"EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE" (D. GOLEMAN).   Term Paper ID:26760 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Critical analysis of work arguing that humans possess a group of abilities or skills involved in the perception of emotions in oneself & others. Paper Introduction: Introduction Goleman (1995) proposed that human beings possess emotional intelligence, a group of abilities or skills involved in the perception of emotions in one's self and in others, the management of these emotions, and the constructive use of emotion in everyday life. Goleman distinguishes emotional intelligence from the "narrow band of linguistic and math skills" measured by IQ testing and subscribes to the idea of a variety of types of intelligence (p. 42). Although Goleman draws on the growing literature on "multiple intelligences," he further distinguishes his conception of emotional intelligence from the "interpersonal" and "intrapersonal" intelligences described by Gardner (cited in Goleman, p. 42). Gardner's descriptions were limited, for the most part, to metacognitive functions, or "thoughts about feelings," and did not, in Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. 655). 655). 474). Yet how exceptional he is, what factors might explainhis development, and how the indifferent mother in the story is to beaccounted for (especially if one considers the question of the possiblesocialization of empathy) are questions Goleman is indisposed to ask. related to the developmental nature of emotionalresponses. S., Scheier, M. They concluded, however, thatwithout more specific knowledge of the ways in which coping affectsemotions it would be difficult to make substantive "progress in developingeffective coping-related interventions" (p. More significantly, however, Goleman concluded that it is alsopossible to raise "the level of social and emotional competence inchildren" and the central thrust of his work is toward the incorporation ofemotional education "as a part of their regular education" (262). But very little is definitive or universallyaccepted in the area of research on emotions. Fabes, Eisenberg and Eisenbud (1993) studied a number of correlatesof emotional responding including attention regulation (i. (1989) developed a multidimensional coping inventoryand reported on three studies in which they developed the items in theirscale, studied their scales' convergent and discriminant validity throughcorrelation of their measures with various relevant personality measures,and used the inventory in the assessment of a group of young adults' self-reports of coping responses in relation to a particular stressfulcircumstance. The researchers gathereddata on the children's' emotional, and prosocial responses, mothers' use offacial expressions during the telling of the stories, and mothers' reportedperceptions of their children's reactivity. Gardner'sdescriptions were limited, for the most part, to metacognitive functions,or "thoughts about feelings," and did not, in Goleman's view, take inenough of the spectrum of emotional abilities involved in the actualmanagement and exploitation of emotions (p. 45). But there is also considerable disagreement among psychologists asto how one can construe individual differences in coping. Goleman calls the fourth domain "recognizingemotions in others" or empathy (1995, p. The opposing view holds that coping is dynamicin nature and varies from stage to stage during stressful events. Those who possess such skillat a highly developed level "are more attuned to the subtle social signalsthat indicate what others need or want" (p. They note, in agreement with Goleman, that the increasedinterest in "children's empathic responses to others in distress" is due tothe assumption that they are "important mediators of their prosocialbehaviors" (p. stated, "it is time to give morethought to what self-regulatory functions are implicit in people's copingfunctions" (p. Another study relates to Goleman's (1995) fourth domain of emotionalintelligence, i. 27 ). The researchers' inventory included measures of two general types ofcoping: "problem-focused coping," which aims at altering the source of thestress, and "emotion-focused coping," which is "aimed at reducing ormanaging the emotional distress that is associated with (or cued by) thesituation" (Carver et al., 1989, p. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 466-475.Gardner, H. 113). It is, however, the third study, in whichCarver et al. 43). HRV is held to "index individualdifferences in nervous system capacity to regulate emotional and behavioralreactivity" and children's higher HRV was hypothesized to correlatepositively with greater self-regulatory ability during responses to othersin distress, in contrast with those who are unable to regulate reactivityand are, therefore, "prone to personal distress" in such circumstances(Fabes, Eisenberg & Eisenbud, p. Band and Weisz (1988) found that very little research had beenconducted on children's methods of coping with stress except for researchon children who coped with extraordinary stressors. But everything he asserts has to beweighed against the patchy state of certain knowledge in the field and histhesis may be viewed as awaiting confirmation rather than confirmed. New York: Basic.Goleman, D. 661). 281). 43). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. 