A Review of:
Joseph Ciarrochi, Joseph P. Forgas, and
John D. Mayer
A Scientific Inquiry
Psychology Press 2001
By Krista Guiteras-Duncan 12-10-02
Instructions for Book Review Report
Introduction:
“The heart has its reasons of which
reason knows not” [1, p. 113] Blaise Pascal, this perspective of Emotional
Intelligence suggest the two may not be as far off as supposed. EI is the latest development in
understanding the relation between reason and emotion. The unique stance of EI is to merge thought
and emotion as adaptively and intelligently intertwined.
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to perceive, express, understand,
and manage emotions. Major life events
can be positive or negative. Life outcomes are the ways that people choose to
adapt to their myriad life events. EI
impacts our everyday life. We expect
people with low EI to adapt poorly to stressful life events and choose to get
depressed, even suicidal. On the other
hand, people with high EI choose to respond better to stressful events by
coping well with such negative situations. [Chapter 2 pg. 26]
1. Advent of
EI: “EI is twice as important as IQ!”
EI is the latest development in understanding the connection between emotion and reason. Nowadays we talk about many different types of intelligences. In every case, intelligence refers to the capacity to perceive, understand, and use symbols to reason abstractly. Salovey brought to light the initial definition of EI in 1990. This definition follows:
A type of emotional information
processing that includes accurate appraisal of emotion in oneself and others,
appropriate expression of emotion, and adaptive regulation of emotion in such a
way as to enhance living. [36, p.773]
Emotional intelligence truly does enhance our lives. In having emotional intelligence we learn how to consider other peoples feelings and be sure to not hurt other’s feelings. EI is the key in learning to know what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. My favorite book teaches me emotional intelligence at its best.
Death and life are in the power
of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Proverbs 18:21
2. Cognition
and Affect:
How do emotions and thought interact?
Dr. Forgas unexpectedly discovers that the more we try to reason about
something, the more our irrelevant moods tend to bias our thoughts. Emotions really do influence our thinking
and our behavior. [Intro. Xvi]
Emotions influence everyone’s thoughts
and everyone’s behavior because emotions trigger action. For example, if a
person is bitter and angry because of an earlier event, they may take their
bitterness and anger out on someone else.
That someone else plays the “scapegoat” in releasing person A’s bad
feelings and bitterness. On a happier
note, someone may be happy and living each day as it was their last, happiness
consumes a person and everyone around them.
Happiness is contagious!
3.
How does EI apply to clinical
psychology, education and interpersonal relationships?
EI is directly involved in all of these areas listed above because psychology, education, and relationships deal with others thoughts and feelings. It is very important to have the ability of EI when working with other’s because EI encourages one to maintain good relationships with peers, co-workers, family, and friends.
4.
EI
is divided up into four main pillars.
The first pillar includes
ability to emotional perception and expression with accurate assessment of
emotions in ones self and others. The
second area involves the ability to use emotions to facilitate the thought
process, including accurate association of emotions to other sensations, and
the ability to use emotions to enhance thought. Pillar three leads us to understand emotions, involving analyzing
emotions into parts, understanding likely transitions from one feeling to
another, and understanding very complex feelings in social situations. The fourth pillar is managing emotions, this
involves the ability to manage feelings in oneself and others.
All four of these EI pillars are directly related to one
another because they all deal with the ability to handle and control one’s
emotions and how to not only manage our own emotions but other’s emotions. This
is essential in everyday life whether we are at home, at work, at play, or
plain socializing. As we each
communicate with people on a daily basis, we need to know how to be emotional
intelligent because we affect other’s as well as others affect us.
Motivation is often considered to be a sphere of mental
functioning a part from emotions and cognition. The psychology of personality is the relevant discipline to
decide because it studies many different parts of the mind. Also, all personality parts, from EI to
extroversion, may be systematically organized and segregated according to their
set up and functions. This approach
divides personality into four primary parts with a kind of newer version of the
id, ego, and the superego. The four
operating parts are as follows:
Energy Lattice: Represents the coherent cooperation of
the lower-level motivational and emotional systems of personality. It consists of one’s basic urges and
emotional responses to those basic urges.
