6.6 Summary
Key Takeaways
- Emotions can enhance life’s best moments but also intensify its challenges; learning to manage them is essential for well-being.
- Emotional wellness is a process, whereas emotional intelligence refers to ability.
- IQ relates to cognitive abilities like logic and problem-solving, while EQ focuses on emotional and social skills; both are important but serve different purposes.
- Emotional self-regulation involves identifying what you’re feeling, exploring the thoughts behind those feelings, and choosing a constructive response.
- Emotions can distort your thinking and challenge assumptions and emotional filters by asking for evidence and considering other explanations.
Key Terms
- Emotion: A naturally occurring state of mind and body that can be derived from one’s circumstances (i.e., what is happening around us), mood (i.e., how we are feeling overall), and/or relationships (i.e., the connections we share with people, places and things).
- Emotional Intelligence: A mix of emotional and social skills that help you understand yourself, express how you feel, build healthy relationships, handle stress, and use your emotions in an effective way.
- Emotional wellness: an ongoing process of making choices to foster optimal well-being. In contrast, emotional intelligence centers specifically on the abilities and skills one uses to perceive, understand, and manage emotions.
- IQ (Intelligence Quotient): Refers to cognitive abilities, such as logical reasoning, problem-solving, and abstract thinking. It remains relatively stable over time and is typically measured through standardized tests designed to assess how well someone can learn, understand, and apply information.
- EQ (Emotional Quotient): Refers to emotional/social skills (empathy, regulation) and is measured by behavioural observations. It can be developed and refined through self-awareness, practice, and feedback.
- EQ-i 2.0 (Emotional Quotient 2.0): A widely used tool that examines competencies such as self-perception, stress management, interpersonal skills, decision-making, and more. This assessment helps individuals understand their emotional strengths and areas for improvement, offering targeted insights and strategies to develop healthier relationships, enhance leadership abilities, and foster personal growth.
- The Line Model: A helpful tool for assessing and processing one’s emotional state. If you are above the line, you are open, curious, and adaptable. If you are below the line, you are defensive, rigid, and focused on being “right” (Dether & Chapman, 2015).
- Assertiveness: The skill of honestly and respectfully expressing your thoughts, feelings, and needs. It balances self-respect (knowing your rights, limits, and needs) with respect for others (acknowledging their perspectives and boundaries) to improve understanding and conflict resolution.
- Aggression: Disregarding the rights or feelings of others, often involving hostility, shouting, intimidation, or belittling.
- Passivity: Consistently prioritizing other people’s needs over your own and avoiding conflict at all costs.
- Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It involves mentally and emotionally placing yourself in someone else’s shoes, recognizing their emotions, and acknowledging their perspectives without necessarily adopting them as your own.
- Sympathy: Pity or feeling sorry for someone’s misfortune, sometimes from a distance (“I feel bad for you, but that’s your experience, not mine.”). Unlike empathy, sympathy does not necessarily involve trying to see the world through the other person’s lens; it can remain superficial or detached.