252). They concluded that future researchmust include socialization influences as well as individual factors, andthe interaction between them, "to more clearly explicate the processesinvolved in children's reactions to others in distress" (p. While Goleman may generalize from hismany anecdotes on the basis of sound research by other scientists hispopular approach is not conducive to asking complicated questions aboutjust what is truly known about the development of children's emotionalintelligence. The storyof the highly empathic boy with the helpful disposition was taken fromanother psychologist's account and, as Goleman adds, "the dramaticflourishes are my own" (p. g. The literature reviewed here makes it quite clear that whileresearch goes forward on questions related to emotional intelligence thereis a strict limit to how definitively one can make most of the statementsin Goleman's book. Folkman and Lazarus studied the reactions of two samples (youngerand older groups of otherwise similar adult individuals) to recentstressful encounters and, on the basis of self-reports, assessed thesubjects' coping styles, the emotions they experienced at particular stagesof the encounters, and the degree to which eight types of coping mediatedfour sets of emotions. Developmental Psychology, 3 , 44- 55.Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. This supports the contention that those who are "proneto personal distress are more egoistic and less likely to be motivated tohelp others than are those prone to sympathy" (p. This meant that any method of studyingchildren's emotional coping would have to be sensitive to the existence ofsuch 'invisible' coping mechanisms while avoiding the pitfalls of relyingon self-report data. Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. Folkman and Lazarus (1988) found that both problem-focused andemotion-focused forms of coping brought about changes in emotions. Thesecond domain involves the management of emotions--the ability to keepemotions at an appropriate pitch and to coordinate them properly with thestimuli that produce them. Primary strategies, such as kicking and screaming, andsecondary strategies were employed with almost equal frequency among 6-year-old subjects but the use of primary strategies decreased sharply amongolder subjects. 42). 237). Attention shiftingwas hypothesized to be positively related to "indexes of sympathy andprosocial behavior" because those who are adept at regulating theirexposure in this manner "would be expected to be able to maintain theirvicariously induced arousal at an optimal, moderate level" (Fabes,Eisenberg & Eisenbud, p. How to feel better when it feels bad: Children's perspectives on coping with everyday stress. The first domain Golemancalls "knowing one's emotions" and it involves the recognition of one's ownfeelings as they occur (p. 43). Their research is based on the proposition, made byothers, that people undergo aversive, self-focused emotional reactions whenoveraroused and that, therefore, "differences in the ability to regulateone's arousal would be expected to be associated with sympathetic ratherthan personal distress reactions" (p. 244). 252). It is also possible thatsecondary coping strategies are simply too subtle for younger children whoare at an earlier concrete operational level in terms of cognitivedevelopment. This child appears to be anexceptional case. The shortcoming of Goleman's (1995) book, however, is that theanecdotes he uses quite often are not from his own experience. 656). Fabes, Eisenberg andEisenbud note, for example, that "the assumption generally is that a childwho empathizes or sympathizes with a needy or distressed other will bemotivated to attempt to reduce the other's need or distress" (1993, p.655). In addition they discoveredthat styles of coping differ in relation to the type of situation thatproduces stress and in relation to the age of the child. 41). Developmental Psychology, 29, 655-663.Fabes, R. 42). Although Goleman drew on a number of sources for his concept ofemotional intelligence the principal distinctions regarding the variousdomains of this intelligence derive from the scheme devised by Salovey andMayer (cited in Goleman, 1995, p. Emotional intelligence. The fifth domain involves"handling relationships" and is, in brief, the skill of "managing emotionsin others" (p. S. that relates to Goleman's ideas was, however, anindication of directions for future research. The third domain is that of self-motivation. As the authors pointout, while it is widely agreed that methods of coping with stressful eventshave an impact on people's emotional states, "there is little understandingabout the ways coping processes actually affect the emotion response" (p.466). A., Bustamente, D., Mathy, R. (199 ). 43). Conclusion While the studies reviewed here do not provide definitive proof of anyportion of Goleman's (1995) thesis, each study offers at least preliminaryevidence that various aspects of the concept of emotional intelligence willeventually be fully supported by research findings. D. 112). B., & Weisz, J. Band and Weisz noted that their studyrelied on subjects' self-reports, which are "naturally limited by thereliability of interview data," but found that some of the most commoncoping strategies of their subjects appeared "to involve cognitive-psychological processes that are internal and thus not exhibited for directobservation by others" (p. Prior to the development of this fourth-domain skill, however, a child must achieve two other emotional skills,"self-management and empathy" (p. If, as Goleman proposes, children's responses to vicarious emotionalexperiences can be learned, it follows that such learning is also an aspectof