Applying Emotional Intelligence

A Practitioner's Guide

Joseph Ciarrochi, John D. Mayer, Joseph Ciarrochi, John D. Mayer

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317709992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

The explosion of research on emotional intelligence (EI) in the past decade has provided increasing evidence that EI can be measured reliably and can be useful in predicting important outcomes, such as managerial effectiveness and relationship quality.

Naturally, people are now asking, "So, how does one improve EI?". Applying Emotional Intelligence collects the most important programs focused on that idea, and enquires of their originators, "What do you do?", "Why do you do it?", and, "What is the evidence for your approach?".

The emphasis of the book is applied, in that it provides and contrasts concrete examples of what we do in our interventions in a wide variety of situations. The chapters present descriptions of programs, including specific activities and exercises that influence emotional knowledge and social effectiveness more generally. While practical in its focus, this book also discusses the theoretical bases for these approaches.

These are new programs with outcomes that are now beginning to be studied. The book presents the most important and recent research findings that examine the efficacy of these programs. Applying Emotional Intelligence is a "must-read" for anyone interested in EI and its application. This book will be of interest to researchers conducting EI intervention research, as well as a wide variety of practitioners, including those interested in developing EI in organizations, health areas, clinical populations, and school-age settings. Finally, the book is designed to be relevant to the reader's own life, encouraging the reader to consider how the programs and the exercises might impact his or her personality and outlook, as well as contribute to the development of those who have themselves participated in the programs.

CHAPTER 1

Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom: Skill-Based Training for Teachers and Students

Marc A. Brackett
Nicole A. Katulak

Successful schools ensure that all students master basic skills such as reading and math and have strong backgrounds in other subject areas, including science, history, and foreign language. Recently, however, educators and parents have begun to support a broader educational agenda – one that enhances teachers’ and students’ social and emotional skills.¹ Research indicates that social and emotional skills are associated with success in many areas of life, including effective teaching, student learning, quality relationships, and academic performance.^2-4 Moreover, a recent meta-analysis of over 300 studies showed that programs designed to enhance social and emotional learning significantly improve students’ social and emotional competencies as well as academic performance.⁵

Incorporating social and emotional learning programs into school districts can be challenging, as programs must address a variety of topics in order to be successful.^6,7 One organization, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), provides leadership for researchers, educators, and policy makers to advance the science and practice of school-based social and emotional learning programs. According to CASEL, initiatives to integrate programs into schools should include training on social and emotional skills for both teachers and students, and should receive backing from all levels of the district, including the superintendent, school principals, and teachers. Additionally, programs should be field-tested, evidence-based, and founded on sound psychological or educational theory.^6-8 CASEL also recommends that social and emotional learning programs: (1) provide developmentally and culturally appropriate instruction; (2) attempt to create a caring and engaging learning environment; (3) teach children to apply social and emotional skills both in and out of school; (4) enhance school performance by addressing the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions of learning; (5) encourage family and school partnerships; and (6) include continuous evaluation and improvement.

In this chapter, we describe two programs that fulfill CASEL’s requirements and also are compatible with mandates set by No Child Left Behind (NCLB),⁹ one designed for teachers and the other for middle school students. Both programs are part of a larger initiative involving training and curriculum for school administrators and teachers, parents, and students at all grade levels (i.e., preschool to high school).¹⁰ The programs also are anchored in emotional intelligence (EI) theory,¹¹ which proposes that four fundamental emotion-related abilities comprise EI, including (1) perception/expression of emotion, (2) use of emotion to facilitate thinking, (3) understanding of emotion, and (4) management of emotion in oneself and others. These four skills promote better quality relationships, enhance emotional health, and improve academic and work performance.^2,3

The first program is The Emotionally Intelligent Teacher (EIT). This full-day workshop, which comes with an activity book, provides teachers of all grade levels with innovative strategies, tools, and techniques to increase their awareness of the importance of EI skills and enhance their ability to employ EI skills in their professional and personal relationships. The second program we describe is Emotional Literacy in the Middle School (ELMS). ELMS is a multi-year program that integrates weekly social and emotional learning lessons into existing curricula. There also is a full-day workshop to train teachers on ELMS. Both the EIT and ELMS have been adopted by school districts throughout the United States and abroad, and a comprehensive, multi-method system has been developed to evaluate both programs. Before going into detail about these programs, we provide an overview of EI theory and discuss the importance of emotion-related skills in both teacher and student performance.

□ Emotional Intelligence

Today, there are two general models of EI in the literature: a skill-based model proposed originally by Mayer and Salovey¹¹ and a variety of “mixed” approaches.^12–14 According to Mayer and Salovey, EI pertains to an individual’s capacity to reason about emotions and to process emotional information to enhance cognitive processes and regulate behavior. For instance, Mayer et al.^15,16 discuss the ability to manage one’s own emotions (e.g., the ability to distract oneself temporarily from a difficult situation) as an element of EI. Mixed models, on the other hand, define and measure EI as a set of perceived abilities, skills, and personality traits. For instance, Bar-On’s¹² model of EI includes one’s perception of his or her ability, “stress tolerance,” and basic personality traits such as “optimism.” Because both perceived abilities and traits are in the conceptual framework, proponents of the mixed model approach have generally employed self-report measures as opposed to performance measures to assess EI.

