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b543f8387c41-2 | emergency trigger, the left prefrontal lobe appears to be part of the
brain’s “off” switch for disturbing emotion: the amygdala proposes,
the prefrontal lobe disposes. These prefrontal-limbic connections are
crucial in mental life far beyond fine-tuning emotion; they are
essential for navigating us through the decision... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
a5d778d5a18f-0 | HARMONIZING EMOTION AND THOUGHT
The connections between the amygdala (and related limbic structures)
and the neocortex are the hub of the battles or cooperative treaties
struck between head and heart, thought and feeling. This circuitry
explains why emotion is so crucial to effective thought, both in
making wise decisi... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
a5d778d5a18f-1 | These deficits, if more subtle, are not always tapped by IQ testing,
though they show up through more targeted neuropsychological
measures, as well as in a child’s continual agitation and impulsivity.
In one study, for example, primary school boys who had above-
average IQ scores but nevertheless were doing poorly in s... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
a5d778d5a18f-2 | decision-making. In work with far-reaching implications for
understanding mental life, Dr. Antonio Damasio, a neurologist at the
University of Iowa College of Medicine, has made careful studies of | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
dc3525c22da5-0 | just what is impaired in patients with damage to the prefrontal-
amygdala circuit.
19
Their decision-making is terribly flawed—and yet
they show no deterioration at all in IQ or any cognitive
ability.
Despite their intact intelligence, they make disastrous choices in
business and their personal lives, and can even ob... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
dc3525c22da5-1 | position that feelings are typically
indispensable
for rational decisions;
they point us in the proper direction, where dry logic can then be of
best use. While the world often confronts us with an unwieldy array
of choices (How should you invest your retirement savings? Whom
should you marry?), the emotional learnin... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
dc3525c22da5-2 | emotional
intelligence that
matters. Indeed, intellect cannot work at its best without emotional
intelligence. Ordinarily the complementarity of limbic system and | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
949d0fa528ff-0 | neocortex, amygdala and prefrontal lobes, means each is a full partner
in mental life. When these partners interact well, emotional
intelligence rises—as does intellectual ability.
This turns the old understanding of the tension between reason and
feeling on its head: it is not that we want to do away with emotion
and ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ace35d7efc48-0 | PART TWO
THE NATURE OF
EMOTIONAL
INTELLIGENCE | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
4fd98e340567-0 | 3
When Smart Is Dumb
Exactly why David Pologruto, a high-school physics teacher, was
stabbed with a kitchen knife by one of his star students is still
debatable. But the facts as widely reported are these:
Jason H., a sophomore and straight-A student at a Coral Springs,
Florida, high school, was fixated on getting into... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
4fd98e340567-1 | knife” because he was infuriated over the bad grade.
After transferring to a private school, Jason graduated two years
later at the top of his class. A perfect grade in regular classes would
have given him a straight-A, 4.0 average, but Jason had taken enough
advanced courses to raise his grade-point average to 4.614—w... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
d603f6f777ef-0 | IQ, or SAT scores, despite their popular mystique, to predict
unerringly who will succeed in life. To be sure, there is a relationship
between IQ and life circumstances for large groups as a whole: many
people with very low IQs end up in menial jobs, and those with high
IQs tend to become well-paid—but by no means alwa... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
d603f6f777ef-1 | between test scores and those achievements is dwarfed by the totality
of other characteristics that he brings to life.”
3
My concern is with a key set of these “other characteristics,”
emotional intelligence:
abilities such as being able to motivate oneself
and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse a... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
d603f6f777ef-2 | attained five perfect 800 scores on the SAT and other achievement
tests he took before entering. Despite his formidable intellectual | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
909eb3271ae0-0 | abilities, he spent most of his time hanging out, staying up late, and
missing classes by sleeping until noon. It took him almost ten years to
finally get his degree.
IQ offers little to explain the different destinies of people with
roughly equal promises, schooling, and opportunity. When ninety-five
Harvard students ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
909eb3271ae0-1 | unemployed for ten or more years, but so were 7 percent of men with
IQs over 100. To be sure, there was a general link (as there always is)
between IQ and socioeconomic level at age forty-seven. But childhood
abilities such as being able to handle frustrations, control emotions,
and get on with other people made the gr... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
909eb3271ae0-2 | that a person is a valedictorian is to know only that he or she is
exceedingly good at achievement as
measured by grades. It tells you
nothing about how they react to the vicissitudes of life.”
