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Emotional Intelligence Enrichment Activity 2004 NASA SHARP Program California State University, Los Angeles Presented by: Christina Marcale Reported by: Aditi Shah
“Successful people do not all succeed in the same fashion. There is evidence, however to indicate that many people fail for a common reason: they do not understand themselves”- Hansen, Psychological Assessment in Business. This was the quote that we were introduced to in the beginning of our Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence conducted by Christina Marcale on Thursday evening in the engineering building.
Emotional quotient is the mental ability we are born with which gives us our emotional sensitivity and our potential for emotional learning management skills, which can help us, maximize our long-term health, happiness and survival as defined by S. Hein. EQ consists of five components: 1) Knowing ones emotions 2) managing emotions 3) motivating ones self 4) Recognizing emotions in others and 5) Handling relationships. To gain a better understanding of Emotional Intelligence, we were given a Meyers Briggs test, which would help show how we looked at things and how we liked to go about deciding things. The Meyers Briggs was to make us aware of our own preferences and learning about other peoples and how it would help us understand where our special strengths were, what kind of work we may enjoy and how people with different preferences can relate to each other and be valuable in society. We were required to answer a set of 92 multiple-choice questions. Some questions that were asked were “Do you admire more the people who are a) conventional enough to make themselves conspicuous, or b) too original and individual to care whether they are conspicuous or not?” This was part one of the test. The second part of the test dealt with picking a word in each pair that appealed to the test taker more. The preference was to be made on what the word meant rather than how the word sounded or how they looked. One such example of this was “a) scheduled or b) unplanned.” There were some difficult questions that need more thinking than others such as “a) who or b) what.” Even though they are two simple words that we use everyday, when asked which one we prefer, it was a tough decision since there is no context attached to the word to judge.
After the test was taken, it was time to score. Each question had two choices, A or B, with different numerical and letter value. The choices either had a zero, one or two numerical value and the first column that an E or an I letter, the second column had S or an N, the third column had either a T or an F and the fourth column had either a P or a J. we were told to count the number of each letter we had and take the one that got more tallies. The “I” in the first column stands for introvert and the “E” stands for extrovert. The “S” stands for sensing and the “N” stands for Intuitive. The “T” and “F” in the third column stand for thinking and feeling and the “P” and “J” in the fourth column stands for Perceiving or Judging. The first column defines the source and direction of energy expression for a person. The extrovert has a source and direction of energy expression mainly in the external world while the introvert has a source of energy mainly in the internal world. The second column defines the method of information perception by a person. Sensing means that a person believes mainly information he/she receives directly from the external world. Intuition means that a person believes mainly information he/she receives from the internal or imaginative world. The third column defines how the person processes information. Thinking means that a person makes a decision mainly through logic. Feeling means that, as a rule, he/she makes a decision based on emotion. And lastly, the fourth column defines how a person implements the information he/she has processed. Judging means that a person organizes all his life events and acts strictly according to his/her plans. Perceiving means that he/she is inclined to improvise and seek alternatives.
Next, were given an emotional intelligence checklist that listed five categories of positive emotional intelligence. This checklist was used to identify areas, which we thought were important. The five categories listed what key things comprised this category. The five categories were: I) you know, like and assert yourself, II) you understand, care about and relate to others, III) you adapt flexibly to change and problems, IV) you control impulses and tolerate stress and lastly V) you are happy and optimistic. We were given another emotional intelligence checklist stating 15 points about the key components of Emotional Intelligence and the activity was to place a plus (+) by three areas of your greatest strength and a minus (-) by three areas of our greatest need for improvement. As we were doing this we were to compare ourselves to the most successful people in our field. Some items off the checklist were “Understand the feeling of others,” “Live a meaningful life.” “Easily adjust to new conditions,” etc. After everyone had recorded their strengths and weaknesses, we talked over how we could become more effective, how we could strengthen our weaknesses. When working with your emotional aspect, it is better to work on one or two areas rather than all your weaknesses at the same time, since taking on too much change could result in failure. Everyone knows they can’t change every aspect of their life, but everyone can make reasonable changes, which will give us new perspective and solutions. To help us improve our weaknesses, we were advised to develop an action plan. This action plan consisted of who will do what by when and how we would measure it.
Emotional Intelligence is essential in our life since it governs five key areas. It governs out survival, since our emotions have the potential to serve us today as a delicate and sophisticated internal guidance system, decision making, since our emotions help us make decisions. Studies show that when a person's emotional connections are severed in the brain, he cannot make even simple decisions, because he does not know what he may feel about his choices. Boundary setting is a third aspect since when we feel uncomfortable with a person's behavior, our emotions alert us. If we learn to trust our emotions and feel confident expressing ourselves we can let the person know we feel uncomfortable as soon as we are aware of our feeling. Communication and Unity are the last two aspects. Our emotions help us communicate with others as well as have the greatest potential source of uniting all members of the human species. Our facial expressions, for example, can convey a wide range of emotions. If we look sad or hurt, we are signaling to others that we need their help. If we are verbally skilled we will be able to express more of our emotional needs and thereby have a better chance of filling them. If we are effective at listening to the emotional troubles of others, we are better able to help them feel understood, important and cared about. Thursday’s enrichment activity was greatly informative and helped me become more informed about my EQ, something that I felt was really needed since it would help me become a better person, help my attitude and would reflect how I perceive and face certain hardships and letdowns in my future.
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