Our programs are anchored in the skill-based model of EI. Research indicates that one’s estimate of his or her EI (as assessed by self-report as opposed to skill-based measures) is mostly uncorrelated with actual emotion-related ability and does not predict behavior.¹⁷ In our view, keeping EI constrained to a set of emotion-related skills (i.e., the perception, use, understanding, and management of emotion) makes it possible to assess the degree to which EI skills specifically contribute to behavior, as well as provides a firm foundation for developing programs to enhance these skills.^17,18

The four EI skills included in the Mayer and Salovey¹ model are interrelated, as proficiency in one skill influences mastery in other areas, and cumulative, as mastery on the first three skills culminates in proficiency in the fourth area – management of emotion. Here, we briefly describe the four EI skills; more detailed information can be found elsewhere.¹

The first skill, perception of emotion, refers to the ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others, as well as in other stimuli, including objects, art, stories, and music. The second skill, use of emotion to facilitate thinking, refers to the ability to use or generate emotions to focus attention, communicate feelings, or engage in other cognitive processes such as reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. The third skill, understanding of emotion, refers to the ability to understand emotional information and the causes of emotions and how emotions combine, progress, and change from one to another. The fourth skill, management of emotion, refers to the ability to be open to feelings and employ effective strategies to promote personal understanding and growth.

Mayer and colleagues have developed performance tests of EI, including the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Tests for adults (MSCEIT)¹⁵ and children (MSCEIT-YV).¹⁹ Both of these tests reliably assess the four-skill model of EI. Moreover, scores on both tests predict a wide range of important life outcomes. Among college students and adults, higher MSCEIT scores are associated with higher quality interpersonal relationships among couples²⁰ and friends,²¹ academic performance and social competence,^17,22 and key workplace outcomes, including stress tolerance and salary.²³ Lower MSCEIT scores are associated with maladaptive behavior, including drug use, alcohol consumption, and fighting.^24,25 Among school children, MSCEIT-YV scores are associated positively with teacher ratings of adaptability, leadership, and study skills and negatively with aggression, anxiety, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and attention and learning problems, as well as self-reported smoking behavior.²⁶

The first premise behind our programs is that both teacher and student proficiency in EI is expected to influence effective communication, management of stress and conflict, maintenance of a positive school environment, and academic or workplace success. Teachers experience a wide range of positive and negative emotions while teaching and interacting with students.^4,27 The nature of their job requires dealing with their own emotions as well as those of students, parents, colleagues, and administrators. Moreover, teachers are among the groups displaying the highest levels of occupational stress. In one study, more than 30% of British teachers perceived their jobs as stressful, with reports of increasing pressure.²⁸ Indeed, stress and poor emotion management continually rank as the primary reasons why teachers become dissatisfied with the profession and end up leaving their positions.²⁹ There also has been growing alarm at the rate of teacher burnout and the adverse implications this has for the learning environment in schools and the achievement of educational goals.³⁰ Moreover, teachers who have difficulty regulating their emotions (and their classrooms) tend to have students who experience more negative emotions in class (e.g., sadness, shame, and guilt).⁴ We believe that lack of EI skills is one of the roots of these problems and that emotional skills training for teachers can create a more stable, supportive, and productive learning environment – one that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement, and academic achievement among students.

Considerable research indicates that EI skills play a central role in children’s academic, personal, and social lives above and beyond the effects of personality and general intelligence. Emotions drive attention,³¹ which impacts learning, memory, and behavior. The ability to regulate emotions, for example, can help students to stay focused in class and handle anxiety-arousing situations such as taking tests.³² Indeed, children with higher EI skills tend to experience higher academic achievement than children with lower EI skills.^22,33–36 It also is possible that some EI skills will interact with intelligence to predict academic achievement, such that children of the same level of intelligence will perform differently in school depending on their level of EI. For example, a highly intelligent student who becomes anxious during a test may fail because he or she has not learned effective strategies to deal with the problem. Thus, providing training in emotion skills may lead to greater academic achievement.^7,37,38

Children with higher EI also tend to behave in more socially appropriate, non-aggressive ways at school and tend to be relatively popular, prosocial, and secure.^39–41 Moreover, deficits in EI skills have been linked to alcohol and tobacco use,⁴² anxiety and depression,^43–45 poor physical and psychological health,⁴⁶ and violence.⁴⁷ For example, the inability to judge emotional expressions in others may be directly associated with hostility and aggression in children, as aggressive children perceive more hostility in others than do non-aggressive children.⁴⁸ In contrast, children skilled in the perception of emotion have more positive social interactions.⁴⁹ Additionally, children who can express their emotions effectively, both verbally and nonverbally, tend to adhere well to society’s rules and norms for communicating how they feel.³⁶ This is important because students who are able to develop quality social relationships at school feel more comfortable in the school environment, receive better support from teachers and peers, and form healthier attachments to school.^50,51 Thus, we assert that teaching emotional literacy to children is one important way to potentially affect these many aspects of students’ lives.

□ Emotionally Intelligent Teacher Workshop

The goal of the Emotionally Intelligent Teacher Workshop⁵² is to provide teachers with resources to create a safe, satisfying, caring, and productive school environment. This one-day, highly interactive seminar focuses on leadership and professional development. Because interpersonal relationships have been shown to be a prominent determinant of school effectiveness,⁵³ another goal is to improve relationships with students and the various stakeholders in the school community.

Tools presented in the workshop are designed to serve as coping mechanisms for stress, which continually ranks as the top reason why teachers leave the profession.²⁹ Specifically, the workshop provides participants with: (1) in-depth information about the four EI skills (i.e., the perception, use, understanding, and management of emotion), (2) knowledge of how EI skills play an integral role in academic learning, decision making, classroom management, stress management, interpersonal relationships, team building, and the overall quality of one’s life, and (3) inno...