6
And that is the problem: academic intelligence offers virtually no | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
836a15e0516c-0 | preparation for the turmoil—or opportunity—life’s vicissitudes bring.
Yet even though a high IQ is no guarantee of prosperity, prestige, or
happiness in life, our schools and our culture fixate on academic
abilities, ignoring
emotional
intelligence, a set of traits—some might
call it character—that also matters immen... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
836a15e0516c-1 | Much evidence testifies that people who are emotionally adept—who
know and manage their own feelings well, and who read and deal
effectively with other people’s feelings—are at an advantage in any
domain of life, whether romance and intimate relationships or picking
up the unspoken rules that govern success in organiza... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
fb873b93830b-0 | four-year-olds
around to play what they call the Classroom Game. The
Classroom Game—a dollhouse replica of Judy’s own preschool
classroom, with stick figures who have for heads small photos of the
students and teachers—is a test of social perceptiveness. When Judy’s
teacher asks her to put each girl and boy in the par... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
fb873b93830b-1 | then being developed. Project Spectrum recognizes that the human
repertoire of abilities goes far beyond the three R’s, the narrow band
of word-and-number skills that schools traditionally focus on. It
acknowledges that capacities such as Judy’s social perceptiveness are
talents that an education can nurture rather tha... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
fb873b93830b-2 | to whether they meet that narrow standard of success. We should
spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to
identify their natural competencies and gifts, and cultivate those.
There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed, and many,
many different abilities that will help you get there.”
8 | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
b8ccdf7a9fbb-0 | If anyone sees the limits of the old ways of thinking about
intelligence, it is Gardner. He points out that the glory days of the IQ
tests began during World War I, when two million American men
were sorted out through the first mass
paper-and-pencil form of the IQ
test, freshly developed by Lewis Terman, a psychologi... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
b8ccdf7a9fbb-1 | capacity seen in, say, an outstanding artist or architect; the kinesthetic
genius displayed in the physical fluidity and grace of a Martha
Graham or Magic Johnson; and the musical gifts of a Mozart or YoYo
Ma. Rounding out the list are two faces of what Gardner calls “the
personal intelligences”: interpersonal skills, ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
b8ccdf7a9fbb-2 | of intelligence, one out of touch with the true range of skills and
abilities that matter for life over and beyond IQ.
Gardner acknowledges that seven is an arbitrary figure for the
variety of intelligences; there is no magic number to the multiplicity
of human talents. At one point, Gardner and his research colleagues... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
1758e2f93e21-0 | intelligence. Interpersonal intelligence, for example, broke down into
four distinct abilities: leadership, the ability to nurture relationships
and keep friends, the ability to resolve conflicts, and skill at the kind
of social analysis that four-year-old Judy excels at.
This multifaceted view of intelligence offers a... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
1758e2f93e21-1 | numbers, or mechanics; movement and numbers were actually weak
spots for two of these five.
Gardner’s conclusion was that “the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
did not predict successful performance across or on a consistent subset
of Spectrum activities.” On the other hand, the Spectrum scores give
parents and teache... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
1758e2f93e21-2 | 10
In another rendering, Gardner noted that the core of interpersonal
intelligence includes the “capacities to discern and respond | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
205fa142045c-0 | appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires
of other people.” In intrapersonal intelligence, the key to self-
knowledge, he included “access to one’s own feelings and the ability
to discriminate among them and draw upon them to guide
behavior.”
11
SPOCK VS. DATA: WHEN COGNITION IS NOT ENOUGH
Ther... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
205fa142045c-1 | pursued in great detail the role of
feeling
in these intelligences,
focusing more on cognitions
about
feeling. This focus, perhaps
unintentionally, leaves unexplored the rich sea of emotions that
makes the inner life and relationships so complex, so compelling, and
so often puzzling. And it leaves yet to be plumbed... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ec28ecfcfd55-0 | mind registers and stores information, and the nature of intelligence.
But emotions were still off-limits. Conventional wisdom among
cognitive scientists held that intelligence entails a cold, hard-nosed
processing of fact. It is hyperrational, rather like
Star Treks
Mr. Spock,
the archetype of dry information bytes ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ec28ecfcfd55-1 | the relevance for their models of mind of their personal hopes and
fears, their marital squabbles and professional jealousies—the wash of
feeling that gives life its flavor and its urgencies, and which in every
moment biases exactly how (and how well or poorly) information is
processed.