The traits
describing the divisions:
* Motives: need
for achievement, need for affiliation, need for power.
·
Motivational Levels: Persistence and zeal.
·
Emotions: Happiness, anger, sadness/depression
·
Emotional style: Emotionality/Emotional stability
Knowledge Works: Represents the information store of personality: feelings and thoughts about oneself and the world in which they live, and operates on that knowledge.
Traits
describing the division:
·
Abilities and achievement:
Verbal intelligence, spatial intelligence, emotional intelligence.
·
Cognitive Styles: Optimism-Pessimism, detail orientation.
Role Player: Responsible for expressing and projecting internal
personality into the world. Plans important social activities and roles and
carries them out.
Traits describing the
division:
*
Expressive Styles: Extroversion-Introversion, warmth-coldness.
·
Expressive Skills: Politeness, good eye contact,
role-playing ability.
Conscious Executive: The seat of consciousness contains both
consciousness and the conscious will or self control. Oversees personality and contributes high-level, creative
thought.
Traits describing the
division:
·
Consciousness: Aware-unaware,
self-conscious-unself-conscious.
·
Will: High or low willpower.
[Developed from the Relational
Classification System for the parts pf personality p.29]
Emotional Intelligence was said to be more important that IQ in predicting achievement in life (e.g., 22, p. 34). This claim was challenged by measures and searching of documents. There was little evidence that EI is the best predictor of success in life, let alone twice as important as IQ.
Personally, I think that EI is just as important as IQ because with EI one holds the intelligence of dealing with people the right way. IQ is how much one knows intellectually, not emotionally. One needs to possess both EI and IQ to be ushered into success in life.
7. Why is EI
important?
On an individual level, emotional intelligence helps one to “feel life”. Emotions convey information. On a societal level, the ability conception of EI imprints a connection between the two opposites: the stoic’s idea that emotions are unreliable guides to life and love’s stance that one should follow one’s heart. It may be that the concept of EI starts a turning point in the wars between the head and the heart. Maybe, these two parties can attain a higher level of understanding and peace through EI.
I like the concept of EI because it calls for
working well with others. Emotionally
intelligent people know when they and others are experiencing emotions and can
accurately recognize and discriminate among emotions like anger, fear, guilt
and love. I consider myself an
emotionally intelligent person because I am careful to take into consideration
how other people are feeling and I think twice before I say something. The
second part was a very important lesson taught by my mother early on. Being disciplined in that key of “watching
what you say” has helped me to make many friends and to keep them.
I think that people who really care about other
people should read this book. It’s sad
to know that some people do not care what they say to others and their
intentions really are to hurt another person.
People who are in professions that work closely with others are those
that should read this book. This book
helps usher people to goodness and sheds light upon the fact that we should
care how we make other people feel.
2. The Book’s
Importance
The issue of emotional intelligence leading to
people’s success in life is an important concern. Emotional intelligence is directly related to cultivating good relationships
with others. We all communicate with
people everyday, some meet new people everyday and it is important to possess
emotional intelligence to be a person who is respected, trusted, and well
liked. I don’t know of anyone who wants to be disrespected, not trusted, and
hated. We all need each other and in
knowing this we should want to learn emotional intelligence so that we can
build bridges and not burn them.
In my thinking, the message of EI is very much needed
in our society and in psychology today because being emotionally intelligent
helps one to communicate better. Did you ever feel like not listening to a
person because they make you feel bad?
I have. Saying negative things because one is not thinking is not good
and it is not smart. People do not want to listen to someone who constantly
convicts them. With EI a person truly
takes into consideration how another person feels and works in cultivating a
positive relationship.
As a psychology major, this book fit perfectly in
what I need to know. The book taught me the importance of emotion perception,
understanding and reasoning emotions, and managing and regulating
emotions. This is very important in my
venue because I will be working with people’s feelings and emotions. I am looking forward in getting my MSW and I
know that this profession calls for careful estimation of others feelings and
emotions. I think that EI has the
capacity to enrich one’s relationships and helps them achieve success in life.
