What is perceiving emotions in emotional intelligence?

KEY POINTS

Journaling and self-reflection after stressful situations or negative reactions to events can assist you with realizing when certain people, situations, or external factors (e.g., lack of sleep, diet) predispose you to low EI.

Mindfulness techniques (e.g., mantras, breathing exercises, deliberate breaks, gratitude notes) can help you improve your EI by keeping you focused on the present, helping you manage negative emotions, and bringing back positive thinking that can assist with resilience to adversity.

Because mindfulness is a practice of self-empathy and awareness, it can help you increase your empathy for others, including identifying the wants, needs, and viewpoints of your teammates.

To improve your communication skills, you can start by identifying opportunities to reduce the potential for miscommunication.

Description

Building Emotional Intelligence

In their groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, published by TalentSmart in 2009, Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves argue that today's workforce lack the personal self-awareness needed to handle the complexity of issues and pressures that define life in today's organizations. “We enter the workforce knowing how to read, write, and report on bodies of knowledge, but too often, we lack the skills to manage our emotions in the heat of the challenging problems we face.” In attempting to develop our future leaders, a lack of emotional awareness results in a corresponding lack of emotional control, a problem that can significantly limit a person's leadership potential if it is not addressed as soon as possible.

Emotional intelligence may be defined as an awareness and understanding of people's feelings, including one's own, and how to use this knowledge to engage effectively in interpersonal relationships in a wide variety of contexts and situations. People with high levels of emotional intelligence have more success, enjoy a broader network of colleagues, are more respected, and can negotiate solutions to problems with greater ease. Because leadership is ultimately about motivating and empowering people and teams, a lack of emotional intelligence is a formidable barrier to progress. In the previous chapter, we presented a case study in which a fictitious quality manager must negotiate a solution to help a latent print examiner who is inadvertently contaminating DNA evidence. In the scenario, the quality manager's emotional intelligence was a vital resource for assessing the problem and approaching the employee in a manner that is most likely to correct the problem.

Emotional intelligence, therefore, is a necessary ingredient not only for becoming an effective leader, but for developing them as well. Achieving quality in our personal and professional relationships requires it. And for those who fear that they may lack emotional intelligence, there is reason to be encouraged. Unlike IQ, which remains largely unchanged over the course of a person's adult life, emotional intelligence can be taught and trained through practice. An individual who, for example, is highly introverted and struggles with many kinds of social interactions, can become more comfortable with people and better able to express and receive personal thoughts and sentiments during conversations. Similarly, a highly extroverted individual may be an impressive sight to behold when working a room or mingling at a cocktail party, but may struggle to engage in deep meaningful conversations with individual people. This individual can learn to listen and pay closer attention to the subtle messages and queues that must be understood to connect with people in a meaningful way. Yes, emotional intelligence is important and it can be taught. But how can leaders of forensic science laboratories work to build their own emotional intelligence and that of their employees?

Professional training by instructors certified in the teaching of emotional intelligence can be a powerful option. But there are also valuable benefits from thinking carefully about how and what we communicate. If we appreciate that people's emotions are relevant to their performance and ability to lead, then emotions must be a subject of our conversations. If, for example, a laboratory director is working collaboratively with the supervisor of a controlled substances unit regarding an ongoing feud between two chemists, there must be serious considerations given to why the chemists feel the way they do and how they might respond to managerial interventions aimed and rehabilitating their relationship. To take a hard-nosed dictatorial approach requires no practical skill and won't likely produce long-term benefits. But carefully considering the situation and applying emotional intelligence, and perhaps with a little bit of luck, there is a greater likelihood that the feud may come to an end without significant harm being done.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence consists of capabilities in self-awareness (how we feel and our feelings' impact on our surroundings), self-management (how we respond to our feelings), social awareness (how we respond to others' emotions), and social skill (how we combine our awareness of others to develop their skills and influence their actions).29 To lead others, we must first understand ourselves and be conscious of our reactions and the way others perceive us. In healthcare, work is understandably emotional—either in helping others cope with a new diagnosis and identify a care plan or in addressing the stress of complex and challenging decisions made by the healthcare team. As a result, all pharmacists benefit from developing emotional intelligence. In practice, emotional intelligence supports leadership by allowing pharmacists to recognize and empathize with motivators for patients and coworkers. Through that empathy, pharmacists can build on common goals and influence others.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth. The concept was introduced by Salovey and Mayer and popularized and expanded upon by Goleman.

There is tentative evidence for the existence of emotional intelligence. For example, researchers found that emotional perception of characters in a variety of situations correlates with SAT scores, with empathy, and with emotional openness. Full convergent–discriminant validation of the construct, however, appears to be needed.

Some scholars still hold a relatively simple view of intelligence not much different from the view proposed by Spearman in 1904. However, with the introduction of emotional intelligence and all the other kinds of intelligences, it seems like a simple view may fail to capture intelligence in all its richness.