The lopsided scientific vision o... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ec28ecfcfd55-2 | yearning for yearning itself is that the higher values of the human
heart—faith, hope, devotion, love—are missing entirely from the
coldly cognitive view. Emotions enrich; a model of mind that leaves
them out is impoverished. | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
7540fbb48d77-0 | When I asked Gardner about his emphasis on thoughts about
feelings, or metacognition, more than on emotions themselves, he
acknowledged that he tended to view intelligence in a cognitive way,
but told me, “When I first wrote about the personal intelligences, I
was
talking about emotion, especially in my notion of intr... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
7540fbb48d77-1 | need to train children in the personal intelligences in school.”
CAN EMOTIONS BE INTELLIGENT?
To get a fuller understanding of just what such training might be like,
we must turn to other theorists who agree with Gardner’s view—most
notably psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer. They have
mapped in great detail th... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
7540fbb48d77-2 | neither of these formulations of social intelligence held much sway | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
71b335d5ed42-0 | with theorists of IQ, and by 1960 an influential textbook on
intelligence tests pronounced social intelligence a “useless” concept.
But personal intelligence would not be ignored, mainly because it
makes both intuitive and common sense. For example, when Yale
psychologist Robert Sternberg asked people to describe an “i... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
71b335d5ed42-1 | terms of what it takes to lead life successfully. And that line of
enquiry leads back to an appreciation of just how crucial “personal”
or emotional intelligence is.
Salovey, with his colleague John Mayer, offered an elaborated
definition of emotional intelligence, expanding these abilities into five
main domains:
14
1... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
71b335d5ed42-2 | feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
fb45dae0bdeb-0 | more quickly from life’s setbacks and upsets.
3.
Motivating oneself
. As
Chapter 6
will show, marshaling emotions
in the service of a goal is essential for paying attention, for self-
motivation and mastery, and for creativity. Emotional self-control—
delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness—underlies
accom... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
fb45dae0bdeb-1 | Chapter 8
looks at social
competence and incompetence, and the specific skills involved. These
are the abilities that undergird popularity, leadership, and
interpersonal effectiveness. People
who excel in these skills do well at
anything that relies on interacting smoothly with others; they are
social stars.
Of cours... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
59f5337a4034-0 | high emotional intelligence) are, despite the stereotypes, relatively
rare. Indeed, there is a slight correlation between IQ and some aspects
of emotional intelligence—though small enough to make clear these
are largely independent entities.
Unlike the familiar tests for IQ, there is, as yet, no single paper-and-
penci... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
59f5337a4034-1 | and women. The high-IQ male is typified—no surprise—by a wide
range of intellectual interests and abilities. He is ambitious and
productive, predictable and dogged, and untroubled by concerns
about himself. He also tends to be critical and condescending,
fastidious and inhibited, uneasy with sexuality and sensual
exper... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
59f5337a4034-2 | Emotionally intelligent women, by contrast, tend to be assertive and
express their feelings directly, and to feel positive about themselves; | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
eb9594491f20-0 | life holds meaning for them. Like the men, they are outgoing and
gregarious, and express their feelings appropriately (rather than, say,
in outbursts they later regret); they adapt well to stress. Their social
poise lets them easily reach out to new people; they are comfortable
enough with themselves to be playful, spo... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
dcc92497e9d7-0 | 4
Know Thyself
A belligerent samurai, an old Japanese tale goes, once challenged a
Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. But the monk
replied with scorn, “You’re nothing but a lout—I can’t waste my time
with the likes of you!”
His very honor attacked, the samurai flew into a rage and, pulling
his sword ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
dcc92497e9d7-1 | thoughtful reflection reminds us of times we have been all too
oblivious to what we really felt about something, or awoke to these
feelings late in the game. Psychologists use the rather ponderous term
metacognition
to refer to an awareness of thought process, and
metamood
to mean awareness of one’s own emotions. I p... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
84e72f91b32c-0 | association nurtures in the patient.
3
Such self-awareness would seem to require an activated neocortex,
particularly the language areas, attuned to identify and name the
emotions being aroused. Self-awareness is not an attention that gets
carried away by emotions, overreacting and amplifying what is
perceived. Rather,... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
84e72f91b32c-1 | of the neural mechanics of awareness, this subtle shift in mental
activity presumably signals that neocortical circuits are actively
monitoring the emotion, a first step in gaining some control. This
awareness of emotions is the fundamental emotional competence on
which others, such as emotional self-control, build.
