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This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

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In October 1967, the world's greatest
chess minds gathered in Seuss, Tunisia,

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to face off at the Interzonal Tournament,
the high-stakes gateway to the World Chess

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Championship.

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The early games were dominated
by the American prodigy, Bobby Fischer.

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He was a 24-year-old grandmaster with
an IQ rumored to be at the genius level

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of 180. He was the favorite to win it all.

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But despite his overwhelming lead,
the tournament quickly spiraled into

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a masterclass in self-sabotage.

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Bobby Fischer issued a series of
escalating demands regarding his playing

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schedule. When organizers refused
to rearrange the event to suit him,

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he walked out, withdrawing from
the tournament while in first place

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and throwing away years of work
in a single fit of frustration.

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you

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The walkout was a window into a profound
emotional ineptness that lived right

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alongside Bobby Fisher's brilliance.

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Throughout his career, he operated in
a state of constant relational friction,

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alienating the very coaches
and friends who tried to support him.

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At his chess matches, he frequently
violated the social norms of the game,

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arriving late and refusing to make eye
contact with the player sitting across

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from him.

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Bobby Fischer possessed a mind that could
see a dozen moves ahead on a chessboard,

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but he struggled with the basic
moves of social and emotional life.

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This week on Hidden Brain, and in a
companion episode on Hidden Brain Plus,

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the logic of emotion and how
feelings make us smarter.

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Think back to the last time you
made a decision, you regret it.

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Perhaps you felt blinded
by rage or paralyzed by fear.

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In those moments, it feels like
our emotions are obstacles to our success,

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a vestige of our primitive brains
getting in the way of our rational minds.

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But research in recent decades into the
world of emotions suggests that this idea

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is profoundly wrong. Emotions are central
to our ability to understand, attend,

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and to prioritize. They aren't
obstacles that block our path.

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They are food and fuel for the journey.

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Peter Salovey is a psychologist
at Yale University.

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He studies how our emotions shape
our decisions and our behavior.

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Peter Salovey, welcome to Hidden Brain.

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Thank you so much, Shankar.
It's a real honor to be with you.

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I listen to your show regularly
and have enjoyed seeing you live as well.

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And so it's a privilege to be a guest.

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Peter, in addition to being
a psychology professor at Yale,

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you've held several administrative
posts at the university,

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including provost and dean.
While you were dean,

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a prominent individual visited the campus.

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Can you paint me a picture of the moment
you got to shake hands with the president?

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Yes, we had invited President Clinton
to visit campus. And if memory serves,

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he was going to give a talk
on campus at the time. And he said,

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They lined all of us up,
all the deans in the boardroom, actually,

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of the university. We were around the
perimeter and President Clinton walked in.

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and he worked his way around
the perimeter of the room,

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shaking hands with everyone.
And when he got to me,

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I was quite nervous, actually,
and he stuck out his hands and he said,

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I'm Bill Clinton. And I said, I'm Peter
Salve. I'm the dean of Yale College.

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And he said, I'm. You know,
it's a pleasure to meet you, Peter.

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We actually already know each other.

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So when he said that you had met earlier,
had you actually met him earlier, Peter?

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No, I had never met him, at least,
you know, not to my memory. But no, no,

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I had never met him. I had never met him.
And so I was surprised when he said that.

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And of course,
I was a little nervous. Like,

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am I forget that I had met Bill Clinton?
How could that possibly be?

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So I'm a little self-conscious
in my interaction at that point.

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So something happened earlier that day
that is pertinent to what Bill Clinton

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told you. Tell me what happened
earlier that morning, Peter.

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Yeah, so as I was coming onto campus,
really to park near where this meet

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and greet was going
to take place, I saw a spot.

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I pulled in quickly
and I didn't realize it,

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but I had pulled right
in front of Bill Clinton's limo.

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And, in fact, kind of cut it off.

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And a Secret Service agent or some kind
of security that was with him jumped out

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of the car and said, hey,
wait, wait, wait, wait.

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And President Clinton rolled the window
down and said, no, no, no, no, it's OK.

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That guy's the D.

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And I realized he had been reviewing the
people he was going to meet in his car,

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most likely, as a public figure might.
And so when I was...

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In the meet and greet line
to meet him, he said to me,

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we already know each other. And I was so
charmed by this. And more importantly,

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he could tell I was nervous. He could
tell I was anxious meeting the president.

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And he told that story to sort
of say there's no need to be nervous.

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Mr. Dean, we're old friends.
We had an interaction earlier today.

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It put me at ease. It was a wonderful
example of President Clinton managing

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my emotions. You can see I'm nervous.
No need to be nervous. We're old friends,

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he says. And in fact, the old friend
is based on an embarrassing interaction,

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but that doesn't matter. you

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you

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I've seen photographs of the moment. He's
looking me in the eye and giving me a firm

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handshake. And it's that
when he's looking at me,

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he is seeing that I have a look of...

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nervousness or fear, anxiety in my face.

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Bye. And it cues him.

