WEBVTT

00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:02.280
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

00:00:03.330 --> 00:00:08.283
In October 1967, the world's greatest
chess minds gathered in Seuss, Tunisia,

00:00:08.366 --> 00:00:13.776
to face off at the Interzonal Tournament,
the high-stakes gateway to the World Chess

00:00:13.860 --> 00:00:14.710
Championship.

00:00:16.150 --> 00:00:21.037
The early games were dominated
by the American prodigy, Bobby Fischer.

00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:26.504
He was a 24-year-old grandmaster with
an IQ rumored to be at the genius level

00:00:26.588 --> 00:00:29.570
of 180. He was the favorite to win it all.

00:00:33.330 --> 00:00:39.595
But despite his overwhelming lead,
the tournament quickly spiraled into

00:00:39.678 --> 00:00:42.450
a masterclass in self-sabotage.

00:00:42.690 --> 00:00:47.004
Bobby Fischer issued a series of
escalating demands regarding his playing

00:00:47.088 --> 00:00:51.313
schedule. When organizers refused
to rearrange the event to suit him,

00:00:51.396 --> 00:00:55.170
he walked out, withdrawing from
the tournament while in first place

00:00:55.253 --> 00:00:58.880
and throwing away years of work
in a single fit of frustration.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:00.833
you

00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:06.306
The walkout was a window into a profound
emotional ineptness that lived right

00:01:06.390 --> 00:01:08.760
alongside Bobby Fisher's brilliance.

00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:13.744
Throughout his career, he operated in
a state of constant relational friction,

00:01:13.827 --> 00:01:17.500
alienating the very coaches
and friends who tried to support him.

00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:21.877
At his chess matches, he frequently
violated the social norms of the game,

00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:25.852
arriving late and refusing to make eye
contact with the player sitting across

00:01:25.935 --> 00:01:26.769
from him.

00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:32.580
Bobby Fischer possessed a mind that could
see a dozen moves ahead on a chessboard,

00:01:32.670 --> 00:01:36.250
but he struggled with the basic
moves of social and emotional life.

00:01:39.070 --> 00:01:43.812
This week on Hidden Brain, and in a
companion episode on Hidden Brain Plus,

00:01:43.896 --> 00:01:47.370
the logic of emotion and how
feelings make us smarter.

00:01:55.770 --> 00:01:59.137
Think back to the last time you
made a decision, you regret it.

00:01:59.220 --> 00:02:03.320
Perhaps you felt blinded
by rage or paralyzed by fear.

00:02:03.750 --> 00:02:08.653
In those moments, it feels like
our emotions are obstacles to our success,

00:02:08.736 --> 00:02:13.790
a vestige of our primitive brains
getting in the way of our rational minds.

00:02:14.370 --> 00:02:19.988
But research in recent decades into the
world of emotions suggests that this idea

00:02:20.071 --> 00:02:25.548
is profoundly wrong. Emotions are central
to our ability to understand, attend,

00:02:25.632 --> 00:02:29.842
and to prioritize. They aren't
obstacles that block our path.

00:02:29.925 --> 00:02:32.670
They are food and fuel for the journey.

00:02:33.650 --> 00:02:36.666
Peter Salovey is a psychologist
at Yale University.

00:02:36.749 --> 00:02:40.616
He studies how our emotions shape
our decisions and our behavior.

00:02:40.700 --> 00:02:43.070
Peter Salovey, welcome to Hidden Brain.

00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:47.982
Thank you so much, Shankar.
It's a real honor to be with you.

00:02:48.066 --> 00:02:53.339
I listen to your show regularly
and have enjoyed seeing you live as well.

00:02:53.422 --> 00:02:56.210
And so it's a privilege to be a guest.

00:02:57.090 --> 00:03:00.972
Peter, in addition to being
a psychology professor at Yale,

00:03:01.056 --> 00:03:04.938
you've held several administrative
posts at the university,

00:03:05.022 --> 00:03:08.165
including provost and dean.
While you were dean,

00:03:08.248 --> 00:03:10.988
a prominent individual visited the campus.

00:03:11.071 --> 00:03:16.650
Can you paint me a picture of the moment
you got to shake hands with the president?

00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:23.771
Yes, we had invited President Clinton
to visit campus. And if memory serves,

00:03:23.854 --> 00:03:29.030
he was going to give a talk
on campus at the time. And he said,

00:03:29.550 --> 00:03:34.439
They lined all of us up,
all the deans in the boardroom, actually,

00:03:34.523 --> 00:03:40.550
of the university. We were around the
perimeter and President Clinton walked in.