Se... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
84e72f91b32c-2 | efforts we make to keep from
acting on an emotional impulse. When | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
849d13330eac-0 | we say “Stop that!” to a child whose anger has led him to hit a
playmate, we may stop the hitting, but the anger still simmers. The
child’s thoughts are still fixated on the trigger for the anger—“But he
stole my toy!”—and the anger continues unabated. Self-awareness has
a more powerful effect on strong, aversive feeli... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
849d13330eac-1 | •
Engulfed
. These are people who often feel swamped by their
emotions and helpless to escape them, as though their moods have
taken charge. They are mercurial and not very aware of their feelings,
so that they are lost in them rather than having some perspective. As
a result, they do little to try to escape bad moods... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
849d13330eac-2 | Imagine for a moment that you’re on an airplane flying from New
York to San Francisco. It’s been a smooth flight, but as you approach | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5c0f882cd8cc-0 | the Rockies the pilot’s voice comes over the plane intercom. “Ladies
and gentlemen, there’s some turbulence ahead. Please return to your
seats and fasten your seatbelts.”
And then the plane hits the
turbulence, which is rougher than you’ve ever endured—the airplane
is tossed up and down and side to side like a beach b... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5c0f882cd8cc-1 | distress have very different consequences for how people experience
their own emotional reactions. Those who tune in under duress can,
by the very act of attending so carefully, unwittingly amplify the
magnitude of their own reactions—especially if their tuning in is
devoid of the equanimity of self-awareness. The resu... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5c0f882cd8cc-2 | 7
The college student stood
out in his collection of case studies as one of the least intense Diener
had ever encountered. He was, essentially, a man without passions,
someone who goes through life feeling little or nothing, even about an | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
c0ce423d34db-0 | emergency like a fire.
By contrast, consider a woman at the opposite end of Diener’s
spectrum. When she once lost her favorite pen, she was distraught for
days. Another time she was so thrilled on seeing an ad for a big sale
on women’s shoes at an expensive store that she dropped what she
was doing, hopped in her car, ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
c0ce423d34db-1 | to elicit some passion from him, Gary was impassive, oblivious. “I
don’t naturally express my feelings,” Gary told the therapist he saw at
Ellen’s insistence. When it came to emotional life, he added, “I don’t
know what to talk about; I have no strong feelings, either positive or
negative.”
Ellen was not alone in being... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
c0ce423d34db-2 | although this may actually be because of their inability to
express | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
324549eb3a06-0 | emotion rather than from an absence of emotion altogether. Such
people were first noticed by psychoanalysts puzzled by a class of
patients who were untreatable by that method because they reported
no feelings, no fantasies, and colorless dreams—in short, no inner
emotional life to talk about at all.
9
The clinical fea... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
324549eb3a06-1 | tears are all about. One patient with alexithymia was so upset after
seeing a movie about a woman with eight children who was dying of
cancer that she cried herself to sleep. When her therapist suggested
that perhaps she was upset because the movie reminded her of her
own mother, who was in actuality dying of cancer, t... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
324549eb3a06-2 | someone—does move them to feeling, they find the experience
baffling and overwhelming, something to avoid at all costs. Feelings
come to them, when they come at all, as a befuddling bundle of
distress; as the patient who cried at the movie put it, they feel
“awful,” but can’t say exactly which
kind
of awful it is the... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
884271484913-0 | complain of vague medical problems when they are actually
experiencing emotional distress—a phenomenon known in psychiatry
as
somaticizing
, mistaking an emotional ache for a physical one (and
different from a psychosomatic disease, in which emotional problems
cause genuine medical ones). Indeed, much of the psychiatr... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
884271484913-1 | add the nuance of language to them. As Henry Roth observed in his
novel
Call It Sleep
about this power of language, “If you could put
words to what you felt, it was yours.” The corollary, of course, is the
alexithymic’s dilemma: having no words for feelings means not
making the feelings your own.
IN PRAISE OF GUT FEE... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
884271484913-2 | Though extensive intellectual tests found nothing wrong with Elliot’s | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
896420ecd725-0 | mental faculties, he went to see a neurologist anyway, hoping that
discovery of a neurological problem might get him the disability
benefits to which he felt he was entitled. Otherwise the conclusion
seemed to be that he was just a malingerer.