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to do something, which is tell this story
about the interaction with him and his

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limo in the Secret Service, because he
knows it might put me at ease or at least

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make us feel familiar with him.

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and like old, old friends. What Peter
realized after the fact was that Bill

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Clinton had demonstrated an essential
idea in Peter's own research.

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Some people are incredibly
skilled at reading a room.

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In interactions with others,
this gives them an edge.

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They can see around the corners
of a conversation, soothe frictions,

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put people at ease.

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Some years after this incident,
Peter became a president himself.

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He became president of Yale. He inherited
a challenge that required the same skills

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of him that Bill Clinton had
shown in that interaction.

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We had a residential college
named for John C. Calhoun.

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It's called Calhoun College.
John C. Calhoun was a senator,

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was the vice president of the United
States all before the Civil War.

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served as, I think, Secretary
of State and Secretary of War as well.

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But what he was most...
well-known for is his

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ardent defense.

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of slavery, slavery, not just
as a quote, way of life in the South.

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But to use his words...
as a positive good.

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He believed that.

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And he rooted it in white supremacy. He
viewed it as the proper order of society.

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And I imagine he must have gone to Yale
himself if a building was named after him.

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Yeah, he'd been vice president of the
United States. He was a Yale graduate.

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And when the...

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Building was built in about 1930. There
was a debate about who to name it for.

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And there were two colleges
being named that year.

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And they named one of the colleges after
a minister. And so the other was founded.

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to be named after the most prominent

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statesman who at the time
would have been Johnson Calhoun.

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So with that as history,
over the years, many decades,

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there had been more and less
protest about this name.

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Why do we name a college after
the most ardent defender of slavery?

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And so I...

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in some ways tired of receiving
petitions about this or watching protests.

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I said, let's have a conversation.

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And I gave my welcoming speech that fall.

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And, uh,

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I said, let's have the kind of
conversations you should have on campus.

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about whether we should
continue to have a college name

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for John C. Cullinan.
And I made the argument that good people,

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moral people, thoughtful people

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would likely find themselves on both
sides of this issue. Some wanting change,

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some saying we don't

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need to honor John C. Cullinan, and others
saying we may not agree with John C.

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Cullinan, But he's a public
figure, a historic figure,

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and universities should not be
in the business of effacing history.

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So early on,
as this controversy was brewing,

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you decided that the name
should not be changed.

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Talk about the moment you actually
announced this to the campus and what

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the reaction was, Peter.

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Sure.

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While our students generally wanted the
name to be changed, our alumni did not.

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And our faculty at that point were largely
not interested in this particular issue.

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And I talked to many experts,
the head of the NAACP,

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prominent African-American intellectuals
who had lived in Calhoun College when they

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were Yale undergraduates
and many, many others.

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And all of them were profoundly ambivalent
about the idea of effacing history.

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We should leave his name on there, many of
them said, but confront him in other ways.

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and so in light of that

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I had announced that we would maintain
the name but we would contextualize it

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we would put up educational
materials plaques and the like

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explaining who he was and what he believed
and why we left his name on the college

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well I think the next day
after announcing that decision

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there was very loud protest
on campus led by students.

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We had a town hall
meeting at which I spoke,

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and now the faculty were
quite energized by the issue.

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I think seeing how
upset the students were,

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they were then calling
for a different outcome.

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I understand that during the town hall
there was a moment when students were

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showering you with fake cash to make the
assertion that you cared more about you

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know donors and the alumni
than the well of students

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And that must have come
as something of a shock to you.

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That, of course, was a shock to me.

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You know, I was a very
student-oriented president.

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I taught students introductory
psychology for many, many, many years.

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and so I was not happy
about that kind of protest.

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Several months later, in the summer,

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a worker in Calhoun College,

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I believe he was a dining hall worker,

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noticed that the iconography,
the symbolism,

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the windows, stained glass
windows in Calhoun College

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reflected themes relevant to the name.

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They reflected the Old South,
African-Americans picking cotton.

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John C. Calhoun is kind
of a statesman looking regal.

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And he, in a kind of emotional moment, he
broke one of these stained glass windows.

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I believe it was the one of the
African-Americans picking cotton.

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And he said that as a black man, I
couldn't stand looking at that every day.

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And I needed to do something.

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I'm wondering, Peter, as you heard about
all this protest and you saw how intense

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the feelings were,

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Did you have a moment when you felt
that you had in some ways misjudged

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the intensity, the depth of feelings
that existed on campus about this issue?

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Yes, and I think part of that
was that times were changing.

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This was all happening
in a dynamic environment.

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It was happening in real time.

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And I think when we began
this conversation, sure,

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students wanted change.

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But many other people quite reasonably
made the argument that a facing history

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was not appropriate.

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I think views shifted over
the course of that year.

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And in the course of grappling with my own
feelings about that I met with an African

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student who grew up in South Carolina

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In fact, she grew up, I believe, in a home
just off of Calhoun Street in Charleston.

