OUR
PARENTS AND THE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
If you are older than 30, your
parents almost certainly didn’t know about “emotional intelligence” while they
were educating you – unless they were psychologists and were following the
discussions triggered by Howard Gardner (from Harvard University) in 1983,
after the publication of his book “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”.
“Emotional Intelligence” reached the general public in 1995. Daniel Goleman’s best seller « Emotional
Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ » combined the
work of tenths of investigators in Psychology, presenting their results in an
integrated and meaningful way, accessible to us, lay people. The core
concept of emotional intelligence was taken from Peter Salovey (Yale
University) and John D. Mayer (University of New Hampshire). Seventeen years
later, Goleman’s book is still an authoritative reference in the matter, quoted by anyone who writes about Emotional Intelligence.
WHAT
MOM AND DAD TAUGHT US
The people I know better belong to two
groups, in two countries with remarkable differences. Yet, several of the key
messages I received from my parents are shared with both groups.
A few of the values and behaviour models
Mom and Dad taught me:
- "Cultivate good feelings and fight the bad ones"
- As good persons we are, bad feelings are unwelcome. Lifetime is too precious for wasting it with anger, fear, envy, lust and other bad feelings.
- Bad feelings should be suppressed.
- "Be « noble » and altruist, display your best face to the world"
- Don’t pay too much attention to your feelings; if you do, you become selfish and self-indulgent.
- Whether you feel tired, bored, fearful, anxious, etc., keep it to yourself. Your friends and mates do not have to be bothered with your ugly side.
- We must give precedence to other people’s needs; our own needs come second or third.
- "Children do never think bad of their parents and other key reference people"
- Don’t ever feel angry or be disrespectful with them – that’s more than ugly.
- Don’t have « inappropriate » feelings (such as sensual attraction towards a beautiful aunt).
- "Don’t tell me you are feeling down, depressed; be a man!"
- “Depression? What is that? At your age, I had already achieved a lot, under much worse conditions”.
- "Life is hard work – don’t expect too much enjoyment"
- Life is hard work. If you are having fun, better for you; yet, not having fun is not an excuse for not doing what has to be done.
- That applies to jobs, marriage and child rearing.
- "When dealing with other people, don’t manipulate, be spontaneous"
- The only right way of dealing with friends and acquaintances is to act naturally.
- People who do it differently become hypocrites.
- "Outbursts of rage are positive"
- An enraged man or woman is acting with authenticity.
- It is good to have an outburst of rage from time to time (provided it does not end in aggression, of course). It proves you are sincere and committed.
- When things get confuse, an outburst of rage can put things in their places.
And so on. Add to that a set of strict
rules applying to the sex realm and we all get the picture. Most heroes we
admired in the movies behave in accordance with this model.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with
these values and models. We can rear our children following the same ideas. The
issue is that our parents raised us before the current knowledge around
«Emotional Intelligence» was available to the general public. As a
consequence, the “implementation details” of our education sometimes made us not
so smart, in the Emotional Intelligence domain.
EMOTIONAL
INTELLIGENCE (IN A FEW PARAGRAPHS)
The model adopted and made popular by
Daniel Goleman defines Emotional Intelligence as the combination of 5 skill
domains:
1 – Self-awareness
2 – Self-management
3 – Self-mastery
4 – Empathy
5 – Social arts
Figure 1 – The emotional intelligence skill sets.
SELF-AWARENESS
« Recognizing a feeling as it happens
is the keystone of emotional intelligence. An inability to notice our true
feelings leaves us at their mercy. People with greater certainty about their
feelings are better pilots of their lives. «
SELF-MANAGEMENT
The skills that allow us to avoid
« emotional hijacks » by anger, anxiety or depression.
« The capacity to soothe oneself, to
shake off rampant anxiety, gloom or irritability. »
« People who are poor in this ability
are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it
bounce back far more quickly from life’s setbacks and upsets. »
SELF-MASTERY
The ability to « marshal emotions in the
service of a goal ».