Antonio Damasio, the neurologist Elliot consulted, was struck by
one element... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
896420ecd725-1 | centers of the emotional brain, especially the amygdala and related
circuits, and the thinking abilities of the neocortex. Elliot’s thinking
had become computerlike, able to make every step in the calculus of a
decision, but unable to assign
values
to differing possibilities. Every
option was neutral. And that overly... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
896420ecd725-2 | strong feelings can create havoc in reasoning, the
lack
of awareness of
feeling can also be ruinous, especially in weighing the decisions on
which our destiny largely depends: what career to pursue, whether to
stay with a secure job or switch to one that is riskier but more | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5cff61dd3d24-0 | interesting, whom to date or marry, where to live, which apartment to
rent or house to buy—and on and on through life. Such decisions
cannot be made well through sheer rationality; they require gut
feeling, and the emotional wisdom garnered through past experiences.
Formal logic alone can never work as the basis for de... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5cff61dd3d24-1 | with greater confidence, and so pare down our array of
choices to a more manageable decision matrix. The key to sounder
personal decision-making, in short: being attuned to our feelings.
PLUMBING THE UNCONSCIOUS
Elliot’s emotional vacuity suggests that there may be a spectrum of
people’s ability to sense their emotions... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ce016344910b-0 | the flow of narrative, abiding by the logic of the emotional mind.
Those who have a natural attunement to their own heart’s voice—the
language of emotion—are sure to be more adept at articulating its
messages, whether as a novelist, songwriter, or psychotherapist. This
inner attunement should make them more gifted in g... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ce016344910b-1 | people who fear snakes are shown pictures of snakes, sensors on their
skin will detect
sweat breaking out, a sign of anxiety, though they say
they do not feel any fear. The sweat shows up in such people even
when the picture of a snake is presented so rapidly that they have no
conscious idea of what, exactly, they jus... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
ce016344910b-2 | though it stews just out of his awareness and dictates his curt replies.
But once that reaction is brought into awareness—once it registers in
the cortex—he can evaluate things anew, decide to shrug off the | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
8825233d7e0b-0 | feelings left earlier in the day, and change his outlook and mood. In
this way emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next
fundamental of emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad
mood. | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
120c5d1b25bc-0 | 5
Passion’s Slaves
Thou hast been …
A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
Has taken with equal thanks
…
. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, aye, in my heart of hearts
As I do thee
.…
—H
AMLET TO HIS FRIEND
H
ORATIO
A sense of self-mastery, of being able to withs... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
120c5d1b25bc-1 | emotion, feeling proportionate to circumstance. When
emotions are too muted they create dullness and distance; when out
of control, too extreme and persistent, they become pathological, as in
immobilizing depression, overwhelming anxiety, raging anger, manic
agitation.
Indeed, keeping our distressing emotions in check ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
27e2f32e1928-0 | Downs as well as ups spice life, but need to be in balance. In the
calculus of the heart it is the ratio of positive to negative emotions
that determines the sense of well-being—at least that is the verdict
from studies of mood in which hundreds of men and women have
carried beepers that reminded them at random times t... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
27e2f32e1928-1 | reflect that person’s overall sense of well-being. It turns out that for
most people, extremely intense feelings are relatively rare; most of us
fall into the gray middle range, with mild bumps in our emotional
roller coaster.
Still, managing our emotions is something of a full-time job: much
of what we do—especially i... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
27e2f32e1928-2 | how long
an
emotion will last. The issue arises not with garden-variety sadness,
worry, or anger; normally such moods pass with time and patience.
But when these emotions are of
great intensity and linger past an | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
24bc3f16a471-0 | appropriate point, they shade over into their distressing extremes—
chronic anxiety, uncontrollable rage, depression. And, at their most
severe and intractable, medication, psychotherapy, or both may be
needed to lift them.
In these times, one sign of the capacity for emotional self-regulation
may be recognizing when c... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
24bc3f16a471-1 | are not always effective—at least such is the conclusion reached by
Diane Tice, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University, who
asked more than four hundred men and women about the strategies
they used to escape foul moods, and how successful those tactics were
for them.
2
Not everyone agrees with the philosophi... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
24bc3f16a471-2 | firmer with deadbeats.
3
But these rare purposive cultivations of
unpleasantness aside, most everyone complained of being at the
mercy of their moods. People’s track records at shaking bad moods
were decidedly mixed. | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
0fa789190bd3-0 | THE ANATOMY OF RAGE
Say someone in another car cuts dangerously close to you as you are
driving on the freeway. If your reflexive thought is “That son of a
bitch!” it matters immensely for the trajectory of rage whether that
thought is followed by more thoughts of outrage and revenge: “He
could have hit me! That bastar... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
0fa789190bd3-1 | as a medical emergency.” That line of possibility tempers anger with
mercy, or at least an open mind, short-circuiting the buildup of rage.