their socialization. Goleman's study, likeGardner's, had a strong practical orientation. Goleman not only contends that children can be trained to improve thelevels of their emotional intelligence and their skills in each of thesedomains, he also contends that such training is essential to the well-beingof society. This is important because, although Goleman writesas if most of the concepts he discusses are widely accepted, his ideas donot necessarily reflect the prevailing view of emotions, the role of self-regulation in their management, the situational orientation of copingresponses, or the development of social or emotional competence inchildren. They did not, however, find significant differencesbetween heart-rate and facial responses for the two age cohorts. Accordingly Eisenberg et al. This domain is the "keystone of emotionalintelligence" because without the ability to recognize emotions people aresubject to acting purely on an emotional basis without being able toanalyze "how they really feel about personal decisions" (p. Differentiation of vicariously induced emotional reactions in children. The study consisted of theobservation of mothers who told their kindergartners and second-gradechildren two stories about people in distress. Another important aspect of emotional intelligence is individualdifferences in coping and the importance of self-regulation in emotionalcoping. (1995). It is not that his ideas are inconsistent with thetrends in the research. Their principal findings support the assumptions regarding self-regulation of arousal and sympathetic responding. The principal conclusionof Carver et al. F., & Weintraub, J. . A., Eisenberg, N., Karbon, M., Bernzweig, J., Speer, A. Emotional intelligence consists,according to Goleman, of five major domains. But the principal thrust of Band's and Weisz's findings isthat children acquire secondary coping strategies and employ themappropriately in ordinary stressful situations. 43). (1994). The study of individualdifferences in coping did not produce satisfactory information regardingthe reasons for choice of strategy in various situations or the degree ofchoice involved. A., Eisenberg, N., & Eisenbud, L. M., Miller, P. note that this may merely be a function of the moresophisticated reporting of which older children are capable. 44). The numerous questionsthat are raised for the reader by the story of the little boy will not, forthe most part, be answered or even addressed. Band and Weisz (1988) found that children employ coping behavior witheveryday stressors with great regularity and that such tools are not merelyinvoked in instances of high levels of stress. conducted a study ofkindergartners' and second-grade children's responses to two filmsdepicting situations related to other people's anxiety- apprehension and toempathic sadness, and third film, related to cognitively induced sympathy,"which required more cognitive interpretation than the other segments" (p.239). They diddiscover, however, a strong positive correlation between high HRV andindices of sympathy and an inverse correlation between HRV and indices ofpersonal distress, confirming that those who are capable of self-regulationof arousal tend to sympathetic reactions to others' distress while thosewhose arousal is uncontrolled find their attention diverted by personaldistress reactions. In the present context the most significant findings reported byEisenberg et al. Goleman's thesis has a commonsense appeal that isgrounded in sound reasoning and concurs generally with the tentativefindings of behavioral researchers. (1988). of parents, teachers,siblings, and peers)" (Band & Weisz, p. The fourth and fifth domains of emotional intelligence relate to theemotional states of others. Coping as a mediator of emotion. 281). used their inventory to examine the associations betweendispositional and situational coping, that is most relevant here. 53). 28 ). Goleman supplies, for example, the story of a two-and-a-half-year-old child who, in his desire to calm his crying five-year-old brother, "isable to draw on a large repertoire of tactics, ranging from a simple plea .. The ability to gain control over impulsiveness anddelay gratification are skills that precede any productive effort. Theyalso discovered that while some forms of coping have desirable effects onemotions other forms, "such as confrontive coping and distancing, may makethings worse" in some individuals and in some contexts (p. Such findings relevant to emotional learning areconsistent with the idea that secondary coping may develop slowly becausesuch coping is "hidden from view (e. The second study addressed the problem of the relationshipbetween traditional personality traits and coping styles and discoveredonly "relatively modest" relationships between dispositional coping stylesand these traits (p. A great numberof psychologists believe that people possess more or less stable copingstyles or "dispositions" and, rather than approaching each stressfulsituation anew, "bring to bear a preferred set of coping strategies thatremains relatively fixed across time and circumstances" (Carver, Scheier &Weintraub, 1989, p. These interactions produce a senseof effective performance in children who subsequently modify theirparticipation in future interactions in accordance with their priorexperience. It began with the nowfairly common understanding that intellectual ability alone was a poorpredictor of success in life and was further encouraged by Goleman'sobservation that the growing tide of irrational violence and