QWERTY is excited to have Dr. Barbara Fatum join us on a consulting basis to help us both further our ability to perform educational tests and bring new diversity to our existing test offerings. She guest blogs today as we begin a series on Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) refers to the ability of an individual to understand the data or “messages” delivered through an individual’s or group’s emotional responses. Emotional Intelligence allows one to analyze that data and use it to influence cognition, resulting in decisions that can contribute to the individual’s or group’s success. Research has demonstrated that Emotional Intelligence facilitates learning a systematic set of skills (popularly known as EQ) that allow individuals to consider multiple perspectives and multiple options.
Emotional Intelligence theory adds an important layer of understanding to the cognitive process. EI theory states that sensory input, translated by the cognitive brain into a representation with meaning, first passes through the mid-brain, or emotional brain, and is rapidly evaluated. Emotional data accompany the sensory input as it travels to the prefrontal cortex to be assigned meaning. This emotional data is designed to give the cognitive brain important additional information to use in the assignment of meaning. In other words, learning is part cognitive and part emotional. Most emotional data is registered in the unconscious mind, and is not readily available unless an individual deliberately focuses attention on it. Developing EQ skills allow an individual to shed light on the inner emotional world and utilize the data that emotions provide to make decisions that positively affect an individual’s life.
An important point about emotional processing must be noted here. Powerful emotions have historically aided organism evolution by overriding the neocortex and flooding the body with hormones intended to allow survival. As environmental threats have mitigated, the need for these emotions to promote survival has been reduced. No longer as keenly needed to facilitate survival, negative emotions have come to be viewed more as impediments than assets. They have a particular ability to disrupt work and hijack attention from the task at hand – disruption of the process of rational thought by powerful emotions has been termed “emotional hijacking.” Research also suggests that people who are upset have difficulty interpreting emotions accurately in themselves and in other people, impairing their social skills. Fortunately, management of negative emotions, like anxiety, becomes possible with emotional awareness.
As should be evident, developing EQ has many potential benefits for the individual. In our next post, we’ll cover some of them.
