QUEENS’ COLLEGE DISTANCE EDUCATION DIVISION

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ASSIGNMENT

ON

General Psychology

Date: - _____________

Total Weight: - 30 %

Name: - Tigist Asnake G/Amlak ID NO: - 10010068/14

Department: -Management Study center: -_____________ Entry year: - 2014 EC /2021 GC

Program: DEGREE

This is the only assignment of this course.

This assignment is to be completed and submitted to the office of your center. Do not
attempt the assignment until you are certain that you have understood the units it covers
and have revised your self-test exercises and learning activities, and other necessary
references.

If you have any question about the units and activities, state the item/s clearly on a
separate sheet of paper and attach to your assignment paper .
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1. Describe the modern psychological perspectives with their focus areas?

The major perspectives in psychology that emerged are cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic,
humanistic, biological, socio-cultural, and evolutionary.
1. Cognitive Perspective
One of the important psychological perspectives is the cognitive perspective of psychology. It
focuses on the processing, organizing, storing, and retrieving of information and is concerned
with the higher mental processes such as thinking, memory, etc.
The cognitive perspective is the newly developed area explaining human behavior developed
during the 1960s. The foremost contributors to this perspective are George Miller (1920), Jerome
Bruner (1915), and Ulrich Neisser (1928).
Cognition covers the higher intellectual process as perceiving, believing, thinking, remembering,
knowing, deciding, and so on. The word “Cognito” means “I think”. Cognition is a mental
process in which the information is obtained, processed, transferred, stored, retrieved, and used.
It examines thinking, how we know and understand words, solve problems, make decisions, uses
language, communicate our thoughts to others.
For example, if someone stops us on a highway, and if we perceive him to need help (his car is
broken), we might stop offering assistance and remember that someone once helped us in a
similar situation.
On the other hand, if we think that he is planning to rob at gunpoint or remember a bad accident
with a similar situation, we would not assist him. This suggests cognition helps to analyze the
situation. From this perspective, cognition plays a vital role in guiding behavior.
2. Behavioral Perspective
Another, one of the importance of psychological perspectives is the behavioral perspective of
psychology. It is based on observable behavior without giving importance to mental processes
such as thinking, which emphasizes that learning plays a key role in controlling and influencing
all behaviors.
The behavioral perspective of psychology suggests only shown behaviors are observable and not
mental processes. It was J.B. Waston who had introduced the idea of behaviorism, the work of
Ivan Pavlov that influences him.

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Watson, then opined that human behavior can be measured through observable behavior, and not
by the study of mind or consciousness. He formed and practiced these principles for animals
which were later opened for humans.
Later, these psychology perspectives were followed by the B.F. Skinner, one of the greatest
contemporary psychologists. Skinner uses behavior in a very simple way. He used to cure
diseases and change the behavior of animals in a variety of settings. The principles of Skinner’s
are also used to train dolphins, seals, and other animals found in the circus or at home.
3. Psychodynamic Perspective
Sigmund Freud developed the psychodynamic technique, used to study abnormal behavior.
Freud felt the root of psychological problems are motives of sexual and aggressive nature which
stay at the unconscious level of the mind.
The term psychodynamic is used because these unconscious motives and conflicts influence our
behavior even though we do not know they exist. They are revealed in disguised, symbolic ways
such as in dreams, in slips of the tongue, and sometimes in psychological problems.
Freud also focused on early childhood and emphasized that early experiences have major
influences on personality development. The psychodynamic perspective is widely known for
treating maladaptive behavior by bringing the unconscious causes of distress to the conscious
level.
4. Humanistic Perspective
It emphasizes the psychological health of human beings, through psychotherapy, focusing on the
individual’s free will, values, and goodness of people.
The humanistic perspective of psychology was developed by Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers,
and Viktor Frankl during the 1950s and 1960s. This perspective has a very different view on
human beings compared to psychoanalysis and behaviorism psychology perspectives.
This perspective focuses on freedom in controlling human behavior. According to them, each
person is a unique individual and experiences the world differently. One of the most important
humanistic principles is that all human beings have a basic powerful inborn tendency to grow
and improve to their fullest potential, and a desire to take control of their own lives.
Humanistic psychologists are the “least scientific” of all perspectives of psychology. The
principle they focus on is very difficult to investigate scientifically because it characterizes by
philosophical aspects of human life.
5. Physiological or Biological Perspective
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It mainly focuses on the physiology involved in all forms of behavior and mental processes. Uses
research tools to investigate the functioning of the brain and nerve impulses and focuses mainly
on the role of heredity in normal and abnormal behavior patterns.
Every human behavior is related to physiological changes within the body. The working
relationship between the body, behavior, and mental processes is the focus of the biological
perspective. The physiological perspective describes the role of nerve cells in different aspects of
an individual’s behavior in emotion, reasoning, problem-solving, intelligence, speaking, etc.
In recent years, physiological psychologists are focusing on the influence of heredity on
personality characteristics and abilities. They are also concentrating on behavior genetics to
determine how much genes and environmental influence individual differences.
Karl Lashley especially focused on the continuous activity of the brain and its interaction with
the environment and a dynamic composite of the interacting systems. Lashley emphasized
fatigue, lower motivation, and poor recall as the three factors that are especially important in
forgetting.