Being able to keep an optimistic state of
mind despite of setbacks.
Being able to go into the
« flow » state that takes one to optimal and gratifying experiences
and to high performance.
EMPATHY
The ability to recognize emotions in
others.
Self-management is a pre-requisite for
empathy; a person under « emotional hijack » does not have enough
« working space » left in his mind for exercising empathy.
SOCIAL ARTS (HANDLING RELATIONSHIPS)
The ability to manage emotions in others.
The ability to act taking into account the
emotions of our mates.
Picture a group of highly « emotional
intelligent » people. What do you see?
- They are constantly monitoring their emotional reactions to whatever they go through, in the same way a physician or a psychotherapist is always monitoring his reactions to whatever their patients say.
- In a sports game, a defense player won’t allow a player of the other team to move around without careful monitoring; in the same way, the emotional intelligent person is always monitoring her/his own feelings. A feeling that is moving around unattended (such as an outburst of anger) can produce undesirable reactions.
- They actively act upon feelings that can escalate in intensity and lead to an « emotional hijack », be them anger, anxiety or sadness. They do never repress or hide such feelings from themselves, but they are always in control. They do not allow strong feelings to “overflow” and blur their conscience.
- Sometimes you see they are angry; however, they are always able to manage the energy released by their anger. And sometimes you see they become anxious or sad; however, they are able to prevent such moods to escalate and they recover after a short while.
- They show most of the time strong motivation for what they are doing. That is because they know how to marshal their psychic energy and apply it to the task they are committed to.
- They are constantly aware of the feelings and concerns of the people around them. They actively invest psychic energy in uncovering other people’s feelings and concerns.
- They are excellent at « active listening ».
- They are good at the « social arts ». They know how to use other people’s feelings in « win-win » arrangements. They are good at creating bonds with other people.
HOW
DOES « EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE » MISMATCH OUR PARENTS’ TEACHINGS
The way I implemented Mom and Dad’s
teachings conflicted with the skill sets of emotional intelligence. I’ve seen
the same conflict in friends and acquaintances.
SELF-AWARENESS (the basis of emotional
intelligence):
Conflicts with several of Mom and Dad messages:
-
Fight and hide the bad feelings
-
Do not spend too much time
considering yourself – particularly your feelings (“don’t be selfish!”)
-
Children do never think bad
things of their parents and other reference people
-
Don’t tell me you are feeling
down, depressed; be a man!
Mom and Dad’s teachings do not stimulate
the practice of self-awareness.
SELF-MANAGEMENT and SELF-MASTERY:
Conflict with the ideas that
- Outbursts of rage are
positive
- An enraged man or woman is
authentic
- "Life is hard work – don’t expect too much enjoyment"
In my child environment, if you don’t “let
go” your anger from time to time, you are not acting naturally. If somebody “pushed
your buttons”, you were obliged to strike back. If you didn’t, you were not
doing well – something was wrong with you.
Mom and Dad’s teachings do not rule out
“emotional hijacks”; they even stimulate them, in moderate doses.
And looking for "enjoyment" at work or even in the marriage is not to be admired. One does what has to be done, full stop.
EMPATHY:
Inherits the negative view of
giving too much attention to own feelings.
Mom and Dad’s teachings say that whoever
demands this kind of attention is not to be admired. He is selfish and
self-indulgent, so better not to spend too much attention on him.
Besides, “empathy” is a woman’s thing; men
do not care about empathy.
SOCIAL ARTS:
Conflict with the idea
that
-
When dealing with other people,
one must not manipulate and must be spontaneous
Mom and Dad’s teachings say that one should
not dedicate energy to purposefully knowing other people’s emotional patterns.
Only “bad people”, such as politicians, do such things.
Mom and Dad’s teachings provide us the
ethical grounding and warmth we build our life upon. They only have to be
updated and adjusted, in order to become fully compatible with the skill sets of the
emotional intelligence we need to be more successful in the Internet era.
[END]