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This student said to me
something very interesting.

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She said, I've known the name
of Calhoun all my life.

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I know who he is.

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I can handle being in a
space named for John C.

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Calvin,

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such as Calvin college,

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but I don't want to live
in a shrine to slavery.

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And I said, that's a powerful metaphor.

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What do you mean by that? She goes,
look at the stained glass windows.

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Look at the reliefs carved
into the stone walls.

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Look at the artifacts from plantations
in the South that are in the collection

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of this college.

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Look at the name that is on our T-shirts
when we go out and play intramural sports.

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This has become a shrine to slavery.

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And I swallowed hard.

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And I had a moment of emotional
understanding and deep empathy that

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the debate really wasn't entirely about
do you honor figures from the past,

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even if we completely
disavow their viewpoints now?

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or whether you efface history

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or whether times change
and who we honor should change.

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I suddenly got focused on how people feel.

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Thinking about that student
living in a shrine to slavery,

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thinking about our worker,

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so moved to an act of vandalism

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that he risked his job.
risked criminal prosecution.

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It was a shift in my thinking.

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And it was really
a processing of those emotions,

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triggered by my interaction with the
student primarily that created a moment

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of clarity for me and suggested that we
needed to consider an alternative path

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What did you end up doing?

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We ended up changing the name.

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The name of that college
is Grace Hopper College,

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named after early computer
scientists, I think

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before the field had even been invented.

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and a Navy Admiral, but we honored
her service and being one of the early

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founders of the field. She had
gotten her PhD in mathematics at Yale.

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But it was really this moment of insight
created by the arousal of empathy

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following an emotional conversation with a
student that set me anyway on a different

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course in my thinking.

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One of the most consequential
challenges we face in daily life

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is to read what is happening
in the emotional lives of other people.

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When we come back, how the ability to read
the emotional undercurrents in a room

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can transform our lives.

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You're listening to Hidden Brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.

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Transcription by CastingWords

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or magnificent musical compositions.
But dig a layer deeper,

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and you find that some of the

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smartest people are not very smart when it
comes to gauging the emotional temperature

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of a situation.

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When they meet someone new,
they find it hard to tell friend from foe.

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They are unaware of the emotional
undercurrent swirling around them,

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and they often behave
like bulls in china shops.

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Peter Salovey is a psychologist
at Yale University.

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He studies how our emotions shape
our decisions and our behavior.

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Peter, your research tackles
a long-standing belief of Western culture

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that thinking and feeling are
opposing forces in the mind.

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Talk a moment about the long
history of that idea.

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Yes, whether you're looking at, you know,
Stoic philosophers or many religious

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traditions and the like, the idea is that
we shouldn't be ruled by our passions.

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You know, rule your feelings
or your feelings will rule you.

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It's kind of the idea that on the
one hand, we have thought rules.

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and reason, and on the other
we have emotions, passions.

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The belief was somehow that our emotions
were vestigial, meaning, yes,

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they're part of our animal heritage,
just like our wisdom teeth,

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just like our appendices, but...

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We don't really need them anymore.

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We are a thinking species.

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Peter and a colleague, Jack Mayer, noticed
there were all kinds of situations where

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people are asked to read the emotional
temperature of a situation.

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Some people are better
at doing this than others.

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Wasn't this a kind of intelligence too?
they wondered.

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Together, they came up with a formulation
for the skill they were talking about.

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They called it emotional intelligence. The
idea came to them in the oddest of places.

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Not a lab... But as the two were
painting Peter's living room,

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Yeah, that is what happened.
And we're painting the living room.

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We're talking about emotions.
We're talking about intelligence.

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We both had done research on the impact
of mood and emotion on memory,

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on judgment, on decision making.
And we're just chatting as we painted.

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Jack was very nice to help
me paint my living room.

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We'd only been friends a year
or two at that point. And yeah.

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talked about this idea
of emotional intelligence.

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My original idea was let's develop
a framework for organizing all of these

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abilities having to do with the emotions
and their effect on thinking and behavior.

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Jack came out of a more
traditional intelligence framework.

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laboratory. but had now turned
his attention to mood and emotion.

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And he was wondering whether
you could measure any of this.

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And so we came together in that way.
Yes, and it was while painting my house.

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Peter and his colleagues have found
ways to measure emotional intelligence.

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Instead of asking people
about their emotional skills,

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people turn out to be poor judges
of their own emotional intelligence,

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Researchers came up
with a series of tests.

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How good were people at reading
the expressions of others?

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How well did they understand what was
happening in their own emotional lives?

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How skillful were they
at regulating their emotions?

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They came up with a measure,
very much like an IQ test.

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It came to be called
the Mayor-Salloway-Carruso Scale,

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or Mesquite for short.

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We did a study in which...

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You. came to the lab,

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as a participant in research
and had to interact with a stranger.

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And then the stranger would rate the.

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How... Well, did you listen?

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to him. How connected Were
you trying to be with him?