6. Evolutionary Perspective
It focuses on how natural selection favors traits that promote the continuation of one’s genes.
How does evolution influence behavior tendencies and how that behavior or structure aids in
adapting to the environment?
An evolutionary perspective is based on the work developed by Charles Darwin (1859) who
popularized the theory of evolution almost 150 years ago. The evolutionary perspective focuses
on the role of the physical structure and behavior play in the adaption process of an organism to
the environment.
Darwin, in his theory of evolution, popularized three basic components variance, inheritance, and
selection.
Variation refers to the fact that organisms belonging to a given species vary in different ways.
Every human being has individual differences, differing in shape, size, intelligence, personality,
health, and so on.
Inheritance refers to the fact that some of these variations can be passed from generation to
generation

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Selection refers to the particular behavior the organisms have adapted to best suit their
environment.
7. Socio-Cultural Perspective
The main focus point of socio-cultural perspective is, how behavior and thinking vary across
diverse cultures.
The way human beings socialize and develop from their early life to old age is explained through
a perspective in psychology known as the socio-cultural perspective. Socio-cultural psychology
explains how our personality, beliefs, attitude, skills, and values are shaped by our culture
ethnicity, gender, religion, and other important socio-cultural factors.
Socio-cultural aspects are concerned with how people interact, are interdependent, and inter-
coordinate with each other to influence and to be influenced by each other.
2. Explain those factors influencing learning (motivation, health condition,
psychological well-being and length of work period).  Explain how those
factors affect your learning process and how you manage?
factors influencing motivation
Factors of motivation are strategies, incentives, recognitions and any other elements that increase
an employee's overall motivation to perform their duties at work. You can implement several
different factors of motivation within your team or for yourself to increase productivity and
satisfaction.
 Access to nutritious foods.
 Access to clean water and working utilities (electricity, sanitation, heating, and cooling).
 Early childhood social and physical environments, including childcare.
 Ethnicity and culture.
 Family and other social support.
 Gender.
 Language and other communication capabilities.
Factors That Influence Psychological Well-Being
 Infancy and Early Childhood.
 Individual attributes and behaviors.
 Social and economic circumstances.
 Environmental factors.
 Personality.
 Five factors.
3. List down the theories of forgetting and elaborate the main ideas of each
theory?

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Throughout the years, psychologists have created five theories of forgetting in an attempt to
explain how and why memories slip from our memories. These five theories include
the displacement theory, decay theory, interference theory, retrieval failure theory, and
consolidation theory.
Displacement Theory of Forgetting

The displacement theory describes how forgetting works in short-term memory. Short-term
memory has a limited capacity and can only hold a small amount of information—up to about
seven items at one time. Once the memory is full, new information will replace the old one. 

Suppose you have just learned a seven-digit phone number when you are given another number
to memorize. Your short-term memory doesn’t have the capacity to store both information. In
order to recall the new phone number, you’ll have to forget the first one.  
The displacement theory is supported by studies that use the free-recall method.
Free recall method
In studies based on the free-recall method, participants are asked to listen to a list of words and
then try to remember them. The free recall method, unlike the serial recall one, allows
remembering words in no particular order. These studies show that the first and the last items on
the list are the easiest ones to remember.
Recalling the first item on the list is simple due to the primacy effect. At the time they are
presented, these initial words don’t yet compete with the subsequent ones for a place in the short-
term memory. 
The recency effect explains why the participants remember items at the end of the list. These
words have not yet been suppressed from short-term memory. The words in the middle of the
list, pushed out from the short-term memory by the last words, are much less likely to be
recalled.
Trace Decay Theory of Forgetting
The trace decay theory was formed by American psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1914, based
on the early memory work by Hermann Ebbinghaus. The theory states that if we don’t access
memories, they will fade over time. 
When we learn something new, the brain undergoes neuro-chemical changes called memory
traces. Memory retrieval requires us to revisit those traces that the brain formed when encoding
the memory. The trace decay theory implies that the length of time between the memory and

