Evolution of Emotional Intelligence
Recently, I was asked to build an Emotional Intelligence session for a corporate client. In constructing the session, I realized that I had begun to shift my view about Emotional Intelligence based upon current literature. Early work about emotions was posited by Davidson in “The Emotional Life of Your Brain”. At that time, the focus of cognitive psychology in the late 70’s and early 80’s was a limited view of emotions believing that they only occurred when the person needed to pay attention to something for altering behavior. Emotions were viewed as mental distractions or disruptions and needed to be controlled.
In the late 90’s, Goleman created a framework for building emotional intelligence in the book “Emotional Intelligence at Work”. In his model, there are 5 major domains for Emotional Intelligence; Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Group Awareness, Relationship Management and Motivation. Subsequently, Goleman and Boyatzis in a 2017 article Emotional Intelligence Has 12 Elements. Which Do You Need to Work On? maintained the same domains as the earlier work but only included four competencies in the self-management domain. They were self-regulation, adaptability, achievement orientation, and positive outlook. What I have experienced in working with organizations is that self-regulation is often believed to be the suppression of emotions as uncontrolled emotions can result in major consequences at work and/or at home.
What is an Emotion?
The question is “what is an emotion?” Depending upon the expert you solicit, it might be a feeling, a mood, something neurochemical, or a combination of all of those. We have been conditioned to believe that emotions can be labeled good or bad with the good ones creating upbeat positive interactions with self and others and the bad ones creating chaos. Early messages as children guided us to suppress as many of the bad emotions as possible so that others want to be around us and avoid consequences previously suggested.. As a result, we grow up to believe that emoting is bad and that we need to learn not to share our emotions.
McLaren in “The Language of Emotions” shares that real joy and happiness can only exist in relation to all emotions and when we shut down on one emotion, we are shutting down on others. Current thinking is that all emotions have a place in our lives. Suppressed emotions can lead to negative thinking which can build up in our brain resulting in a potential overreaction to stressors.
Hanson in “Hardwiring Happiness” shares that the patterns of negative thinking are a function of our brain evolution creating changes in our brains as a result of our thinking. The wiring of our brains leads us to focus on the negative. Hanson suggests that early humans had to focus on the negative in order to survive. By not being able to anticipate what could go wrong early humans could become dinner for another species. As a result, we have evolved a “negativity bias” according to Hanson. This bias also explains why we can hear five positive things during a performance review and hear one opportunity for growth and zoom in on the opportunity missing all of the positive things that were said. Research has been conducted by Barbara Fredrickson on the critical positivity ratio which states that individuals need at least three positive comments to one negative comment to flourish. Although the exact number needed has been challenged, it is somewhat intuitive to acknowledge that individuals grow and flourish under positive influences and tend to decline in situations that are negative.
Negative Thinking Leads to Negative Emotions
Unfortunately, it is not just evolution that has an impact on negative thinking that lead to negative emotions. Our brains also play a role. The amygdala where emotions are processed is activated more by negative events than by positive ones. Once the event triggers the amygdala, it sends alarm messages to the hypothalamus which sends an urgent message for adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline and cortisol are extremely bad for our bodies if not used to help us fight or flee a situation which in today’s environment is not an appropriate response. Think about it. You are in a meeting with a co-worker and you are receiving messages to fight or flee. It just isn’t going to happen, yet the adrenaline and cortisol continues to stimulate your body and you have to sit there! Now the event is being stored with negative detail by building new neurons for later access about similar events. The more frequent this cycle happens in our brain the more sensitive to negative events we become sometimes recognizing events as negative when they are not.
Susan David in “Emotional Agility” describes getting hooked emotionally as being caught by a self-defeating emotion, thought or behavior. Partnering with these emotions are the stories we tell ourselves about the thoughts we are having. The playground in our minds is awash with every minutia about the thought which in many cases can be negative. These stories depending upon their ability to magnify our emotions continue incessantly. David refers to this storytelling as the chatterbox in our mind. Other authors call it “Monkey mind” as our thoughts move from thought to thought gathering momentum with each thought not allowing for an examination of the thought-rather adding fuel to the fire that is already lit.
The Ruler Technique
Now that we have reviewed how emotions are made and how they can become a challenge when misunderstood or unaddressed, we can explore techniques for understanding and managing them. Many authors have suggested techniques for managing emotions. Susan David suggests four specific techniques in her book. They fall into four categories: showing up, stepping out, knowing your why, and moving on. For more on what’s included in the categories, you can read the book. One of my favorites strategies for management of emotions is the RULER technique developed by Marc Brackett and discussed extensively in his book “Permission to Feel”. The RULER technique represents five skills of emotional intelligence: recognize (self-awareness), understand (what is behind the emotion and where it is coming from), label (name it correctly), express (in a manner that takes us where we want to go) and finally regulate the emotion (in a helpful way). The last skill, regulation, requires us to be more consistent with strategies for successfully navigating the emotional experience.
The evolution of our thinking about emotions and emotional intelligence has been significant. The belief that emotions have to be recognized, understood, and labeled accurately and then regulated as the final action can benefit many people as they seek to become more emotional agile.
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