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How empathic. Did you sing? and for our

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Participants who scored

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Well, on the mesquite,

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The stranger rated them more highly.
But also, we could show...

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videos of that interaction.
to others who had no idea

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Of course, what the experiment
really was about.

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And they rated the person as more
sociable, better able to make friends.

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and the like if they had higher scores.
We can also do just correlational studies.

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How many friends do you have?
It's predicted by the mesquite,

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by our emotional intelligence measure.
Do you engage in pro-social behaviors

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with friends? Are you more likely to help?

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To share. Thank you. Or are you more
likely to get into arguments and fights?

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All of it predicted
by emotional intelligence.

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So I'm sure everyone
listening knows of someone who,

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Who... Everyone wants to be their friend.

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Because they listen well,
they empathize, they reflect feelings,

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they seem to be able to pick up

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on something about you,

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that many others don't. And they seem
to be able to kind of walk a mile in

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your shoes. And not surprisingly,
they are the kinds of

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individuals who you would
love to have as a friend.

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You've also looked at how emotional
intelligence makes a difference in other

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realms of life. Young people who are more
emotionally intelligent tend to be less

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likely to engage in risky behaviors.
Why do you think this might be the case,

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Peter?

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Yeah, that's right. We've shown
correlations between mesquite scores

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and the likelihood of... using drugs
or alcohol, particularly in adolescence,

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higher scores on the Mesquite predict
less likelihood of drug or alcohol use,

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less likelihood of delinquent
behavior. I think some of it is

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You know, if you're more in touch
with your own emotions, You don't need...

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What would I say? Elicit substances
to help you regulate them.

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You're less likely to need
to self-medicate. Similarly,

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if you're better able to empathize, better
able to understand the emotions of another

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person, you're less likely to have
conflict with them, less likely to.

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Think the way to settle... differences is
through fighting. Maybe most importantly,

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you're more likely as a kid to stay
in school because you like school and you

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like learning better.
So I think it's all of a piece, right?

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You're happier in the school environment,
more likely to make friends,

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less likely to become
frustrated, drop out,

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more likely to not self-medicate
with drugs or alcohol when you get older.

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It's all of a piece. you

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And this is not just when you are looking
at the behavior of students and young

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people. You find emotional intelligence
plays a role in our work lives.

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For sure. One small study we did was at
an insurance company where we measured

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traditional intelligence.
We measured personality.

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And we also gave them a ski
or measure of emotional intelligence.

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And what we predicted was.

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A time later. were The performance...

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reviews you received from your boss,

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And whether you were likely to get
a promotion and how big a raise that you

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received at work. But the emotional
intelligence test that we use,

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the mesquite, was a good predictor
of those kinds of workplace outcomes.

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People who are better able to regulate
their own emotions were at a huge

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advantage in the workplace.

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You've written and talked quite a bit
about what an emotionally intelligent

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manager looks like, Peter. What are the
qualities of individuals in the workplace

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and what are they able to do
in their interactions with others?

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So the emotionally
intelligent manager said, Bye.

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They recognize...

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What might be going on in a situation
beyond what people are simply saying?

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They recognize that somebody might be
saying one thing but feeling another

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and that that needs to be explored
in depth. But I could tell you a story.

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In early days, David Caruso
and I were doing some training.

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at a large investment bank.
And this was before the Great Recession.

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And this was a bank that was quite
affected by the Great Recession.

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And these were...

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Essentially, vice presidents and senior
vice presidents engaged in banking,

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engaged in trading, engaged in providing
investment advice and the like.

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And only... 10% of them or so
were going to be promoted today.

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to their ultimate goal, which
was to become a managing director.

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which is where much more
serious compensation is received.

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And so we would ask
at the beginning of our

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conversations at the
beginning of our sessions.

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How many of you feel that you
are above average in IQ?

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And every hand would go up. Then we'd say,

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how many of you feel that you have strong
analytic or mathematical or economics

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skills for your jobs? And every hand
would go up. We'd look at them and say,

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I don't understand.
You all are above average in IQ.

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You all feel you have the analytic
and economic and mathematical skills to do

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your job. And yet,

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90% of you are not going
to get to be managing directors.

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What is that all about?
And they would say, well,

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I guess some people are
better able at inspiring.

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others. Some people are better
able to manage their own emotions.

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Some people are better able to

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manage a group's emotions. Some people
are more charismatic and they'd start

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to generate

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what it meant to be an emotionally
intelligent person in that context.

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and recognizing that that
was the differentiator.

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not the analytic skills.
Everybody was smart.

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I understand, Peter, that some research
has also employed brain scanning to study

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the brain activity of people as they
solve emotion-related problems.

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In the study that you're referring to,
we ask people to solve problems that were

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social in nature, problems about
conflict with others and the like.

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And maybe the most
important thing, Aspect.

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of that work.

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is it has seriously challenged
the idea that cognition,

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and emotion are separate.

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You can see in fMRI scans that the parts
of the brain thought to be involved

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in emotion and the parts of the brain
thought to be involved in thinking,

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in decision making,
in problem solving, in creativity.

