marshmallow Test and it goes like this. Basicaly, children were offered one marshmallow which they could eat whenever they liked. However, the children were told if they can wait fifteen minutes, without eating the marshmallow, they will be give a second marshmallow to eat as well. The children with the willpower to wait for the second marshmallow ended up more successful in life on various measures. Mischel identified the essence of emotional self-regulation and he called it, “goal-directed self-imposed delay of gratification.”
An important thing that might be on your mind is whether this information can help you. Do we come preprogrammed with a current level of emotional intelligence of is it something we can learn? Like many things, it turns out what you believe to be the answer to that question will become your reality. While we learn emotional coping mechanisms mainly from our parents or caregivers, we are definitelty able to improve our emotional intelligence if we choose to. Goleman writes, “There is ample evidence that emotional skills such as impulse control and accurately reading a social situation can be learned.”
Goleman refers to two great books that give great advice on the how-to's of emotional mastery. I have read both and hope to have overviews up on this site before too long. One is called Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. Seligman is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was one of the original cognitive psychologists. The other book is Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is a professor of psychology at the Claremont Graduate University. Flow is one of my favorite books of all time.
As you might expect empathy plays a huge roll in emotional intelligence. The words are practicing synonymous. Goleman explains, “Empathy builds on self-awareness; the more open we are to our own emotions, the more skilled we will be in reading feelings.” So we are reminder of the wisdom of the words from the Oracle of Delphi, “Know thyself.”
“Being able to manage emotions in someone else is the core of the art of handling relationships,” says Goleman. Paul Ekman is the professor at UCSF who discovered that we literally wear our emotions on our face. (Actually he built off of Darwin, but that's a discussion for another day) The faces we pull as a result of experiencing an emotion are hard-wired into our genes. We know this because Ekman discovered that the faces are universally recognizable regardless of culture or geography. Ekman wrote about this in his book Emotions Revealed. I've read it and I'll have a book report posted as soon as I can.
Goleman's is a book that overviews most of the cutting edge research on emotion. (Mind you, the book was written back in 1995) I can't get into every detail or touch every topic because this overview would be enormous. A shortcut is to mention references that you can pursue if interested.
In the area of intimate relationships and marriage Goleman cites two experts. One is John Gottman, at the University of Washington, and his book The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work. Gottman is a disciple of Ekman and his work is seminal. The other is Aaron Beck at the University of Pennsylvania and his book Love is Never Enough. Beck is the father of cognitive therapy. His work details a methodology for mastering our emotions and is highly recommended.
As you could imagine, emotional intelligence plays a big role in work and business life. Increased levels of emotional intelligence definitely improve our ability to manage and lead people. To get any meaningful done we must work in groups, mastery of emotion certainly assists in the group dynamic. Goleman writes, “The single most important element of group intelligence, it turns out, is not the average IQ in the academic sense, but rather in terms of emotional intelligence. The key to a high group IQ is social harmony.”
Work, as we know, is fundamentally changing. The organizational structure is becoming flat. No longer is the command-and-control strategy ideal. Instead of a chain of command people work horizontally to get things done. A lot of emotion goes into the desire to be higher up on the command ladder. People often find their self-worth in their title. Emotional intelligence is required to create, or allow, a horizontal organizational chart, focused on results.
In the world of physical health, you probably have heard about the link between stress and sickness. Goleman writes, “Stress suppresses immune resistance.” Stress comes from a number of things and all of them are emotions. We know about the role of stress but we use the wrong cure. Let's say someone has anxiety, our system is set up to deliver medication in the form of pills. But anxiety is not the body's reaction to a deficiency of Valium. Knowing the real cause can lead to the true solution. Anxiety is an emotion. What cognitive psychology teaches us is that our thoughts create our emotions. If we correct our faulty thinking patterns we can cure our emotional problems. Goleman states, “Like its near cousin optimism, hope has healing power.” For more depth read Seligman's Learned Optimism.
In closing I leave you with one more quote from Goleman, “The bedrock or character is self-discipline; the virtuous life, as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, is based on self-control.” The preeminent expert on self-control is a gentleman by the name of Roy Baumeister. Roy has written an excellent book titled Willpower and I highly recommend reading it.
More to
come!
