What are Emotions?

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

An Emotion is used to designate a state of

consciousness having to do with the arousal of feelings. In other words, emotions are feelings or reactions about someone or something. We are angry about someone, afraid of something, in love with someone. These emotions may be directly felt in the body or we may just react strongly with thoughts of our minds.

FEELINGS
It refers to any of the subjective reactions pleasant or unpleasant that one may experience in a situation. Feelings have to be triggered by an external motivating factor whereas emotions can be completely internalized. Feelings are thought to be experienced for short periods of time. If you touch a stove it feels hot and you quickly remove your hand. Within minutes you are no longer feeling hot. If someone jumps out at you from around a corner you will feel startled, but that will soon pass. Emotions are often said to be long-term states. If you are in love, that emotion will usually last years. Sorrow too, takes a long time to go away. Because emotions are internal you have to change your mind set to change your emotion and this process takes time.

What is Intelligence?
Ability to learn or understand from experience or to respond successfully to new experiences. In other words, intelligence can be defined as an ability to acquire and retain knowledge.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional Intelligence is basically comprised of two words: Emotions and Intelligence. Emotional intelligence addresses the emotional, personal, social, and survival dimensions of intelligence. EI is concerned with understanding oneself and others, relating to people, and adapting to and coping with the immediate surroundings. It results in reducing stress (both individual & organizations) by decreasing conflicts, improving relationships and understanding, and increasing stability, continuity and harmony.

General Dimensions of EI
(Goleman, 1995)
Knowing your emotions. (self-awareness) Managing your own emotions. (self-regulation) Motivating yourself. (Motivation) Recognizing and understanding other people's emotions. (Empathy) Managing relationships, i.e., managing the emotions of others. (Social Skills)

Elaboration of EI dimensions
1. Self-Awareness: knowing oneself. i.e. awareness to ones internal states, preferences, resources, intuitions etc. indicates the ability to recognize, understand and accept ones own moods, emotions, drives, strengths and shortcomings as well as to see how these affect other people.

2. Self-Regulation: managing and handing impulses, distressing feelings and upsets rather than denying or repressing these feelings. Implies making a choice as to how we express our feelings. Helps in staying focussed, composed, calm and helps think clearly even under pressure.

3. Motivation: ability to pursue goals with energy and persistence. It provides the drive and zeal to shape our thoughts and actions. 4. Empathy: ability to put oneself into anothers shoes and look at things or think from his point of view. i.e. Recognizing and understanding other people's emotions. Emotionally balanced people are empathetic and not sympathetic.

Ability Model of EI
5. Social Skills: ability to build rapport with various sections of society and create network of people. The model was given by Mayer & Salovey in 1997

CONTD.
Perceiving emotions the ability to detect and interpret emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artifacts- including the ability to identify ones own emotions. It represents a basic aspect of emotional intelligence, as it makes all other processing of emotional information possible. Using emotions the ability to harness emotions to facilitate various cognitive activities, such as thinking and problem solving. An emotionally intelligent person can capitalize fully upon his or her changing moods in order to best fit the task at hand.

CONTD.
Understanding emotions the ability to understand emotion language and to appreciate complicated relationships among emotions. For example, understanding emotions encompasses the ability to be sensitive to slight variations between emotions, and the ability to recognize and describe how emotions evolve over time. Managing emotions the ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and in others. Therefore, the emotionally intelligent person can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals.