emotions
"Emotional intelligence is unquestionably vital to both personal and interpersonal skills"
(Adler & Proctor 122).
(Adler & Proctor 122).
Significance of emotions can't be overestimated. They color each moment of our life. We can feel so many different emotions during one day, one hour. They used as a channel for communicator, where our body, face mimic, gestures and language - all is used as a tool to express these emotions. We can compare ourselves to a piano or a guitar. If one is educated in a way how to express their emotions effectively and in appropriate way - this helps this person a lot in any interaction with others; his piano plays a nice music. If not - all we can hear is a noise, "dirty" sounds we don't really like. Let's take a look on how emotions are expressed and what body changes occur while an emotion is active.
emotions: PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES
"When a person has strong emotions, many bodily changes occur."
(Adler & Proctor 122)
(Adler & Proctor 122)
Strong emotions activate sympathetic nervous system launching a cascade of physiologic changes. These changes are universal and are a part of an ancient "fight or fly" reaction. An increased heart rate, blood pressure, secreted adrenaline, frequent and shallow breath, and even cold perspiration - all of these are signs of an activated sympathetic system.
Strong emotions activate sympathetic nervous system launching a cascade of physiologic changes. These changes are universal and are a part of an ancient "fight or fly" reaction. An increased heart rate, blood pressure, secreted adrenaline, frequent and shallow breath, and even cold perspiration - all of these are signs of an activated sympathetic system.
Interestingly, there is a legend, that Alexander the Great used to choose his warriors after testing them: he looked at their faces during the training fights. If someone's face became red, he was considered as a brave soldier and was accepted. Those who looked pale were considered as cowards. It is probably not a precise method to hire somebody from out perspective, but it gives us an idea that a connection between emotions and a body reactions was established and some attempts to analyze and classify this connections were done a very long time ago. Another example of using this knowledge: medieval inquisition tested suspected witches by giving them a dry bread - if a victim couldn't swallow it because her mouth was dried, she was pleaded guilty, because judges believed the mouth' dryness was caused by fear, and a fear was an evidence of a guilt in their opinion. They didn't care that this fear might be caused by other reasons, such as being burned alive.
These body responses we have at the times of the strong emotions are universal and the same. When one feels a fear, anger, frustration, when we watch 49'ers are about to lose a game or we are on the first date, or winning a jackpot - the body responses are the same.Cortex send an alert signal when something important (for this particular individual in this particular case) is going on - amigdala reacts. Nonetheless, amigdala and related structures make no distinction of what exactly we feel. Their task is to provide us a physical readiness for a possible danger. The only thing that matters - is how strong the emotion is, but not what emotion it is. This is a judgement, performed exclusively by cortex. Amigdala is a blind and powerful horse, led by a small rider - a cortex.
NONVERBAL REACTIONS
Physiological responses and nonverbal reactions often overlap each other; howbeit, nonverbal reactions are generally defined as the specific changes in someone's behavior, such as mimics, gestures, etc. On a video below we can watch a highly frustrated teen game-addict who lost access to his favorite game portal, exploding with the intense emotions of rage, fury, and anger (Wafflepwn). The emotions were so intense that this teen boy literally couldn't speak. His body prepared for a fight, but the cause of his frustration was a mother, and physical fight with a mother is a taboo so it was blocked by cortex. The emotions still were so strong that needed to be released and cortex chose the safest way of releasing this internal stress and tension.
According to Adler, "Nonverbal actions are better at conveying emotions than they are at conveying ideas." Well, in this case the boy definitely made a better job expressing his emotion than an idea which cause those emotions to explore and what idea he tried to express. We can see his emotions for sure; but what is the exact idea? losing an account? Losing the hero of 99th level? the fact that his mom broke his computer privacy? the fact that he is being treated like a child? Is it a frustration? Fury? Anger? Probably there is a little bit of everything, but we can't state for sure! So, we can see the reactions but we can only guess what exactly he wants to represent at this time. Without a clue given by his brother (in the very beginning) we probably had no idea of what's going on.
According to Adler, "Nonverbal actions are better at conveying emotions than they are at conveying ideas." Well, in this case the boy definitely made a better job expressing his emotion than an idea which cause those emotions to explore and what idea he tried to express. We can see his emotions for sure; but what is the exact idea? losing an account? Losing the hero of 99th level? the fact that his mom broke his computer privacy? the fact that he is being treated like a child? Is it a frustration? Fury? Anger? Probably there is a little bit of everything, but we can't state for sure! So, we can see the reactions but we can only guess what exactly he wants to represent at this time. Without a clue given by his brother (in the very beginning) we probably had no idea of what's going on.
EXPRESSING EMOTIONS
Emotional intelligence includes not only a correct intuitive judgement of what emotions are suitable and the way the are expressed, but also a clear understanding of when and where these emotions should or should not be expressed. In a commercial below by Glushenko we can enjoy a perfect example how one may have only a partial understanding of this concept and a wrong idea that only one way of expressing emotions - "a poker face" - is the best choice of expressing emotions (which means that no emotions are actually allowed to be expressed.) Finally, a constant effort of keeping the poker face exhausts him, he let that stone poker-face crack and this leads to a unexpected final, which can cost him a lot. Self-education about the appropriate way of expressing emotions is a great idea for everyone who wants to improve the quality of her/his communications.