Book summary Emotional Intelligence

Part — 1 : The Emotional Brain
Book: Emotional Intelligence
Author: Daniel Goleman

1. What are emotions for?
->survival
-> reproductive purposes
-> parental sacrifice
-> code of Hammurabi — ancient commandments of Hebrews to subdue emotional actions
-> emotional/rational mind

2. What is the basic anatomy of emotional hi-jacking?

• previous research says the signal goes from senses > thalamus -> neocortex > amygdala
• but research found a shortcut or hi-jacking of response from senses > thalamus > amygdala for a more faster response to things
• amygdala has out-of-date neural alarms
• amygdala compares the present and past events on reacting so sometimes we regret what we do emotionally
• hippocampus work hand in hand with amygdala in retrieving memories
• the shortcut route has been developed for our species survival in the past
• precognitive emotion are bits of information that we rely sometimes to act quickly, these are incomplete information to really comprehend what’s going on.
• prefrontal lobotomy was used to cure mental illness but side effect is patient removal of emotional life.
• prefrontal areas govern our emotional reaction from the start.
• prefrontal cortex is part of neo cortex
• the author urges to balance the thinking of head/heart because of the emotional hi-jacking

Part 2: The Nature of Emotional Intelligence

3. When smart is dumb

• there’s a story of a young brilliant student who stabbed his professor because his professor gave him a bad grade that would affect his dream of going to Harvard.
• An intelligent kid doing irrational thing
• IQ will only factor in 20% of success and 80% are from other factors.
• IQ has vast research compare to EQ
• The author key point in EQ are the ability to motivate oneself, persist in face of frustration, control impulse and delay gratification. regulate moods, ability to think in situations, empathize and hope.
• emotional aptitude means “meta-ability” to use whatever we have in life to succeed.
• What do you call a nerd fifteen years from now? “Your Boss” but even so emotional intelligence will still have a huge advantage
• High IQ is no guarantee of success
• There are different kinds of intelligence, one example is Judy a 4-year old that have the ability to match her classmates best group to play with.
• Judy has social map of the class, she’s good in mixing and matching her classmates social politics.
• Gardner’s Intelligence types has no room for play of emotions
• Gardner’s acknowledge that his theory was more focus on cognitive and people with IQ of 160 sometimes work for people with IQ of 100

4. Know thyself

• Salvoney added five sub domains in Gardner’s Personal Intelligence theory, these are knowing one’s emotions, managing emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing emotions in others, handling relationships.
• Emotional Intelligence and Personal Intelligence are really mixed into one personal one can’t say a person has only one type of intelligence.
• The author talks about the airplane scenario test of Suzane Miller a Psychologist.
• People who tune in distress scenario tend to magnify their own reactions.
• People who tune out from distress scenario tend to notice their own reactions.
• Alexithymia a condition where a person has feelings but can’t explain what is it, theory is neocortex and limbic system has disconnection by Dr. Sifneos
• Self-awareness of feelings is really a key to manage emotions if you become self-aware then you will be able to send signal to your neocortex for better processing of emotion.