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are closely connected.

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that there's dense and multiple
connections among them,

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and that when you activate, what we would
think of as a strictly cognitive activity.

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you're also activating
the emotion side of things.

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You also can study people with
different kinds of brain damage,

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00:31:37,300 --> 00:31:42,234
people who've had strokes, for example.
And if those strokes affect the emotional

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00:31:42,317 --> 00:31:46,220
parts of the brain, they also
have an impact on their thinking.

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Emotions provide us
with useful information.

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crucial data points that we can use
to inform our responses and our decisions.

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Yet people vary widely in their
ability to identify, understand,

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and manage emotional signals.
Is this capacity innate and fixed,

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or an ability we can cultivate?

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When we come back, how to sharpen
our emotional intelligence?

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You're listening to Hidden Brain.
I'm Shankar Vedanta.

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you you

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you

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This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

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Have you had times in your life when you
or someone you know handled a situation

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00:32:49,086 --> 00:32:51,490
with exquisite emotional intelligence?

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00:32:52,170 --> 00:32:56,770
Or can you think of a moment when
you were, well, an emotional idiot?

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00:33:22,170 --> 00:33:25,780
Peter Salovey is a psychologist
at Yale University.

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00:33:25,863 --> 00:33:30,570
He studies how our emotions shape
our decisions and our behavior.

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00:33:32,370 --> 00:33:37,024
Peter, researchers have developed
a program intended to help people increase

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00:33:37,107 --> 00:33:40,016
their emotional intelligence.
It's called RULER.

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00:33:40,099 --> 00:33:43,567
I understand this is an acronym.
What does it stand for?

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00:33:43,650 --> 00:33:47,183
So RULER is an acronym
developed by Mark Brackett,

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00:33:47,267 --> 00:33:51,390
who's a professor here at Yale
in the Child Study Center.

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Happened to have been my postdoc
and my collaborator Jack Mayer's graduate

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00:33:56,317 --> 00:34:00,930
student. Years and years ago.
And RULER is an acronym for

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00:34:01,110 --> 00:34:05,600
The skills that he and his
colleagues teach today, Kids.

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From kindergarten through high school,

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00:34:08,850 --> 00:34:12,170
to become more emotional,
intelligent human beings.

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00:34:12,900 --> 00:34:17,140
The first R is recognizing emotion,
the ability to understand.

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Know what you're feeling.
Know what another person is feeling.

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00:34:21,420 --> 00:34:25,700
to recognize emotions through
nonverbal cues or verbal ones.

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00:34:26,730 --> 00:34:30,938
The U is understanding emotion.
What does this emotion mean?

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00:34:31,022 --> 00:34:34,729
How does it transition in time?
How does it progress?

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00:34:34,813 --> 00:34:39,522
How do small emotions like irritation
turn into big ones like rage?

435
00:34:39,605 --> 00:34:43,027
How does it affect
our thinking and our behavior?

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00:34:43,110 --> 00:34:47,330
What does it motivate us to do?
The L is labeling emotions.

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00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:51,919
Can I use words to describe
this emotion to others?

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00:34:52,002 --> 00:34:58,760
Can I reflect someone's feeling back
to them using words? Can I identify words?

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00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:01,300
where emotion words might fit.

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00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:08,334
into an emotion space defined by pleasant
and unpleasant dimension and an active

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00:35:08,417 --> 00:35:13,327
versus calm dimension.
Most emotions and feeling states are.

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00:35:13,410 --> 00:35:17,347
can be mapped onto those dimensions.

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00:35:17,430 --> 00:35:19,590
The E is expressing emotion.

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00:35:20,460 --> 00:35:24,193
What am I showing on my face
when I express an emotion?

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00:35:24,276 --> 00:35:29,882
How do I modulate those expressions when
I am in different settings at work versus

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00:35:29,965 --> 00:35:30,798
at home?

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00:35:31,290 --> 00:35:32,530
at a funeral,

448
00:35:32,850 --> 00:35:38,714
versus at a party. Am I aware of cultural
differences in the way emotions are

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00:35:38,798 --> 00:35:39,631
expressed?

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00:35:40,860 --> 00:35:46,080
It's another part of all of this. Do I
understand that in certain cultures...

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00:35:46,710 --> 00:35:48,590
Weeping openly is...

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00:35:49,050 --> 00:35:55,500
Perfectly acceptable and in others,
a more stoic attitude is expected or

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00:35:55,583 --> 00:36:01,670
that expressing great joy at one's
accomplishment might be perfectly

454
00:36:01,754 --> 00:36:07,470
acceptable in America. But...
a little embarrassing in a place like

455
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:13,540
Japan. The final R is regulating emotion.