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recalling determines whether we will retain or forget a piece of information. The shorter the time
interval, the more we will remember, and vice versa.
The trace decay theory, however, doesn’t explain why many people can clearly remember past
events, even if they haven’t given them much thought before. Neither does it take into account
the role of all the events that have taken place between the learning and the recall of the memory.
The interference theory concentrates precisely on this aspect of forgetting.
Interference Theory of Forgetting
The interference theory was the dominant theory of forgetting throughout the 20th century. It
asserts that the ability to remember can be disrupted both by our previous learning and by new
information. In essence, we forget because memories interfere with and disrupt one another. For
example, by the end of the week, we won’t remember what we ate for breakfast on Monday
because we had many other similar meals since then. 
The first study on interference was conducted by German psychologist John A. Bergstrom in
1892. He asked participants to sort two decks of word cards into two piles. When the location of
one of the piles changed, the first set of sorting rules interfered with learning the new ones and
sorting became slower.

Proactive interference

Proactive interferences take place when old memories prevent making new ones. This often
occurs when memories are created in a similar context or include near-identical items.
Remembering a new code for the combination lock might be more difficult than we expect. Our
memories of the old code interfere with the new details and make it harder to retain.
Retroactive interference
Retroactive interferences occur when old memories are altered by new ones. Just like with
proactive interference, they often happen with two similar sets of memories. Let’s say you used
to study Spanish and are now learning French. When you try to speak Spanish, the newly
acquired French words may interfere with your previous knowledge. 
Retrieval Failure Theory of Forgetting
The retrieval failure theory was developed by Canadian psychologist and cognitive
neuroscientist Endel Tulving in 1974. According to this theory, forgetting often involves a
failure in memory retrieval. Although the information stored in the long-term memory is not lost,
we are unable to retrieve it at a particular moment. A classic example is the tip of the tongue
effect when we are unable to remember a familiar name or word. 

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There are two main reasons for failure in memory retrieval. Encoding failure prevents us from
remembering information because it never made it into long-term memory in the first place. Or
the information may be stored in long-term memory, but we can’t access it because we lack
retrieval cues.

Retrieval cues
A retrieval cue is a trigger that helps us remember something.
When we create a new memory, we also retain elements of the situation in which the event
occurred. These elements will later serve as retrieval cues. Information is more likely to be
retrieved from long-term memory with the help of relevant retrieval cues. Conversely, retrieval
failure or cue-dependent forgetting may occur when we can’t access memory cues.
Semantic cues 
Semantic cues are associations with other memories. For example, we might have forgotten
everything about a trip we took years ago until we remember visiting a friend in that place. This
cue will allow recollecting further details about the trip.

State-dependent cues 

State-dependent cues are related to our psychological state at the time of the experience, like
being very anxious or extremely happy. Finding ourselves in a similar state of mind may help us
retrieve some old memories.

Context-dependent cues 

Context-dependent cues are environmental factors such as sounds, sight, and smell. For instance,
witnesses are often taken back to the crime scene that contains environmental cues from when
the memory was formed. These cues can help recollect the details of the crime.

Consolidation Theory of Forgetting

While the above theories of forgetting concentrate principally on psychological evidence, the
consolidation theory is based on the physiological aspects of forgetting. Memory consolidation is
the critical process of stabilizing a memory and making it less susceptible to disruptions. Once it
is consolidated, memory is moved from short term to a more permanent long-term storage,
becoming much more resistant to forgetting.

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The term consolidation was coined by Georg Elias Muller and Alfons Pilzecker in 1900. The two
German psychologists were also the first to explain the theory of retroactive interference, newly
learned material interfering with the retrieval of the old one, in terms of consolidation.

