Running head: Emotional competence

Emotional competence as model of the social adaptation

Zsolt Deak, Global Ph.D. 4
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology
GLBP9781_Cultural Psychology: Culture and Consciousness/Emotion

1st Q 2007

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Introduction
Among many intriguing problems at the border of culture and psychology I became
especially involved in the question What roles play the emotions in organizing and
developing the relationship with others?
My interest has a personal one as I became curious whether the topic of emotions and culture
would have any relevance to my personal experiences due to working in the international
human resources business. I found the term competence that pragmatically describe each of
all traits, skills, knowledge, behaviors, etc. including emotions that are necessary and
sufficient to meet the requirements or to fill the position, would provide good opportunity to
discuss about this question. Interestingly enough, I also discovered along my research that the
psychology has also created and investigated the competences in a more scientific way. In my
present paper and later in the final paper I am going to discuss the question of the social and
emotional competences.
Emotions regulating our behavior
Whereas Aristotle considers emotion as a functional concept, the explanation of a
specific phenomenon within a given linguistic, psychological, social or any other system(s)
(Patel, 1990, p.4), following Plato great number of thinkers like Kant assume that our
emotions are able to invade or suppress the rational mental processes (Elster, 1985, p.379.),
endanger our thinking and behavior. This notion appears in not only the philosophical, but
also psychological theories like in Freuds works, and the disrupting role of emotions in the
cognitive and behavioral functions dominated the empirical researches until the 80`s. Only
that time the results of neurobiological and psychophysiological experiments directed the
attention that the emotion can be seen as an integral part of the cognition, not simply
influences, but regulates the information processing (Ellsworth, 1994; Damasio, 1999).
Influenced by this revelation other psychological researches concerning the social behavior

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also conclude that the content, perception and elaboration of our emotions play important role
in designing and shaping our interpersonal behavior. According to Markus and Kitayama
(1994), individuals feeling states are experienced because of physiological, cognitive, and
sociocultural. They also state that the emotions will in turn function to maintain and regulate
or, in some cases, to challenge the very cultural environment to which they have been tuned
(Kitayama, & Markus, 1994, p.6).
The idea of competence
The idea of competence emerged in the last decades of 20th century provides a new
opportunity for interpreting emotions as the internal structure of behavior. Chomsky (1959)
differentiates the linguistic competence and performance. Actual speech behavior for him is
only the top of a large iceberg of linguistic competence distorted in its shape by many factors
irrelevant to linguistics. As Chomsky writes (1959) One would naturally expect that the
prediction of the behavior of a complex organism (or machine) would require, in addition to
knowledge of external stimulation, knowledge of the internal structure of the organism, the
ways in which it processes information and organizes its own behavior (p. 27). By the time
being several models of the social competences became known (such as Butler, Gruson,
Meichenbaum, 1981; Nagy 2000). According to their widely accepted concept the social
competence is an internal condition of the social behavior (Wine, & Skye, 1981) that
comprises various psychic components; capacities, skills, motifs, habits, knowledge, a
changing system that organizes the social behavior (Nagy 2000). The psychic components
related to emotion have already appeared in the early competency models, even if the number
of those kinds of models still remains low.

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Emotions in the early social competency models.

Rinn and Markle (1979) have developed one of the first social competency models,
where emotions have explicit roles in influencing social behavior. Expression emotions are
classified as social skills belonging to the capacity of self-expression. Further elements of this
skills-group are opinion giving, receiving compliments, and the positive self-image.
According to the researchers the effective verbal and non-verbal communication of the
emotions enhance the interpersonal behavior, and affects the development of the positive selfimage that is one of the most important conditions of the social performance (Zsolnai, 2003).
The emotions in the model of Meichenbaum, Butler and Gruson (1981) are in strong
relationship with the mental processes and cognitive structures. Mental processes are such
concepts, thoughts that along the emotions and changes of emotion precede, accompany,
follow, and/or evaluate the observable behavior. Ellsworth (1994) proposes the emotion as a
process that contains physiological, psychological, and experiential elements in various
degrees. Although I believe that emotions are usually the result of a sequence of appraisals,
they are not simply a combination of cognitions. Instead, the appraisals have physiological
and experiential correlates (Smith, 1989), which together with the appraisals themselves, are
the emotional experience (p.195).