456
00:36:14,070 --> 00:36:18,656
And this is the area of emotional
intelligence that has received the most

457
00:36:18,739 --> 00:36:23,389
research attention. A wonderful
researcher named James Gross, for example,

458
00:36:23,473 --> 00:36:28,537
at Stanford University, who is studying
the way in which we manage our emotions,

459
00:36:28,620 --> 00:36:34,500
primarily through cognition
for decades and decades. And, uh,

460
00:36:35,070 --> 00:36:38,986
regulating our emotion. We need
to remember we're regulating our emotion,

461
00:36:39,069 --> 00:36:40,110
but we also want to

462
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:46,800
Regulate the emotions of others sometimes.
Why might I want to cheer myself up?

463
00:36:46,890 --> 00:36:50,698
Well, perhaps because I'm
going to do something creative.

464
00:36:50,781 --> 00:36:55,408
Why might I want to calm myself down,
actually feel less happy? Well,

465
00:36:55,491 --> 00:36:56,324
because I...

466
00:36:56,430 --> 00:37:01,190
might have a task in front of me where
I need to be vigilant and careful.

467
00:37:01,620 --> 00:37:04,970
and slow. For example,
proofreading a manuscript.

468
00:37:05,490 --> 00:37:10,694
What about others? When I give a talk,
I want to tell a joke at the beginning

469
00:37:10,777 --> 00:37:15,420
of that talk. to manage other people's,
regulate other people's emotions.

470
00:37:15,540 --> 00:37:17,190
Before they have to listen to me.

471
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:24,196
. So, uh... Ruler is recognizing,
understanding, labeling, expressing,

472
00:37:24,279 --> 00:37:25,830
and regulating values.

473
00:37:26,490 --> 00:37:27,323
At it...

474
00:37:27,570 --> 00:37:34,050
forms five kinds of skills that you
might want to teach to school children

475
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,360
as they learn about their emotions.

476
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,337
And it more or less maps onto the four...

477
00:37:39,420 --> 00:37:45,224
domains that the mesquite, which is
our ability-based motion test, measures.

478
00:37:45,308 --> 00:37:49,020
We organize them slightly
differently than Ruler,

479
00:37:49,104 --> 00:37:52,280
but you can see the overlap very clearly.

480
00:37:58,590 --> 00:38:02,825
I understand that when people ask you
how they might improve their own emotional

481
00:38:02,908 --> 00:38:06,388
intelligence, you have a couple
of practical suggestions for them.

482
00:38:06,471 --> 00:38:09,141
And one sounds like advice
from an English teacher,

483
00:38:09,224 --> 00:38:13,351
which is to read good literature. Why
would why would reading help us increase

484
00:38:13,435 --> 00:38:15,270
our emotional intelligence, Peter?

485
00:38:16,110 --> 00:38:20,513
Well, it is an interesting question
because one of the things we know is

486
00:38:20,597 --> 00:38:23,567
that your emotional
intelligence can be improved.

487
00:38:23,650 --> 00:38:28,116
It's one of the reasons people love
the concept of emotional intelligence

488
00:38:28,199 --> 00:38:33,163
is because unlike IQ, which is kind of
difficult to change very much after you're

489
00:38:33,246 --> 00:38:37,774
a teenager, you can improve your emotional
intelligence over the course of

490
00:38:37,858 --> 00:38:38,730
your lifetime.

491
00:38:38,970 --> 00:38:45,095
Merely aging and gaining life experience
typically improves your emotional

492
00:38:45,178 --> 00:38:48,450
intelligence. Kind of amazing that way.

493
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:54,330
Now the difference In terms of how we
would go about improving our intelligence,

494
00:38:55,050 --> 00:39:00,180
our emotional intelligence concerns
whether we're talking about kids

495
00:39:00,263 --> 00:39:06,340
or adults. For kids, teaching these
skills directly, in the classroom.

496
00:39:06,450 --> 00:39:11,145
as part of a social emotional learning
program is probably a pretty effective

497
00:39:11,229 --> 00:39:12,470
and efficient way to

498
00:39:12,690 --> 00:39:17,706
To learn these skills, it's a little
more difficult as adults to take a class

499
00:39:17,789 --> 00:39:22,690
in emotional intelligence. And so we
have to look for other ways to do it.

500
00:39:23,370 --> 00:39:25,430
I believe I don't have a lot of

501
00:39:25,830 --> 00:39:29,190
data on which to base this,
but I believe that's where the arts

502
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:34,667
can really help us. So imagine that when
we're reading great literature and trying

503
00:39:34,750 --> 00:39:37,690
to understand the motives of characters.

504
00:39:38,850 --> 00:39:43,530
and why someone is behaving
as they are, Why they might

505
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:47,120
behave in ways that look
conflicted. All of that

506
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,840
helps us develop a more
sophisticated understanding.

507
00:39:51,810 --> 00:39:55,970
of emotions, a greater ability
to recognize emotions and label them.

508
00:39:56,130 --> 00:39:59,927
and maybe even manage them.
I think having experiences

509
00:40:00,010 --> 00:40:04,093
you're looking at visual art,
looking at, let's say,

510
00:40:04,176 --> 00:40:10,101
at paintings in an art museum, and
reacting to them emotionally might help.