3. The Book’s
Structure
The books introduction was very thorough and it
explained the dialogue of feeling, the advent of EI, and the fundamental
issues. This is important as the
introduction sets up one’s initial impression of the book. There were no test to take in the book, but
there was information on the MEIS (Multicultural Emotional Scale) and the LEAS
(Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale) in which show validity with respect to
measures of items. There was also the
Bar-On [p.88] test that measured emotional intelligence and self-actualization.
There were tables that helped explain the characteristics
of EI [p. 10,11], the system set division of personality related to EI [p. 13],
the potential roles of EI in everyday life [p.26], emotional intelligence
models for predicting self-actualization [p.93], and the value function of the
prospect theory [p.175]. These tables,
graphs, and examples helped one to understand the concept of EI better, and
helped make the book a little more interesting to read.
Part III of the book is the integration and
conclusions. This part of the book went
into the analytical value of emotional intelligence. The references, author index, and subject index gave great
information if one wanted to do more research on the web. My oral presentation was on Chapter six
[p.98] which I enjoyed very much. What helped me was the reference section on
Chapter six where I found important information for my presentation. It was very easy to use and was very helpful
during my research for my presentation.
I think that every title one to eleven was appropriate for each
chapter. The layout was understandable
because it made the reading flow and it did not skip around.
4. Critique of
the Book
I enjoyed chapter six
the best because it was about emotional intelligence and intimate
relationships. I think that if
anything, we all need to learn emotional intelligence in our intimate
relationships because the ways that a person acts in the home with people
closest to him/her is carried out into the world in which they live.
I found this passage worthwhile because it shares the
“power of the tongue” aspect that I view very important:
To
keep your marriage brimming
With love in
the marriage cup
Whenever
you’re wrong,
Admit it
Whenever
you’re right
Shut up
Ogden Nash, 1962
Ogden Nash shares the secret to a
long and happy marriage that is relatively simple. He tells us to know when to say sorry, and do not “rub it in”
when your partner is in the wrong. This
seems fairly easy, but the fact of the matter lies in the art of knowing when,
why, and how to say you are sorry in marriage.
The ability to achieve the “art of knowing” requires many conservative
emotional skills like empathy, self-control, and a deep understanding of human
needs and feelings. [p.98]
I liked this passage because it
teaches one a priceless life lesson in dealing with relationships. I think that Ogden’s quote can hold a
husband and a wife accountable in their communicating with their partner. I learned to know when to say, “I’m sorry”
to my husband and especially how to not “rub it in” when he is in the
wrong. The “art of knowing” truly does
require a deep sense of understanding of one’s needs and feelings.
Another passage that I thought was very helpful to
know was found in Chapter 10, Applied Emotional Intelligence: Regulating
emotions to become healthy, wealthy and wise.
Confiding: Might this be the answer?
If expressing cynical hostility leads
to heart disease and suppressing emotions are associated with cancer
progression, what is a person to do with such feelings? Jaime Pennebaker at the University of Texas
proposed that confiding our traumas may have beneficial effects on physical and
mental health. Pennebaker has studied the effects of emotional disclosure
extensively and found that the simple act of disclosing emotional experiences
in writing, even anonymously, improves individuals’ subsequent physical and
mental health. [p. 171]
I agree that we need to learn
how to regulate our emotions for better health. I am one to keep a personal life journal. Most of the time they are praise reports and
prayer request, and sometimes they are “venting to God” in writing. I must say that keeping a journal helps me
to regulate my emotions by expressing them and it truly makes me get better. It is true that when the going gets tough,
the tough gets going; but when the going gets tough for one that lacks
confidence in their emotional regulatory skills, they may end up going to the
doctor’s office regularly.
Pennebaker, Jamie
Psychological Science. Volume 8 (3),
May 1997, p. 162-166
http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/journal.asp?ref=0956-7976