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Psychology of Personal Effectiveness

All You Need To Know About How To Live Happily & Effectively

Timothy W. Starkey, Ph.D., ABAP

Miami Dade CollegePsy CLP1006Hialeah CampusRoom 1214M/W/F8:00-10:15 AMMay 7- June 16 (2007)305-279-0758 (Home) or 305-338-1615 (Cell)Hours 1:00 to 5:00 PMOn Mondays & Wednesdays

Chapter 8 ~ Develop Your Emotional Intelligence

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The Concept of Emotional Intelligence• In the mid-1990s, some psychologists began to believe that high intelligence

(as measured by IQ tests) was a poor predictor of later success or effectiveness in life.

• One such psychologist (Golman) concluded from his studies that IQ contributes no more than 20% to the factors leading to success in life. By keeping the criteria very broad (e.g. including success in such areas as street-sweeping and lawn care), one can reduce the importance of high IQ or higher education. In fields such as physics, medicine, law, or psychology, to name but a few, high IQ and higher education is still a very good predictor of later success.

• Golman divided “emotional intelligence” (EQ) into five different domains:

1. Self awareness

2. Management of your emotions

3. Self-motivation

4. Perceptiveness (ability to perceive emotions of others and to anticipate their response to your behavior

5. Handling relationships

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Higher “EQ” Levels Are Linked To:

• Higher levels of prosocial behavior and lower aggression levels in both college and high school students

• Lower substance abuse in adolescents

• More effective leadership skills in the workplace

• More effective performance in handling consumer complaints in the workplace

• Greater levels of optimism

• Lower levels of depression

• Lower levels of impulsiveness

• Higher first year academic achievement (but unrelated to SAT or ACT scores)

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Conflict Resolution• Conflict resolution refers to the process of resolving disputes between people

who do not emotional bonds with each other.• In reality, the steps toward resolution may not flow as smoothly as present here.

Frequently, conflict resolution professionals have to jockey back and forth between steps as snags develop in the process.

• In any event, it is important not to skip any of the steps, because they all build upon one another.

Step 1. Acknowledge/identify the problem or conflict to yourself ~ don’t run away from the conflict or attempt to avoid it with a premature resolution.

Step 2. Agree on a date and a procedure ~ all parties must be prepared to resolve the conflict, and must be willing to set aside the time to do so. Fights often ensue because one party confronts another who isn’t ready at that moment to deal with the issue at hand.

Step 3. Describe your problem and your needs ~ there is likely to be some shared ground or area of agreement between the disputing parties that initial presentation by each disputing party may uncover. This gives you a starting point for the negotiations.

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• Step 4. Seriously consider the other party’s point of view. This requires careful and attentive listening by all parties. Each party must feel that they’ve had their say and were listened to.

• Step 5. Once a mutual understanding of positions, wants, and needs has been established you are ready to move on to problem solving. This is often accomplished by generating as many potential solutions as possible and later evaluating them to decide which one best meets everyone’s needs.

• Step 6. Evaluate and negotiate ~ Now that you have a list of potential solutions it is time for all parties to begin to evaluate each option. By this time, the conflict resolution professional will have a good working relationship (trust) with the disputing parties. Hopefully, a solution is agreed to by all parties.

• Step 7. Enact the solution and follow-up ~ to put the plan into action everyone involved needs to have a clear understanding as to what has been decided upon, what is to be done, who is to do it etc. At some predetermined time after implementation, the solution should be evaluated to see how effective it was for all parties.

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Road Rage

• Miami is considered to be the #1 city in the country for “road rage”. It is so common in Miami that it is pointless to define it, since you are all very well acquainted with it.

• One study has identified the following six situations as likely triggers for road rage:

1. Hostile gestures from other drivers (particularly those involving certain fingers)

2. Other drivers breaking traffic laws

3. The presence of police cars

4. Another driver driving too slowly (e.g. under 120 mph)

5. Driver discourtesy (e.g. being cut off, not being let into a lane, having an offensive bumper sticker)

6. Traffic jams or obstructions

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Typical Miami Road Rage

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• Studying the physiology of anger, Golman offers an interesting explanation of why certain individuals (e.g. 96% of those living in Miami) sometimes “go off the deep end” and respond impulsively with anger. He refers to such outbursts as “emotional hijackings” and explains this in terms of brain circuitry.

• Our brains have two basic neural response systems, one governed by a brain structure called the amygdala (a center in our primitive brain) and the other controlled by the neocortex, the thinking brain or seat of higher reasoning and planning.

• Emotional explosions, particularly anger, occur when the amygdala perceives what it regards as an emergency and bypasses the neocortex. In an instant, the amygdala triggers the fight/flight response before the neocortex has a chance to process any information, let alone determine how to respond appropriately.

• This capacity to “act before you think” does have survival value in some situations, since it gives you the potential to react almost instantaneously in an emergency in order to avert danger.

• The problem of “road rage” may be that for some people, this neocortical bypass occurs in situations where it is not only unnecessary but is actually dangerous. This direct amygdala circuit accounts for those instances when our emotions totally overwhelm our rational minds.

• When this is the case, where would you place “road rage” in terms of free will vs. determinism?

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Anger and the Type A Personality• In the 1970s, cardiologists noticed that their patients tended to have certain

personality characteristics in common. They called this cluster of behavioral traits “the Type A personality”.

• Type A individuals tend to be very hard driving, achievement oriented, compulsive, overly concerned with time pressure, and quick to anger; “Type B” individuals were described as laid back, easygoing, and less concerned with time.

• A strong statistical relationship was initially found between Type A orientation and cardiac problems; later research clarified the matter by showing that the only component of the Type A orientation that was really related to heart disease was the hostility component.

• The fact that anger is a serious risk factor for heart attacks is now well documented. Anger sets off a physiological mechanism that makes your heart beat faster, your blood pressure rise, your coronary arteries constrict, and yur blood get stickier.

• If you tend to have a higher-than-average anger level, you would be well advised to do something about it ~ counseling and/or medications.

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How Angry Are You?

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Ways To Control Anger• Be self aware ~ you have to recognize that you are angry before you can

control it

• Interrupt angry thoughts ~ don’t dwell on what irritates you

• Cultivate empathy for others ~ learn to see things from other people’s point of view

• Learn to laugh at yourself ~ get a grip on your pride

• Practice active relaxation techniques

• Improve your listening skills ~ learn to hear people out without interrupting them

• Take the risk to trust other people

• Practice the art of forgiving ~ first, you have to learn the art of “forgetting”, though

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End of Chapter 8

Follow Your Bliss!