Emotional structures within the cognitive structure and the individual meaning-nets
stay behind the revealing behavior, and affect the goal, the direction of the behavior as well as
the thoughts formulating around them. Either the positive or negative charge of the emotions
determine whether one does or does not take part in a social interaction, how one evaluates it,
and ones thought or behavior will be negative or positive in the given situation. RoseKrasnor (1997) also defines the role of emotions along the cognitive processes within the
system of social competence. His model is built up by different social, emotional and

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cognitive capacities and motifs. He proposes the joint and interdependent development of the
mental and emotional capacities that determine the development of social skills, and the
efficiency of social performance.

Since the mid 80`s those concepts were published that emphasized the role of
emotions in modifying behavior mostly in the relationship with communicational skills and
capacities. Spence (1983) differs macro- and micro skills within the social competence. He
talks about empathy, helping behavior and cooperation as macro skills, whereas social
perception, facial expressions belong to the micro skills. Jzsef Nagy (2000) similarly with
Spence (1983), Mayer and Salovey (1997) emphasizes the significance of communicational
signals in the relationship between the social competence and emotions, in the development of
social competence. He discerns social communication within the social competence. This
skill, built up by inherited and also learnt elements, is one of the kind capacities to realize our
social interaction. The genetic fundament of the social communication is given by the
inherited components of the non-verbal communication that Jzsef Nagy calls emotional
communication. The regulation of the emotional communication is controlled by the affective
apparatus that predispose our behavior in the whole life, even if the experience gained by
aging, the reflecting and self-reflecting consciousness will be building on it. According to
Paul Ekman (2003) our actual emotions show internal- and external statements for ourselves
and these signals make us to act properly. On the other hand emotions that are manifested in
facial expressions transfer universal signals that induce affections, initiatives in the receiver.
This repertoire of signals can be broadening by learning with further non-verbal elements or
rather we also possess other components of verbal communication. The emotional and verbal
communications are interrelated, because the transmitting emotions of the intention, goals of
the person, reveal through the inherited and learnt signaling mechanisms. The emotions are
also expressed in the tone, ergo motivation and emotion appear in the expression and verbal

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communication, playing central role in function and development of the social competence
(Nagy 2000).

Later developed models of the emotional competence

The role of emotions in the communication and learning has been discovered in the 90`s
(Ellsworth, 1994; Maye, & Salovey, 1990; Rose-Krasnor, 1997) inspired other models of
social competence (Crick, & Dodge, 1994; Saarni, 1997; Halberstadt, Denham, & Dunsmore,
2001) to discuss emotions in new correlations. Most of them refer to the neurobiological
statement (Damasio, 1999) that describes emotions as signs of the external and internal
situations, predicting the expected consequences as well as giving feedback about the
consequences of the behavior. Carolyn Saarni (1997) defines the emotional competence
differing but relating psychic construction to the social competence. According to Saarni
(1999) the basic components of the emotional competence are the understanding of ones own
emotional situation; the apperception of others emotional situation; the adequate
communication of emotions; the empathy, and the acceptance of others emotions. These
learnt components, skills are important and necessary in the evaluation of the social
situations, and play significant role in the development and shaping our weltanschauung and
knowledge of others. Her concept (Saarni, 1999) proposes that the development and operation
of these skills are determined partly by the personality (neurophysiologically based
temperaments; inherited regulators), the close environment of the person, and the cultural
influences (most of all the family that intermediates them).