despair inAmerican society "reflects back to us on a larger scale a creeping sense ofemotions out of control in our lives and in those of the people around us"(p. They viewed children's coping in the framework of two copingconcepts developed in the study of adults: the "ways of coping" model,which distinguishes between "problem-focused" and "emotion-focused" copingresponses, and the "primary-secondary model," which distinguishes betweenprimary control (coping that aims at changing stress-producingcircumstances) and secondary-control (coping that aims at "maximizing one'sgoodness of fit with conditions as they are") (p. e., the aversionof the gaze to avoid distressing stimuli) and heart rate variation (HRV).They also correlated their subjects' (third- and sixth-grade children)dispositions toward helpfulness (according to ratings supplied by theirmothers) with variations in sympathetic responsiveness. Goleman's account ofemotional intelligence is essentially anecdotal (and he does not base manyof his assertions directly on clinical evidence) yet the findings of thestudies reviewed here are consistently reflected in various aspects of hisbook. Introduction Goleman (1995) proposed that human beings possess emotionalintelligence, a group of abilities or skills involved in the perception ofemotions in one's self and in others, the management of these emotions, andthe constructive use of emotion in everyday life. Socialization of children's vicarious emotional responding and prosocial behavior: Relations with mothers' perceptions of Children's emotional reactivity. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9, 185-211.NOTE TO CLIENT:The APA rules demand the inclusion of items in the reference list even ifthey are secondary sources (ie, cited in Goleman or other primary sources)--hence the inclusion of Gardner and Salovey & Mayer in the References. (1993). 32 ). x). 662). But they alsonoted that "many preschoolers did not report that they experienced sadnessor sympathy during the film requiring cognitive role taking," which mayhave been a function of the difference in the subjects' stages of cognitivedevelopment (p. The skills in this domain deal directly withthe self-management or coping that is needed to keep the individual on aneven keel. Goleman distinguishesemotional intelligence from the "narrow band of linguistic and math skills"measured by IQ testing and subscribes to the idea of a variety of types ofintelligence (p. 247). This has implications foremotional education of the kind proposed by Goleman (1995) because the'invisible' components of coping strategies that may be difficult forchildren to perceive can be inculcated via lessons directed towarddevelopment of these strategies. Eisenberg et al. In addition, Fabes, Eisenberg and Eisenbud found thatchildren's disposition toward helpfulness, as reported by their mothers,was predicted by their "situational reactions to the distressing stimulus"(p. The soleremaining finding related to differences in age was the discovery thatolder boys whose heart rate accelerated at the appropriate times "exhibitedmore facial happiness" rather than less and Eisenberg et al. 662). These observations led Goleman to ask whether anything could bedone about this problem and he concluded that, while the "underlying basis"for an individual's competence in various domains of emotional intelligence"is, no doubt, neural," it is possible even for adults to continue to learnand "lapses in emotional skills can be remedied" with sufficient effort(44). (1989). Fabes, Eisenberg, Karbon, Bernzweig, Speer andCarlo investigated one dimension of this type of socialization in a studythat "examined mother-child emotion-related interactions" and therelationship between these interactions and mothers' perceptions of theirchildren's emotional responses (1994, p. Another major difficulty in the study of emotions and emotionalintelligence is the problem of assessing a "specific subjective experience"and any measurement of emotion relies, therefore, on inferences which mustbe "made on the basis of self-report, facial, gestural or tonal, orphysiological responses" (Eisenberg, Fabes, Bustamente, Mathy, Miller &Lindholm, 1988, p. Emotional intelligence. 655). L., & Carlo, G. Thecommonsense argument is that a stable dispositional style would becounterproductive since it would "lock the person into one mode ofresponding rather than allowing the person the freedom and flexibility tochange responses with changing circumstances" (Carver et al., p. (1988). It involves"marshaling emotions in the service of a goal" and is necessary in anyenterprise that requires concentrated attention, self-motivation, mastery,or creativity (p. 43). Accordingly Fabes, Eisenbergand Eisenbud studied the relationship of indices of children's "self-regulation to vicarious emotional responding and dispositional helpfulness"(p. g. On this basis the various socialcompetencies, essential to effective dealings with others, are constructed. Thus, as Carver et al. Carver et al. Their findings in the thirdstudy constituted "a useful beginning" and "certainly do not represent adefinitive statement on the role of individual difference in the copingprocess," yet they strongly suggested that both dispositional andsituational coping strategies are employed by everyone, that they may workin a complementary fashion in many situations, and that situational copingresponses need to be better understood (p. This is not, of course, a universal reaction among small children.But even when they choose to use the same skills to increase a sibling'sdistress, children demonstrate their early apprehension of a vitalemotional skill: the ability to comprehend another person's feelings and toact so as to shape those feelings. also found that mothers' perceptions of theirchildren influence the ways in which they interact with them and thatchildren's behaviors, ages, and other characteristics probably have aneffect on mothers' styles as well. The last article under review is Folkman's and Lazarus' 1988 reporton their study of the effects of coping on emotions. (1993). Folkmanand Lazarus did not determine the precise mechanisms by which copingmethods engendered changes in emotions. 