Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence and self-management can be difficult skills to master. Emotions are intricate, individualized cognitive processes that are accompanied by expressive behaviors and physiological reactions. One of the first people to suggest that emotions are universal and a byproduct of evolution since they are so highly adapted was Charles Darwin (1898). Seven universal emotions that we all experience include anger, surprise, contempt, disgust, delight, sadness, and fear, according to Dr. Paul Ekman. They are much more than just physiological response of amygdala to the stimulus.

In order to control and comprehend emotions, emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in the play. The idea of emotional intelligence is the capacity to identify, comprehend, and regulate our own feelings as well as those of others. It includes a variety of abilities like empathy, self-awareness, and self-control, all of which are vital for negotiating the difficulties of interpersonal relationships, making decisions, and maintaining general wellbeing. It is “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s feelings and the emotions to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions,” according to Salovey & Mayer (1990). Nonetheless, Daniel Goleman’s best-selling book “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ” (1995) helped to popularize it. There are several advantages of it – improves relationships with humans, improves communication with people, makes better empathy skills, acting with integrity, improves career prospects, reduce stress levels and feeling confident and positive attitude.

Several models of emotional intelligence by Salovey & Mayer , Goleman and Bar-On focused on numerous dimensions of it such as perception, appraisal and expression of emotions, understanding and analyzing emotions, reflective regulation of emotions, empathy, stress management and general mood. All this aspects help us in understanding and managing emotions which in turn resolves conflict and improve interpersonal relationship.