4. Explain the basic concept of humanistic theory of personality and elaborate

the concept of conditional and unconditional positive regards?
Abraham Maslow Human motives are arranged in a hierarchy of needs. As a human need, we
strive to achieve self-actualization. However, in order to achieve self actualization, needs at the
bottom of the hierarchy must be satisfied first.
The social environment has a strong effect on the development of self-actualization. It is difficult
for the poor to satisfy self-actualization and esteem needs if safety and physiological needs are
not met.
• more likely to report being truly in love with at least one other person during the past three
years than students who scored lower. The latter students reported not having been intimately
involved with anyone.
• were less resentful to their former lovers than those who were less actualizing when their
relationship had broken up.
(1) Humanistic motives ignore other factors such as incentives, biological factors and situational
factors.
(2) Humanistic theories are too optimistic. It has difficulties accounting for destructive behavior.
(3) Humanistic claims, concepts and motives are too vague to be assessed. Like the
psychoanalytic perspective, it is based on clinical observations, rather than empirical research. o
How do you assess when someone is self-actualized? o How do you assess a self-concept? o
How do you assess whether a self-concept is congruent?
(4) If the actualization tendency is universal, then why is it difficult to find people who are self-
actualized? Contributions of the Humanist Perspective
(1) Promoted the scientific study of healthy individuals and creativity.
(2) Subjective experience and self-concept have become important concepts in the understanding
of personality.

5. How can we live with our friends/work colleagues from a different culture?
You can also reflect your knowledge and experience.

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1. Start with yourself

Before you start looking outward, look inward at your own ways of thinking and behaving. It’s important
to understand the impact that your preconceptions and subconscious actions have on others. Take time to
consider your responses to different situations instead of continuing to act un-reflexively.
2. Be objective
Remember that all approaches to work have their own advantages and disadvantages. How can you use a
different approach, such as collectivism or a focus on relationships, to the advantage of yourself or others
in a different context? Be aware that your usual way of working may not be the best approach.
3. Be willing to adapt
A major challenge in working across cultures is that the world doesn’t stand still. An ability to adjust
quickly to new circumstances is vital. Cultures change and adapt as they come into contact with others,
and with the impact of ever-evolving technology. Tread carefully when you make assumptions about the
people you’re working with and be willing to alter your perceptions based on experience.
4. Stay curious
Every culture views the world from a narrow perspective, seeing things in a certain frame. It is only by
staying curious and being willing to learn that we expand our view of the world. A lack of interest can
quickly be perceived as disrespectful or dismissive. Ask specific, open-ended questions and pay attention
to the answers so you can demonstrate your willingness to learn.
5. When in doubt, ask
If you don’t understand something, or even if you only think you do, don’t be afraid to ask for
clarification. You may find that your assumptions were incorrect because you weren’t considering the
other person’s perspective. For instance, certain words may not translate into other languages just as
customs may not translate across cultures.
6. Empathies
It is hard to see the world through other people’s eyes, even in the same cultural setting. However, to
collaborate properly, you need to try. Sit down with others to understand their approaches to aspects of
business such as communication, decision-making and information sharing. You don’t necessarily need to
agree, but it is worthwhile to take the steps towards understanding.
7. Be friendly
Relationship building is important in many cultures, making it critical to be liked and trusted as an
individual. Make an effort to get to know people on a personal level. It may sound simple, but avoid
being cynical or abrasive. Success in other cultures can often be about no more than being liked.
8. Patience is a virtue

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Don’t expect to learn, or produce results, as quickly as you usually would. It is easy to get frustrated when
things aren’t moving as fast as we’d like, but this leads to burn-out, ultimately meaning that we retreat
back into our own culture as a comfort zone. Give talent more time to shine in new cultural situations.
9. Use your perceptiveness
Without the ability to identify differences and similarities between people, cross-cultural working will
fail. Go into these relationships with your eyes open and ready to see the differences between cultures.
Without perception, you can’t adapt.
10. Find your resilience
Finally, crossing cultural borders can be exhausting. Being alert the whole time to a different culture takes
a lot of concentration and energy. A good sense of humour can help you to get through difficult times and
achieve success.
6. Describe the concepts of emotional intelligence and write what you need to
improve your emotional intelligence?

From this perspective, emotional intelligence could be useful in almost all areas of life. Let’s
look at some examples of emotional intelligence in action.

Self-awareness and leadership

Our awareness of emotions is centrally important to our relationships (Schutte et al., 2001)
and ability to lead others (Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005).
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised globally for her ability to
listen, show empathy, and connect with people in a crisis. CEO Today Magazine says we can
learn a lot from Ardern’s ability to manage her own emotions effectively, as “self-awareness
is the foundation on which all else is built” and “allows us to engage others on their terms”
(Lothian, 2020).