Crick and Dodge (1994) created a social-information model to describe the emotional
processes in our social interactions. According to their model we process the different
information of the interpersonal behavior with the help of our social database similarly with

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the work of the computer. We elaborate the incoming information with the help of memories,
behavioral rules, social schemes, social knowledge, and emotions in six steps:

1. coding the incoming information;

2. evaluation of information (comparing the new and old information);
3. developing goals of behavior;
4. seeking forms of the possible implementations or employing an existing schema;
5. assessment and making decision;
6. implementation.

According to the above model our emotions are not simply complementing, and helping
processing the information in social situation, but construct the basement of these processes.
The researches of Meichenbaum and his colleagues (1981) affirm this theory. In their model
the emotions can be interpreted as part of the structured and systematic responses to the
environmental needs, which enhance accommodation to the environment. On the basis of the
above written we are assumed to evaluate the meanings attributed to the social interactions in
the framework of our individual goals, because the subjective interpretation of the given
situation (in accordance with the possessing knowledge, rules, schema, and emotions)
determines the behavior and the opportunity of the adaptation of new database amplifying,
modifying information.

The most recent concept of the emotional competence is the widely accepted theory
of Halberstadt, Denham, & Dunsmore (2001) that proposes the expression of emotion,
knowledge and understanding of emotion, as well as regulation of emotion as the three most
important components of the emotional competence. The success of the social interaction
depends significantly on the ability of intermediation of the negative, positive or neutral
emotions to others. Those adults and children, who are able to understand their own and

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others emotions, for instance can read the facial expressions (Ekman, 2003), assumingly are
more successful in their social relationships than those who are less capable. The regulation is
responsible for the perception, evaluation and modification of emotions in reaching a given
goal.

Emotional Intelligence

The concept of emotional intelligence became known and popular all over the world in
1995, when Daniel Goleman (1997) published his book, and since then the term `emotional
intelligence` is attributed falsely to him. The matter of fact, Keith Beasley was the first who
discussed EQ in 1987 in his article written for Mensa Magazine in England. Then, in 1990
two American university professors, John Mayer and Peter Salovey coined the term
emotional intelligence in their empirical research study was published in an academic
journal article. They were trying to develop a way of scientifically measuring the difference
between people's ability in the area of emotions. They found that some people were better
than others at things like identifying their own feelings, identifying the feelings of others, and
solving problems involving emotional issues.
Goleman`s emotional competency model (1997) describes competencies and skills
that determine the leadership performance in four main competency group: self-awareness,
self-management, social-awareness, and relationship-management. According to Goleman
emotional competencies are not innate talents, but rather learned capabilities that must be
worked on and developed to achieve outstanding performance as the highest level of social
adaptation. Goleman's model has been criticized as a broadly defined, scientifically not
proved concept (Salovey, & Sluyter, 1997). They offer a revision of the previous definition of
emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence involves the ability to perceive accurately,
appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they

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facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability
to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth" (Salovey and Sluyter,
1997, p.10). Researches based on the measurement of the Goleman`s EI have low predictive
value, and show mixed results in concern with correlation the job performance (Petrides, &
Furnham, 2003). The results suggest that the cognitive intelligence and the emotional
intelligence are rather in compensatory relationship; employees with low IQ get higher task
performance and organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, the higher
their EI.

Conclusion

Having introduced the early and later developed emotional competency models I
discussed the role of emotions in the social behavior. The reviewed literature show great
impacts and parallel of the results of cognitive psychology in the 80s. One of these most
important consequences is that the emotional states do not stand against the thinking, rather
they work together in the social situation, help better adaptation, regulate the behavior. The
later development of the emotional competences led to the theories of emotional competence
and also the concept of emotional intelligence (EQ) that inspired, and impacted further
researches in the field of child development and education as well as in the non-scientific,
corporate world. Although these models of the social- and emotional competency are well
described, and often discuss the internal relationships among them, there would be a need a
more unified concept that can show direction for the further researches.

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