511
00:40:10,185 --> 00:40:13,870
In Santander, Spain,
there is an entire museum

512
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:19,907
organized, art museum, organized
around the idea of emotions, emotions,

513
00:40:19,990 --> 00:40:26,660
and creativity. Using the art museum
experience to practice your art,

514
00:40:26,770 --> 00:40:33,290
emotions. I think listening to music
is a great way to practice feeling and

515
00:40:33,490 --> 00:40:39,920
emotions that Mike. Not.
feel that often in the outside world.

516
00:40:40,090 --> 00:40:45,002
I particularly like theater. And when
I was in high school, I was an actor.

517
00:40:45,085 --> 00:40:50,263
And I often think theater is a wonderful
way, because you're watching behavior,

518
00:40:50,346 --> 00:40:55,524
to gain a deeper understanding of what
it means to feel an emotion and how it's

519
00:40:55,608 --> 00:41:00,497
connected to thinking and behavior.
In method acting, one of the Thank you.

520
00:41:00,580 --> 00:41:03,940
techniques you might use
to create an emotion is actually to

521
00:41:04,570 --> 00:41:07,390
enact the behaviors
associated with that emotion.

522
00:41:07,900 --> 00:41:14,460
And then that emotion might follow. Act as
if crying and crying might follow. Well,

523
00:41:14,860 --> 00:41:20,499
Having those kind of experiences, either
as an observer or actually being on stage

524
00:41:20,582 --> 00:41:26,152
yourself, might help you learn, develop
a more sophisticated understanding of how

525
00:41:26,235 --> 00:41:31,120
our emotions work and how they're
connected to behavior and cognition.

526
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:35,909
You know, I'm thinking about the times
when we go to a gym and we start working

527
00:41:35,993 --> 00:41:40,167
with, you know, different equipment. And
all of a sudden you realize that you had

528
00:41:40,250 --> 00:41:44,530
muscles that you didn't know that you had
because your body starts to ache and pain

529
00:41:44,613 --> 00:41:48,367
in different places. And in some ways,
what you're talking about emotions

530
00:41:48,450 --> 00:41:50,080
is actually not that different.

531
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:03,240
exploring and strengthening.

532
00:42:03,490 --> 00:42:07,337
I think that's exactly right,
Shankar. And the more you do it,

533
00:42:07,420 --> 00:42:11,901
the better you develop these skills
so that empathizing becomes natural,

534
00:42:11,985 --> 00:42:13,877
so that recognizing emotions...

535
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:18,981
in someone who is saying something
different than their feeling becomes more

536
00:42:19,065 --> 00:42:22,020
second nature so that
you develop over time.

537
00:42:22,540 --> 00:42:24,860
Muscles that allow you

538
00:42:25,660 --> 00:42:29,380
to take advantage of of the data that,

539
00:42:30,070 --> 00:42:33,728
that is inherent in our emotional
system. And it becomes,

540
00:42:33,812 --> 00:42:39,111
I don't want to sound too woo-woo here,
but it becomes kind of like a sixth sense.

541
00:42:39,194 --> 00:42:43,330
Yes, we see and we hear and we
taste and we smell and we touch.

542
00:42:43,900 --> 00:42:45,720
But we also feel our emotions.

543
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:53,437
And maybe there's some data there that
is being conveyed to us that we should pay

544
00:42:53,521 --> 00:42:55,500
attention to. Why is it?

545
00:42:56,200 --> 00:43:01,620
that I'm thinking about, well,
let's say purchasing a product.

546
00:43:02,260 --> 00:43:05,660
but I get a feeling in the pit
of my stomach that's a little queasy.

547
00:43:06,250 --> 00:43:11,147
shouldn't I stop and Think about why
that product made me feel that way.

548
00:43:11,230 --> 00:43:17,825
Why is it that I might find
myself attracted to another person.

549
00:43:17,908 --> 00:43:23,790
And that's accompanied with joy and versus
it's accompanied by a little bit of worry.

550
00:43:24,370 --> 00:43:28,479
What does that tell me? What does
that tell me? And so for the most part,

551
00:43:28,563 --> 00:43:31,090
people go through life
ignoring all of that.

552
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,500
And what I'm suggesting is these are data.

553
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:40,730
And when you ask a friend, let's say,
or a spouse or family member to role play

554
00:43:40,813 --> 00:43:43,600
something with you,
tomorrow I'm going to go.

555
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:48,647
ask my boss for a raise.
When you role play it,

556
00:43:48,730 --> 00:43:52,670
You learn how expressing certain
words creates certain feelings in you.

557
00:43:53,740 --> 00:43:57,220
You learn when your feelings
are maybe going to...

558
00:43:57,850 --> 00:44:00,050
push you in directions
you don't want to go.

559
00:44:00,190 --> 00:44:03,519
And you can practice
modulating those feelings.

560
00:44:03,602 --> 00:44:08,830
You can practice regulating them.
You can practice taking a deep breath.

