What is Emotional Intelligence? Is Emotional Intelligence is a Myth?
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. Aristotle
 |
Anger, happiness, sadness, etc. itself are not emotions
in themselves; It is the consequence of thought process going on in our brain. To
manage anger or understand anger one has to understand first the thoughts
running in mind which in turn result in emotions.
It is often said and wrote that an emotionally intelligent person, or a person with a high
Emotional Quotient (EQ) handles situations better and will have the capability to respond
in the right way to various situations encountered in life.
Does EQ really work? Is
Emotional Intelligence is a Myth?
The word “Emotional Intelligence” or “Emotional Quotient” could
not be found in popular old literature, though it was defined in various other
terms. Aristotle wrote “Anybody can
become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the
right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right
way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy “, but he could not coin a proper term for this.
The term Emotional Intelligence or Emotional Quotient was
popularised by Daniel Goleman in his popular book “Emotional Intelligence: Why
it can matter more than IQ”.
While the Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a measurable factor of
one’s intelligence and it also depends on your biological factors, upbringing,
education, etc. Emotional Intelligence cannot be measured by any yardstick.
So How Does Emotional Intelligence works?
To understand Emotional Intelligence we need to understand
how our nervous system or brain works.
How do we get emotions?
The following figure explains what happens in our nervous system
before any particular kinds of emotions are generated:
First, our sensory organs like ears, eyes, skin bring the signal
to our nervous System i.e brain, in a second phase, various thoughts arise in
our mind and as a result of these thoughts emotions are triggered in our mind.
Emotions are nothing but the shadow of thoughts, if our thoughts
are positive the outcome will be positive emotions. If thoughts are negative
the outcome will be negative emotions.
The human brain has two parts, the frontal part is called the “cerebrum”
and the lower part is called the “cerebellum”.
The frontal part of the human brain “cerebrum” performs higher
functions like reasoning, logic, interpretation, understanding, movement control, etc.
The back portion “cerebellum” is where various emotions are
generated.
Our nerve system first brings information to the lower part of
the brain, from there it is passed on to the frontal portion for logic and reason, and reaction purposes. For example, consider an input brought to the brain as 100%
out of which lower part of the brain sends wither 10% to 90% of inputs to the frontal portion
of the brain for logical, reasoning and response purpose. Higher this % of
Information sent to the front portion of the brain the person will have higher EQ.
An emotionally intelligent person uses more of a frontal portion
of the brain by applying logic, reasoning, and understanding and takes some
amount of information from, the lower portion of the brain to add the right amount of dose
of emotions.
Thus to explain in a nutshell
Emotional Intelligence is the “ Capability of a person to differentiate himself
from the thoughts running in the brain and rise above those thoughts and chose the
right thought among all and responding to a situation with the right outcome of
emotional display.
Emotionally Intelligent person
can see his thoughts as a separate entity in his brain, like he watches people
walking on a street and he knows the traits and nature of each person.
0 Comments