EMMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE ...

[Michael Grove]

was the title of the international bestseller by author Daniel Goleman

In this particularly insightful interview  with Laura Flanders, linguist and

political analyst Noam Chomsky discusses how the events in Ferguson, 

Missouri and the protests that followed demonstrate just how little race

relations in the United States have advanced since the end of the Civil War.

Noam Chomsky discusses the recent climate agreement between the US

and China, the rise of ISIL, and the the movement in Ferguson against

racism and police violence. Chomsky is the author of more than a hundred

books and the subject of several films about his ideas. He is a political

theorist and philosopher who has dissected the contradictions of US empire

and inspired several generations of activists. This episode also features a

special report on successful worker organizing among low-wage workers in

New York City.

What is emotional intelligence?

Daniel Goleman: Emotional intelligence refers to how well we handle

ourselves and our relationships, the 4 domains. Self-awareness, knowing

what we’re feeling, why we’re feeling it, which is a basis of, for example,

good intuition, good decision-making. Also, it’s a moral compass. Say,

in part, is self-management, which means handling your distressing

emotions in effective ways so that they don’t cripple you, they don’t get in

the way of what you’re doing, and yet, attuning them… to them when you

need to so that you learn what you must. Every emotion has a function.

Also, [marshalling] positive emotions, getting ourselves, you know,

involved, enthused about what we’re doing, aligning our actions with our

passions. The third is empathy, knowing what someone else is feeling.

And the fourth is putting that altogether in skilled relationship. So that’s

what I mean by emotional intelligence. There’re many definitions out there.

The part of the brain, it turns out, that supports emotional and social

intelligence is actually the last circuitry of the brain to become anatomically

mature. And because the neuroplasticity of the brain shapes itself

according to repeated experiences, so my argument is, hey, we should

be teaching kids regularly overtime, in a systematic way, self-awareness,

self-management, empathy, and social skill. In fact, there, now, enough

programs and they’ve been around enough in schools that they’re about

to publish a huge meta analysis, looking at hundreds of schools and kids

that had the program versus those that don’t. Guess what? All anti-social

behaviour, you know, disruption in class, find that… it goes down 10%.

Pro-social behavior, liking school, well-behave, up 10%. Academic

achievement scores, up 11%. So it really pays. Executive function, which

is mediated by the prefrontal lobe, both helps you manage your emotions

and helps you pay attention. So as kids learn these skills, they also learn

learning… basic learning skills. I think that the fact that that was an

argument was one thing that caught people’s attention. Then, there was

a little chapter on… called managing with heart, which argued that leaders

who were sons of a bitch were actually defeating the company’s own

mission. And I think that made a lot of people happy because they work

for people like that. I don’t know… Some people gave it to other people

because they thought they needed help in this domain. I’m sure there’re

a zillion reasons why people like the book.

Question: Are we becoming more emotionally intelligent?

Daniel Goleman: I hope more. I know IQ has been going up for a hundred

years as children encounter more sophisticated cognitive environment as

they grow. I don’t know that we’re becoming more emotionally intelligent.

I like to hope we would but I think that the number of intergroup wars

going on, the intergroup hatred going on, the, you know, levels of familial

abuse, in other words, indicators of emotions out of control in dangerous

ways don’t look that great, which is why I’m a very strong proponent of

getting these social, emotional learning programs in every school

worldwide.

Question: Are women more emotionally intelligent than men?

Daniel Goleman: Well, I get asked that question in a different way, which is,

are women more emotionally intelligent than men? And you have to

remember that emotion intelligence is a range of abilities, self-awareness,

emotional self-management, empathy, social skills. Women tend to be

better than men on average at empathy, particularly emotional empathy,

sensing in the moment how the other person is feeling and also, at social

skills, at keeping things feeling good between people in a group. Men, on

the other hand, tend to be better on average at self-confidence, particularly

in group, and at managing distressing emotions. But what’s very interesting

is if you look at leaders who were in the top 10%, there’s no difference

between the men and the women on any of those variables. In other words,

you have a whole human being. So I would say that on average, there

probably are differences men and women in this domain of ability. But as

people develop their skills, as people become more effective, they pick up

strengths in areas that they need.

In March 2000 a week-long discussion took place between the Dalai Lama

and a panel of distinguished scientists and philosophers about human

behaviour. Daniel Goleman’s illuminating account of this meeting offers

fresh insights into how we can recognise and change the emotions that

pose grave danger to our individual and collective fate. 

The Dalai Lama travels the world and spreads his message of peace,

compassion and interdependence.

.

[Michael Grove]

“The grim prognosis for life on this planet is the consequence 

 of a few centuries of forgetting what traditional Indigenous

 societies knew and the surviving ones still recognize.”

                                                                  Noam Chomsky