3 Various Models of Emotional Intelligence

Several different models of EI have emerged since 1990, and such diversity has contributed to a certain amount of controversy. Although there are important differences among the models, there also are many similarities. In fact, there probably is as much consensus about the EI construct as there is about the concept of general intelligence, a topic that has certainly seen its own share of conflict and controversy.

Salovey and Mayer called their model an “ability” model. Using a deductive approach, they identified four “branches” that are related in a hierarchical way: (a) the ability to perceive emotions accurately, (b) the ability to use emotions to facilitate thought, (c) the ability to understand emotions, and (d) the ability to manage emotions.

A second popular model is Goleman’s “performance-based” model. Like Salovey and Mayer’s model, the first component of Goleman’s model involves perception of emotion. In this case, however, the focus is on awareness of one’s own emotions (Self-Awareness). A second component of the model involves awareness of emotions in others (Social Awareness). These first two components involve recognition of emotion. The other two components involve regulation of emotion: Self-Management and Relationship Management. Also like Salovey and Mayer, Goleman proposed a kind of hierarchical relationship among these components, with Self-Awareness constituting the foundation for Self-Management and Social Awareness, which in turn provides a foundation for Relationship Management. Goleman added another level to his model, consisting of approximately 20 “competencies” that are linked to the four basic dimensions of EI. For instance, under the Self-Management dimension, there are competencies such as flexibility and initiative. Goleman stressed that these competencies are not synonymous with EI, although EI provides the foundation for them. They are learned capabilities that contribute to superior performance.

Another model that has attracted considerable attention is Bar-On’s model, which also is a competency-based model. Bar-On’s model is composed of five dimensions: (a) Intrapersonal, which includes competencies such as emotional self-awareness and assertiveness; (b) Interpersonal, which includes empathy and interpersonal relationships, among others; (c) Stress Management, which incorporates stress tolerance and impulse control; (d) Adaptability, which consists of flexibility, reality testing, and problem solving; and (d) General Mood, covering optimism and happiness.

One reason why the models differ is that they were developed in different ways and for different purposes. Salovey and Mayer’s model was developed deductively. Those researchers began with a general conception of EI and then defined their components based on that conception. Goleman, on the other hand, developed his model inductively. He identified the competencies that previous research suggested are most predictive of superior performance and then arranged them in clusters that seemed closely related to the basic components of EI. Bar-On’s approach also was more inductive. Beginning with clinical work on life adjustment, he identified a set of skills that seemed to help people cope with demands and pressures. Then, using factor-analytic procedures, he ended up with his model of five major dimensions and 15 competencies.

Despite these differences in the models, a careful comparison suggests that there is considerable overlap. For instance, Salovey and Mayer’s Perception of Emotion and Understanding Emotion dimensions seem to be similar to Goleman’s Self-Awareness and Social Awareness dimensions as well as to the emotional self-awareness and empathy subscales of Bar-On’s model. Similarly, Salovey and Mayer’s Emotional Facilitation of Thinking and Managing Emotions dimensions seem to be similar to Goleman’s Self-Management and Relationship Management dimensions as well as to the Interpersonal, Stress Management, and Adaptability dimensions of Bar-On’s model. Thus, although there are important differences among the three models, there also are many similarities.

Trait EI, social behavior, and mental health in adolescence

Research has shown that high trait EI in adolescence is linked to more peer nominations on prosocial behaviors (e.g., ‘cooperation’) and fewer nominations on antisocial behaviors (e.g., ‘aggression’). It has also been shown that trait EI predicts emotion perception, operationalized as recognition of facial expression, which itself correlates with prosocial behavior and peer acceptance. At high school, high trait EI pupils are less likely to have unauthorized absences (truancy) and to have been excluded or expelled from school due to breaches of discipline. A related line of research has revealed negative links between trait EI and Internet addiction, video gaming abuse, and gambling.

The fact that high trait EI adolescents enjoy fulfilling personal relationships during a period when they are so important to personal development is significant because peer acceptance, social networks, and social status offer a shield against antisocial behavior, delinquency, and psychopathology. With respect to the last of the three, trait EI is a strong negative correlate of, and a potential protective factor against, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, and even self-harming behaviors and suicidal ideation.

Much of the research revealing socially desirable outcomes for high trait EI adolescents is heavily reliant on self-report methodologies and often suffers from shortcomings relating to item overlap and common method variance. Several studies employing more elaborate designs as well as nonself-report (especially objective) criteria have revealed that high trait EI is not always adaptive and that there are circumstances and contexts where high scores are associated with maladaptive outcomes. For example, high trait EI individuals experience stronger negative emotions than their low trait EI peers when faced with a negative event or poor decision outcome, and they are also more sensitive to negative mood induction. It is also worth mentioning that there is little evidence to support the typical, yet untested, assumption in the literature that high trait EI has a causal positive influence on external criteria.

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