What is the power of emotions?

Understanding what the other person feels is perhaps just as useful as having Jedi power — you can stay ahead of others and achieve yours. But is the concept of emotional intelligence scientific, and that it can help us understand ourselves? Look about this our issue about the power of emotions with Anna Ulanova. Or read under the cut the decoding of this video, the most adapted for reading.

Emotions influence how we think, how we perceive information and what decisions we make. We all happened to do rash impulsive actions that we later regretted. And how often strong feelings prevent us from taking a new step in our development, trying to do something new! - Emotions affect us. And can we always understand exactly what we feel and influence it? Who leads: do we manage emotions, or do emotions govern us? To answer this question we turn to the modern scientific concept and think: “What is your emotional intelligence?”.
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First of all, it is worth clarifying that emotion is a special type of information that we share. We do this through different channels, they are all known to us: facial expressions, gestures, postures, intonations. They allow us to judge what kind of emotions we feel inside, how we feel and how we are going to behave. Why do we need it in principle? - The fact is that emotions play a significant role in the adaptation of the organism to the environment. Thanks to them, we understand how we behave in these circumstances and what is happening around us. For example, the emotion of fear allows us to mobilize our strength at the right moment and avoid a dangerous situation, while emotions of anger or anger allow us to effectively protect ourselves. These emotional signals that we can catch from each other, we recognize with varying degrees of success, for example, one of us successfully expresses emotions (remember the actors we see in the cinema and in the theater), someone recognizes them well, and someone can influence other people with their emotions. Well, and someone and the first, and second, and the third is not good enough.

To describe and study all these processes, the concept of emotional intelligence was developed. The jump in scientific research of emotional intelligence came in the 90s of the last century. Interestingly, then the popular science book of journalist Daniel Goulman spawned this wave of interest of readers (then this book sold out with record runs and people really wondered what kind of emotional intelligence it was). But on the other hand, Daniel Goulman received a great wave of criticism from the research psychologists - they criticized him for unnecessarily commercializing this area, for the lack of a systematic scientific approach, for the fact that his conclusions, which he draws in his book, based on real empirical data. But, as is often the case, the popularity of admirers has spawned many new scientific studies.

Since then, more than 30 years have passed, which is not so much by scientific standards (therefore this area of ​​research is considered young) and with the scientific concept of emotional intelligence everything is not really so simple - researchers interpret it differently (sometimes very wide). And still loud statements of the importance of emotional intelligence are actually much more than real empirical data. Let's take a look at what we know about the emotional intelligence of the current moment and that of the conventional wisdom is a confirmed fact:

• It can be said that there is no generally accepted concept of emotional intelligence. Some see it as an ability and highlight: identification (how we perceive emotions), the use of emotions to solve problems, understanding and analysis of emotions (when we can already say exactly what we feel), and, most difficult, the regulation of emotions (and here is a pleasant news: if emotional intelligence is an ability, then it can be developed).
  
  Others believe that emotional intelligence is a collection of certain traits, for example, social skills, empathy, and self-knowledge.
• Since the area is quite young, there is not enough information about what happens to emotional intelligence in childhood (from where it originates). The bulk of research has been done on adults, but there is evidence that in childhood emotional intelligence is just beginning to form, it is actively developing and by the age of 30 reaches the level that persists until about 50 years, after which certain aspects of emotional intelligence begin to deteriorate. Attempts are being made to detect the connection of emotional intelligence with various personal characteristics: for example, a correlation with extraversion, openness to experience was found, and with psychometric intelligence , a threshold connection was found - that is, it is necessary, but not sufficient for the development of emotional intelligence.
• There is a commercial request to study the relationship of emotional intelligence with the effectiveness of study and work. However, reasoning that 70–90% of emotional intelligence is associated with success in this area is an exaggeration. Rather, it can be said that different profiles of emotional intelligence correspond to different activities. For example, in some profession there is a specific request; say, a sales manager needs to be able to emotionally influence his clients - the higher his performance in this aspect of emotional intelligence, the more successful he will be in his career. However, he may not understand well enough and analyze those emotions with the help of which he influences people.
• There is scientific evidence that the profiles of emotional intelligence in men and women are somewhat different. In women, the range of emotions that they perceive and use in their own lives is somewhat broader, but the causes of such differences are not yet sufficiently studied.

Is it good or bad to have high levels of emotional intelligence?
On the one hand, it allows us to solve difficult life situations, to achieve our goals. But on the other hand, this does not always have a positive effect, for example, there is evidence that people who recognize emotions better are more susceptible to depression and pessimism.

There is a point of view that emotional intelligence is a manifestation of how currently we correspond to the environment in which we find ourselves. Well, for example, in a familiar home or work environment, we show a high emotional intelligence, and in an unfamiliar environment, we get lost and do not know how to behave. Therefore, from this point of view, the question “Do we need to develop emotional intelligence?” Becomes the question “Do we need to adapt to that complex multifaceted world in which we live?” - Of course you need! But how to do that? - There are a couple of tips that are tested by psychologists in practice:

1. Watch the people around you and what emotions they experience, what behavior they demonstrate.
   
   It sounds very simple, but, in fact, in our daily life we ​​are very inattentive to each other and we miss a large number of emotional signals that could tell us what the other person feels and how he is going to behave. If we put ourselves in an enriched emotional environment, we communicate with different people, read good books, watch movies - so we accumulate a large number of different experiences, which further allows us to behave correctly in the situation in which we found ourselves for the first time.
2. Watch yourself
   
   Knowing how emotional we are, how often, how long we experience emotions in our typical life situations, allows us to regulate these states in the future and not step on the same rake.

And finally: yes, emotions affect us. But since childhood we have been learning to cope with them, analyze, predict their appearance in ourselves and in others.

To cope with emotions is not to be not emotional and to suppress emotions, it means to do so that your emotions do not harm other people and lead you to achieve the goal.

Make friends with your emotions and may science be with you.

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We remind you that this was the decoding of our video “WHAT IS THE POWER OF EMOTIONS?” | IQ ”(video, just in case, is attached again):