561
00:44:09,220 --> 00:44:15,340
pausing, giving yourself a minute to calm
down and then continuing on. Our whole

562
00:44:15,460 --> 00:44:19,920
conception of emotional intelligence
is that these are skills.

563
00:44:20,410 --> 00:44:25,390
You use the metaphor muscle.
You can think of these as skills, skills,

564
00:44:25,510 --> 00:44:28,607
just like an athletic
skill where, you know,

565
00:44:28,690 --> 00:44:34,461
when you develop those muscles and you
take thousands and thousands of foul shots

566
00:44:34,544 --> 00:44:38,364
from the basketball foul line,
you get better at them.

567
00:44:38,447 --> 00:44:43,351
The same is true when you role play
emotionally evocative situations.

568
00:44:43,434 --> 00:44:47,398
What can I learn from watching
the way my body responds,

569
00:44:47,481 --> 00:44:51,890
my thoughts change and my feelings
are expressed differently?

570
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:53,570
and have an impact on others.

571
00:44:54,220 --> 00:45:01,220
The idea of emotional
intelligence is new. In fact,

572
00:45:06,910 --> 00:45:13,910
you might say it's one of the most popular

573
00:45:24,220 --> 00:45:29,691
intelligence. Sadly, however, a lot of
what you may have heard about this concept

574
00:45:29,774 --> 00:45:33,051
is wrong. In our companion
story to this episode,

575
00:45:33,134 --> 00:45:37,028
available exclusively
to subscribers to Hidden Brain Plus,

576
00:45:37,111 --> 00:45:42,240
we explore how the enormous popularity
of emotional intelligence has spawned

577
00:45:42,323 --> 00:45:46,628
a number of myths and misguided
notions. If you're a subscriber,

578
00:45:46,711 --> 00:45:49,180
that episode is available right now.

579
00:45:49,270 --> 00:45:53,492
It's titled, Emotional
Intelligence Isn't About Being Nice.

580
00:45:53,575 --> 00:45:58,527
If you're not yet a subscriber,
please visit support.hiddenbrain.org.

581
00:45:58,610 --> 00:46:02,905
If you're using an Apple device,
go to apple.co.hiddenbrain.

582
00:46:02,989 --> 00:46:07,575
You'll instantly have access
to all our subscriber-only content,

583
00:46:07,659 --> 00:46:10,547
including past episodes. Again?

584
00:46:10,630 --> 00:46:16,230
That's support.hiddenbrain.org
and apple.co.hiddenbrain.

585
00:46:18,450 --> 00:46:22,777
Peter Salovey is a psychologist at Yale
University. Along with Jack Mayer,

586
00:46:22,860 --> 00:46:25,936
he helped coin the concept
of emotional intelligence.

587
00:46:26,019 --> 00:46:30,465
Peter has written and co-written several
books about emotional intelligence,

588
00:46:30,548 --> 00:46:33,290
including The Emotionally
Intelligent Manager,

589
00:46:33,670 --> 00:46:38,110
how to develop and use the four
key emotional skills of leadership.

590
00:46:39,060 --> 00:46:41,687
Peter, thank you so much
for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

591
00:46:41,770 --> 00:46:43,847
Thank you, Shaker.
It was a delight for me,

592
00:46:43,930 --> 00:46:45,990
and I very much enjoyed our conversation.

593
00:46:46,810 --> 00:46:48,210
I truly enjoy your show.

594
00:46:48,820 --> 00:46:50,740
.

595
00:46:53,020 --> 00:46:57,764
If you have a personal story about
emotional intelligence that you'd be

596
00:46:57,847 --> 00:47:01,028
willing to share with
the Hidden Brain audience,

597
00:47:01,111 --> 00:47:05,107
or a question or comment about
the research in this episode,

598
00:47:05,190 --> 00:47:09,730
please find a very quiet room
and record a voice memo on your phone.

599
00:47:09,814 --> 00:47:14,422
Two or three minutes is plenty.
Then email the file to us at feedback

600
00:47:14,505 --> 00:47:19,317
at hiddenbrain.org using the subject
line emotional intelligence. Again,

601
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,780
that's feedback at hiddenbrain.org.

602
00:47:23,020 --> 00:47:26,200
Hidden Brain is produced
by Hidden Brain Media.

603
00:47:26,284 --> 00:47:30,853
Our audio production team includes
Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong,

604
00:47:30,936 --> 00:47:35,089
Laura Querell, Ryan Katz,
Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury.

605
00:47:35,172 --> 00:47:37,880
Special thanks today to Simon Linstead.

606
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:40,420
Tara Boyle is our executive producer.

607
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:42,590
I'm Hidden Brains Executive Editor.

608
00:47:44,020 --> 00:47:47,020
I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

609
00:47:57,130 --> 00:47:57,963
Thank you.

610
00:47:58,810 --> 00:47:59,643
you

611
00:47:59,980 --> 00:48:02,010
you Thank you. you