The problem, as Aristotle’s challenge to have only
appropriate
anger
reminds us, is that more often than not our anger surges out of
control. Benjamin Franklin put it well: “Ange... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
0fa789190bd3-2 | sadness, anger is energizing, even exhilarating. Anger’s seductive,
persuasive power may in itself explain why some views about it are so
common: that anger is uncontrollable, or that, at any rate, it
should
not
be controlled, and that venting anger in “catharsis” is all to the | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
6153423e79bc-0 | good. A contrasting view, perhaps a reaction against the bleak picture
of these other two, holds that anger can be prevented entirely. But a
careful reading of research findings suggests that all these common
attitudes toward anger are misguided, if not outright myths.
4
The train of angry thoughts that stokes anger is... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
6153423e79bc-1 | universal trigger for anger is the sense of being endangered.
Endangerment can be signaled not just by an outright physical threat
but also, as is more often the case, by a symbolic threat to self-esteem
or dignity: being treated unjustly or rudely, being insulted or
demeaned, being frustrated in pursuing an important ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
6153423e79bc-2 | which subsequent reactions can build with particular quickness. In
general, the hair-trigger condition created by adrenocortical arousal | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
155f200375e7-0 | explains why people are so much more prone to anger if they have
already been provoked or slightly irritated by something else. Stress of
all sorts creates adrenocortical arousal, lowering the threshold for
what provokes anger. Thus someone who has had a hard day at work
is especially vulnerable to becoming enraged lat... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
155f200375e7-1 | Anger Builds on Anger
Zillmann’s studies seem to explain the dynamic at work in a familiar
domestic drama I witnessed one day while shopping. Down the
supermarket aisle drifted the emphatic, measured tones of a young
mother to her son, about three: “Put … it … back!”
“But I
want
it!” he whined, clinging more tightly ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
155f200375e7-2 | especially great intensity. This dynamic is at work when someone
becomes enraged. Zillmann sees escalating anger as “a sequence of | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
72f63c607372-0 | provocations, each triggering an excitatory reaction that dissipates
slowly.” In this sequence every successive anger-provoking thought or
perception becomes a minitrigger for amygdala-driven surges of
catecholamines, each building on the hormonal momentum of those
that went before. A second comes before the first has ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
72f63c607372-1 | to action.
Balm for Anger
Given this analysis of the anatomy of rage, Zillmann sees two main
ways of intervening. One way of defusing anger is to seize on and
challenge the thoughts that trigger the surges of anger, since it is the
original appraisal of an interaction that confirms and encourages the
first burst of ang... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
98be9bd7126f-0 | to her too. But she took it in good spirits, explaining after he left that
he was under terrible pressures, upset about his upcoming graduate
orals. After that the irate volunteers, when offered the chance to
retaliate against the rude fellow, chose not to; instead they expressed
compassion for his plight.
Such mitigat... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
98be9bd7126f-1 | returned repentant and almost melted. Since then when I am angry, I do this if I can,
and find it the best cure.
The account is by a subject in one of the very first scientific studies
of anger, done in 1899.
6
It still stands as a model of the second way of
de-escalating anger: cooling off physiologically by waiting ... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
98be9bd7126f-2 | proportion of men translate this into going for a drive—a finding that | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5312d39396fa-0 | gives one pause when driving (and, Tice told me, inspired her to drive
more defensively). Perhaps a safer alternative is going for a long walk;
active exercise also helps with anger. So do relaxation methods such
as deep breathing and muscle relaxation, perhaps because they
change the body’s physiology from the high ar... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5312d39396fa-1 | have much effect; it is all too easy to continue with an indignant train
of thought while cruising a shopping mall or devouring a piece of
chocolate cake.
To these strategies add those developed by Redford Williams, a
psychiatrist at Duke University who sought to help hostile people,
who are at higher risk for heart di... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
5312d39396fa-2 | smacks his fist against the cab as it inches by into traffic. At this, the
driver shouts a foul litany of expletives at the man. | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
b15151598aca-0 | As we move along the driver, still visibly agitated, tells me, “You
can’t take any shit from anyone. You gotta yell back—at least it makes
you feel better!”
Catharsis—giving vent to rage—is sometimes extolled as a way of
handling anger. The popular theory holds that “it makes you feel
better.” But, as Zillmann’s findin... | emotional_intelligence.pdf |
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