Decision making

Psychologist and EQ expert Daniel Goleman (2019) recommends listening to your gut, as

bodily intuitions reveal “decision rules that the mind gathers unconsciously.” In this way,
emotional signals from our bodies provide a sort of intangible wisdom guiding us toward the
“right” decisions.
To support this, Seo and Barrett (2007) found that stock investors who were experiencing
more intense emotions and better at discriminating between emotions showed better
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decision-making performance. The researchers suggested that a greater awareness of

emotions boosted the investors’ ability to manage emotional biases, which ultimately led to
better decisions.

Stress management and mental wellbeing

Having an awareness of and ability to manage emotions can make us feel more equipped to
deal with difficult feelings and situations (Gohm, Corser, & Dalsky, 2005), and support
greater mental wellbeing (Fernandez-Berrocal, Alcaide, Extremera, & Pizarro, 2006).
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has spoken publicly about his struggles with mental health
that ultimately led him to seek therapy. CNN Health highlighted how Prince Harry’s
openness to talk about and express his emotions is helping others too, by making mental
wellbeing a more acceptable topic to talk about, particularly for men (Duffy, 2021).

Emotional intelligence and personality

There’s been some controversy around using the term emotional ‘intelligence’ in models of
EQ that include constructs resembling personality and broader social skills. Where do these
attributes end and EQ begin (Neubauer & Freudenthaler, 2005)?
While more objective performance measures of EQ (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) have shown to
be distinct from the Big Five personality traits of extraversion, openness, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and neuroticism, some self-report measures of EQ have shown greater
crossover with personality measures (Brackett & Mayer, 2003).
Ability measures and self-report measures have shown a weak correlation with each other,
suggesting that they may capture different aspects of EQ (Brackett & Mayer, 2003).

Fascinating Components and Theories of EQ

The proposed number of components of EQ differs between theories; however, Mayer and
Salovey’s (1997) model conceptualizes EQ as measurable abilities that do not rely on self-
perceived ratings of EQ.

Mayer and Salovey’s integrative emotional intelligence model

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Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) integrative model comprises four interconnected emotional
abilities:

1. Perception and expression of emotion

Noticing your own emotions and picking up on the emotions of others as well as the
ability to distinguish between discrete emotions.
2. Using emotion to facilitate thought
How you incorporate emotions into your thinking processes and an understanding of
when and how emotions can be helpful for reasoning processes.
3. Understanding and analyzing emotions
The capacity to decode emotions, make sense of their meaning, and understand how
they relate to each other and change over time.
4. Reflective regulation of emotion
An openness to all emotions and the ability to regulate your own emotions and the
emotions of others to facilitate growth and insight.
Bar-On’s model of social and emotional intelligence
Bar-On’s (1997, 2006) mixed model claims that EQ is a combination of competencies, skills,
and “facilitators” that contribute to how people express themselves, respond to challenges in
their environment, and connect with others.
Bar-On (2006) suggests that 10 distinct components provide the scaffolding of emotionally
and socially intelligent behaviors:
1. Self-regard 4. Empathy 7. Impulse control
2. Emotional 5. Interpersonal 8. Reality testing
awareness relationships 9. Flexibility
3. Assertiveness 6. Stress tolerance 10. Problem solving

Self-actualization, independence, social responsibility, optimism, and happiness were

originally considered to be components of EQ but were later reframed as “facilitators” of EQ
(Bar-On, 2006).
 Daniel Goleman’s theory of EQ
Daniel Goleman (1995) popularized the concept of emotional intelligence in his widely
acclaimed book Emotional Intelligence. Check out his TED talk on the art of managing
emotions.

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Goleman (1995, p. xii) offers a broad conceptualization of EQ abilities, including “self-

control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself.” Goleman (2001) proposed
that EQ provides a sign of an individual’s “potential” for developing emotional competencies
(i.e., practical skills) that can help them thrive at work.
His original theory mapped emotional intelligence into five key domains:

1. Knowing your emotions 4. Recognizing emotions in others

2. Managing emotions 5. Handling relationships
3. Motivating oneself

Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important?

Emotional intelligence is widely celebrated as a valuable commodity because it can predict
life outcomes we care about, such as academic performance (MacCann et al., 2020),
psychological adjustment (Fernandez-Berrocal et al., 2006), and workplace success (Lopes,
Grewal, Kadis, Gall, & Salovey, 2006b).
 Is EQ important in the workplace?