27 ). Fabes,Eisenberg, Karbon et al. 267). 244). 53). to direct commands" and all the forms of persuasion in between (p.112). The hypothesized relationship between maternal response styleand both children's vicarious responding and "their subsequent prosocialbehavior" was borne out by the results of the study (p. 474). A., & Lindholm, E. Fabes, Eisenberg and Eisenbud (1993)undertook a study of the behavioral and physiological aspects of children'sreactions to distress in other people and their relation to dispositionalhelpfulness. e., the recognition of emotions in others and thedisposition toward helpfulness. 43). Thus, what is for these researchers only a generally heldassumption, is a basic tenet of Goleman's thesis about the development ofemotional intelligence and its salubrious effects on the individual and,eventually, on society. R. Developmental Psychology, 24, 237- 246.Fabes, R. (1988) found that even their preschool subjects'self-reports, facial and heart-rate responses "were consistent with thecontent of the films" they were shown (p. Band and Weiszinvestigated the use of coping strategies by children in everydaysituations and both situational and age-related variations in choice ofstrategy. The acquisition of these competencies enables the individual "to shape anencounter, to mobilize and inspire others, to thrive in intimaterelationships, to persuade and influence, to put others at ease" (p. The problem is not that the use ofothers' cases undermines the validity of what he says, but that their useindicates the limitations of what he wants to say. Band and Weiszidentify their findings as preliminary and somewhat tentative butdiscovered, none the less, a prominent learning pattern in which children'sresponses to medical stressors displayed a conscious preference in, forinstance, a situation such as getting a shot for secondary copingstrategies such as visualizing a happier occasion or thinking 'happythoughts'. A review ofrecent research on the emotional skills and coping mechanisms of childrenand young adults demonstrates growing basic support for Goleman's conceptof emotional intelligence as a realm of human intelligence in whichseparate domains with peculiar abilities exist and in which early trainingis of great importance. K. speculate thatthis response may relate to "the masking of negative affect" that may be alearned response to situations that evoke empathic facial responses (p.242). The researchers produced no direct evidence that gaze aversion led toreduced arousal but indirect evidence, in self-reports from boys whoemployed gaze aversion, indicated that they felt considerably "lessrelative distress during the film" than those who did not practiceattention regulation (Fabes, Eisenberg & Eisenbud, 1993, p. 662). Mothers who are responsive to children's reactions to vicariousstressors "facilitate optimal regulation in their children throughinteractions that result in shared, positive emotional states" (Fabes,Eisenberg, Karbon et al., 1994, p. New York: Bantam.Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. Behavioral and physiological correlates of children's reactions to others in distress. There was a significantdifference however between the age groups in terms of the degree ofdifferentiation of emotional response in the subjects' self-reports.Eisenberg et al. His anecdotal book is directed at the general public andpsychology practitioners, but Goleman's ideas and conclusions are based onsolid findings in neurology and the behavioral sciences. Their study focused on whether the physiological (heart rate),facial, and self-report indices of vicariously induced emotional responsescould be differentiated, whether developmental differences existed in theseindices, and what patterns of interrelationship among these indicesemerged. ReferencesBand, E. Although Goleman draws on the growing literature on"multiple intelligences," he further distinguishes his conception ofemotional intelligence from the "interpersonal" and "intrapersonal"intelligences described by Gardner (cited in Goleman, p. Among girls those subjects who tended to uncontrolled arousalwhen observing distress in others were seen by their mothers to be lesshelpfully disposed. Hisexample is only meant to demonstrate that children can, at very young ages,acquire a fairly sophisticated command of tactics, display high levels ofempathy, and helpful dispositions. (1988). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 267-283.Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. Article Reviews Band and Weisz (1988) studied the reactions of 73 children (ages 6, 9,and 12) to stressful episodes which were recalled by the children at theprompting of the investigators. in the form of cognitions) and thusmore difficult to learn through observation (e. Developmental Psychology, 24, 247-253.Carver, C. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.