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Personal Development: MODULE 8: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage emotions. It is important for success in relationships and life. EQ includes being aware of one's own emotions and the emotions of others, understanding why people feel the way they do, managing emotional reactions appropriately, and choosing moods to match different situations. While EQ skills develop with age and experience, people can improve their EQ through practices like recognizing their emotions, understanding how emotions influence behaviors, and expressing emotions respectfully. The document provides examples of passive, aggressive, and assertive responses to difficult emotions like shyness and anger, explaining that an assertive approach is usually best for getting needs met without causing conflict.

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Angelica Velaque Babsa-ay Asiong
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560 views

Personal Development: MODULE 8: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage emotions. It is important for success in relationships and life. EQ includes being aware of one's own emotions and the emotions of others, understanding why people feel the way they do, managing emotional reactions appropriately, and choosing moods to match different situations. While EQ skills develop with age and experience, people can improve their EQ through practices like recognizing their emotions, understanding how emotions influence behaviors, and expressing emotions respectfully. The document provides examples of passive, aggressive, and assertive responses to difficult emotions like shyness and anger, explaining that an assertive approach is usually best for getting needs met without causing conflict.

Uploaded by

Angelica Velaque Babsa-ay Asiong
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

MODULE 8: Emotional Intelligence

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
More Than One Kind of Intelligence
You may have heard people mention "IQ" when talking about intellect and how smart someone is. (For example, "My brother
doesn't need to study as much as I do because he has a really high IQ.") IQ stands for "intellectual quotient." It can help predict how well
someone may do academically. IQ is just one measure of our abilities, though.
There are many other kinds of intelligence in addition to intellect. For example, spatial intelligence is the ability to think in 3D.
Musical intelligence is the ability to recognize rhythm, cadence, and tone. Athletic, artistic, and mechanical abilities are other types of
intelligence. One important type of intelligence is emotional intelligence.
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage our emotions.
Emotional intelligence is sometimes called EQ (or EI) for short. Just as a high IQ can predict top test scores, a high EQ can predict
success in social and emotional situations. EQ helps us build strong relationships, make good decisions, and deal with difficult situations.
One way to think about EQ is that it's part of being people-smart. Understanding and getting along with people helps us be
successful in almost any area of life. In fact, some studies show that EQ is more important than IQ when it comes to doing well in school or
being successful at work.
Improving Your EQ
Emotional intelligence is a combination of several different skills:
Being Aware of Your Emotions
Most people feel many different emotions throughout the day. Some feelings (like surprise) last just a few seconds. Others may stay
longer, creating a mood like happiness or sadness. Being able to notice and accurately label these everyday feelings is the most basic of all the
EQ skills. Being aware of emotions — simply noticing them as we feel them — helps us manage our own emotions. It also helpsus understand
how other people feel. But some people might go through the entire day without really noticing their emotions. Practice recognizing emotions
as you feel them. Label them in your mind (for example, by saying to yourself "I feel grateful," "I feel frustrated," etc.). Make it a daily habit to
be aware of your emotions.

Understanding How Others Feel and Why


People are naturally designed to try to understand others. Part of EQ is being able to imagine how other people might feel in certain
situations. It is also about understanding why they feel the way they do. Being able to imagine what emotions a person is likely to be feeling
(even when you don't actually know) is called empathy. Empathy helps us care about others and build good friendships and relationships. It
guides us on what to say and how to behave around someone who is feeling strong emotions.

Managing Emotional Reactions


We all get angry. We all have disappointments. Often it's important to express how you feel. But managing your reaction means
knowing when, where, and how to express yourself. When you understand your emotions and know how to manage them, you can use self-
control to hold a reaction if now is not the right time or place to express it. Someone who has good EQ knows it can damage relationships to
react to emotions in a way that's disrespectful, too intense, too impulsive, or harmful.

Choosing Your Mood


Part of managing emotions is choosing our moods. Moods are emotional states that last a bit. We have the power to decide what
mood is right for a situation, and then to get into that mood. Choosing the right mood can help someone get motivated, concentrate on a task,
or try again instead of giving up. People with good EQ know that moods aren't just things that happen to us. We can control them by knowing
which mood is best for a particular situation and how to get into that mood.

EQ: Under Construction


Emotional intelligence is something that develops as we get older. If it didn't, all adults would act like little kids, expressing their
emotions physically through stomping, crying, hitting, yelling, and losing control!
Some of the skills that make up emotional intelligence develop earlier. They may seem easier: For example, recognizing emotions
seems easy once we know what to pay attention to. But the EQ skill of managing emotional reactions and choosing a mood might seem harder
to master. That's because the part of the brain that's responsible for self-management continues to mature beyond our teen years. But practice
helps those brain pathways develop.
We can all work to build even stronger emotional intelligence skills just by recognizing what we feel, understanding how we got
there, understanding how others feel and why, and putting our emotions into heartfelt words when we need to.

Dealing with Difficult Emotions


Shyness and anger are two emotions that can be difficult to manage in some situations. Let us learn about them and how we can
manage them to be able to be more effective in dealing with others.

TYPES OF RESPONSES
Passive response: Behaving passively means not expressing your own needs and feelings, or expressing them so weakly that they will not be
addressed.
 If Geneva behaves passively, by standing in line and not saying anything, she will probably feel angry with the girls and herself. If
the ticket office runs out of tickets before she gets to the head of the line, she will be furious and might blow up at the girls after it's too late to
change the situation.
 A passive response is not usually in your best interest, because it allows other people to violate your rights. Yet there are times
when being passive is the most appropriate response. It is important to assess whether a situation is dangerous and choose the response most
likely to keep you safe.

Aggressive response: Behaving aggressively is asking for what you want or saying how you feel in a threatening, sarcastic or humiliating way
that may offend the other person(s).
 If Geneva calls the girls names or threatens them, she may feel strong for a moment, but there is no guarantee she will get the
girls to leave. More importantly, the girls and their friend may also respond aggressively, through a verbal or physical attack on Geneva
.  An aggressive response is never in your best interest, because it almost always leads to increased conflict

Assertive response:
Behaving assertively means asking for what you want or saying how you feel in an honest and respectful way that does not infringe
on another person's rights or put the individual down.
 If Geneva tells the girls they need to go to the end of the line because other people have been waiting, she will not put the girls
down, but merely state the facts of the situation. She can feel proud for standing up for her rights. At the same time, she will probably be
supported in her statement by other people in the line. While there is a good chance the girls will feel embarrassed and move, there is also the
chance that they will ignore Geneva and her needs will not be met.
 An assertive response is almost always in your best interest, since it is your best chance of getting what you want without
offending the other person(s). At times, however, being assertive can be inappropriate. If tempers are high, if people have been using alcohol or
other drugs, if people have weapons or if you are in an unsafe place, being assertive may not be the safest choice.

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