Lopes, Côté, and Salovey (2006a) suggest that a greater ability to manage emotions can
benefit work performance in many ways. Using emotional intelligence in the workplace can
improve decision making, help social interactions run smoothly, and enhance employees’
ability to deal with stressful times.

EQ has been linked to better task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors of

employees (Côté & Miners, 2006), higher company rank, and higher scores of stress
tolerance and interpersonal facilitation (e.g., positive interaction) as rated by peers and/or
supervisors (Lopes et al., 2006b).
A meta-analysis involving 43 EQ studies concluded that ability measures, mixed models, and
self-report and peer measures of EQ were all equally good at predicting job performance
(O’Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver, & Story 2011).
 The importance of EI in leadership

Being a leader is a tough job that is likely to be harder if you have trouble managing your
own emotions or the emotions of those you lead.

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EQ has been found to predict leadership effectiveness even when accounting for IQ and
personality (Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005). In addition, Gardner and Stough (2002) found that
emotional intelligence, particularly understanding and managing emotions, was strongly
related to (positive) transformational leadership behaviors of senior managers.
To improve your emotional intelligence
Can EI be taught and learned?

Considering the many advantages EQ can bring, it’s not surprising that the popularity of EQ
training has boomed over the last decade.

Remarkably, one study found that only 10 hours of group EQ training (lectures, role-play,
group discussions, partner work, readings, and journaling) significantly improved people’s
ability to identify and manage their emotions, and these benefits were sustained six months
later (Nelis, Quoidbach, Mikolajczak, & Hansenne, 2009).

It’s clear that putting EQ skills into practice plays an important role in developing emotional
intelligence. So, if you’re looking to teach EQ skills, Cherniss, Goleman, Emmerling,
Cowan, and Adler (1988) suggest distinguishing between:
1. Cognitive learning — Intellectually grasping the concept of how to improve emotional
abilities. In other words, you may know that you need to bring your awareness to your
emotions more often, but this doesn’t mean you’ll be able to.
2. Emotional learning — Unlearning old habits and relearning more adaptive ones. To grow
emotionally, we need to cut ties with our default ways of responding. If your old habit is
withdrawing from your loved ones when you’re overwhelmed, a new habit could be
reaching out to others when you’re stressed rather than closing off. 
Training and Fostering EI Skills
In an interview with the Harvard Division of Continuing Education (2019), Margaret
Andrews, an instructor in emotional intelligence in leadership, outlined three steps to put you
on the path to greater EQ:
1. Recognize and name your emotions.

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Taking the time to notice and label your feelings can help you choose the best way to
respond to situations.
2. Ask for feedback.
Even though it might make you cringe, it’s helpful to get others’ viewpoints on your
emotional intelligence. Ask people how they think you handle tricky situations and
respond to the emotions of others.
3. Read literature.
Reading books from someone else’s perspective could deepen your understanding of their
inner worlds and boost social awareness in the process.
MindTools (n.d.) has also helpfully laid out six ways you can enhance emotional intelligence
with a little self-reflection and honesty:
Notice how you respond to people — Are you being judgmental or biased in your
assessments of others?
4. Practice humility — Being humble about your achievements means you can
acknowledge your successes without needing to shout about them.
5. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and vulnerabilities and consider
development opportunities.
6. Think about how you deal with stressful events — Do you seek to blame others? Can
you keep your emotions in check?
7. Take responsibility for your actions and apologize when you need to.
8. Consider how your choices can affect others Try to imagine how they might feel
before you do something that could affect them.
World-renowned personal coach, entrepreneur, and business strategist Tony Robbins (n.d.)
has outlined his six tips for growing emotional intelligence:
1. Identify what you’re feeling. Use mindfulness to routinely check in on your feelings
from a more neutral perspective.
2. Acknowledge and appreciate your emotions for what they are. Robbins (n.d.)
emphasizes that “emotions are never wrong. They are there to support you.”
3. Be curious about what an emotion is trying to tell you.
4. Tap into your inner confidence to deal with emotions by remembering when you’ve
done this effectively in the past.
5. Mentally think through how you would deal with difficult feelings in the future to feel
more equipped when the time comes.

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6. With a renewed confidence in your EQ, Robbins suggests getting excited to use these
skills to achieve your goals and enhance your relationships with others.

COLLEGE DISTANCE EDUCATION DIVISION Page 16