00:03:41.370 --> 00:03:44.493
and he worked his way around
the perimeter of the room,

00:03:44.577 --> 00:03:47.550
shaking hands with everyone.
And when he got to me,

00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:54.100
I was quite nervous, actually,
and he stuck out his hands and he said,

00:03:54.183 --> 00:04:00.488
I'm Bill Clinton. And I said, I'm Peter
Salve. I'm the dean of Yale College.

00:04:00.571 --> 00:04:04.430
And he said, I'm. You know,
it's a pleasure to meet you, Peter.

00:04:05.190 --> 00:04:07.110
We actually already know each other.

00:04:13.010 --> 00:04:18.110
So when he said that you had met earlier,
had you actually met him earlier, Peter?

00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:23.931
No, I had never met him, at least,
you know, not to my memory. But no, no,

00:04:24.014 --> 00:04:29.331
I had never met him. I had never met him.
And so I was surprised when he said that.

00:04:29.414 --> 00:04:32.194
And of course,
I was a little nervous. Like,

00:04:32.277 --> 00:04:36.618
am I forget that I had met Bill Clinton?
How could that possibly be?

00:04:36.701 --> 00:04:40.800
So I'm a little self-conscious
in my interaction at that point.

00:04:44.760 --> 00:04:49.263
So something happened earlier that day
that is pertinent to what Bill Clinton

00:04:49.346 --> 00:04:52.920
told you. Tell me what happened
earlier that morning, Peter.

00:04:53.880 --> 00:04:59.670
Yeah, so as I was coming onto campus,
really to park near where this meet

00:04:59.753 --> 00:05:03.532
and greet was going
to take place, I saw a spot.

00:05:03.615 --> 00:05:07.072
I pulled in quickly
and I didn't realize it,

00:05:07.155 --> 00:05:11.580
but I had pulled right
in front of Bill Clinton's limo.

00:05:11.760 --> 00:05:15.520
And, in fact, kind of cut it off.

00:05:16.170 --> 00:05:20.948
And a Secret Service agent or some kind
of security that was with him jumped out

00:05:21.032 --> 00:05:23.926
of the car and said, hey,
wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:05:24.009 --> 00:05:28.810
And President Clinton rolled the window
down and said, no, no, no, no, it's OK.

00:05:29.820 --> 00:05:30.920
That guy's the D.

00:05:32.400 --> 00:05:39.177
And I realized he had been reviewing the
people he was going to meet in his car,

00:05:39.260 --> 00:05:44.320
most likely, as a public figure might.
And so when I was...

00:05:44.550 --> 00:05:48.883
In the meet and greet line
to meet him, he said to me,

00:05:48.967 --> 00:05:55.345
we already know each other. And I was so
charmed by this. And more importantly,

00:05:55.428 --> 00:06:01.837
he could tell I was nervous. He could
tell I was anxious meeting the president.

00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:08.920
And he told that story to sort
of say there's no need to be nervous.

00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:16.246
Mr. Dean, we're old friends.
We had an interaction earlier today.

00:06:16.329 --> 00:06:22.349
It put me at ease. It was a wonderful
example of President Clinton managing

00:06:22.432 --> 00:06:28.778
my emotions. You can see I'm nervous.
No need to be nervous. We're old friends,

00:06:28.861 --> 00:06:35.044
he says. And in fact, the old friend
is based on an embarrassing interaction,

00:06:35.127 --> 00:06:37.970
but that doesn't matter. you

00:06:40.350 --> 00:06:41.167
you

00:06:41.250 --> 00:06:47.205
I've seen photographs of the moment. He's
looking me in the eye and giving me a firm

00:06:47.288 --> 00:06:50.727
handshake. And it's that
when he's looking at me,

00:06:50.810 --> 00:06:53.470
he is seeing that I have a look of...

00:06:53.610 --> 00:06:57.990
nervousness or fear, anxiety in my face.

00:06:58.140 --> 00:07:00.120
Bye. And it cues him.

00:07:00.750 --> 00:07:05.944
to do something, which is tell this story
about the interaction with him and his

00:07:06.027 --> 00:07:11.222
limo in the Secret Service, because he
knows it might put me at ease or at least

00:07:11.305 --> 00:07:13.350
make us feel familiar with him.

00:07:13.470 --> 00:07:19.087
and like old, old friends. What Peter
realized after the fact was that Bill

00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:24.179
Clinton had demonstrated an essential
idea in Peter's own research.

00:07:24.262 --> 00:07:28.207
Some people are incredibly
skilled at reading a room.

00:07:28.290 --> 00:07:32.235
In interactions with others,
this gives them an edge.

00:07:32.318 --> 00:07:37.403
They can see around the corners
of a conversation, soothe frictions,

00:07:37.486 --> 00:07:38.930
put people at ease.

00:07:39.420 --> 00:07:43.281
Some years after this incident,
Peter became a president himself.

00:07:43.365 --> 00:07:48.319
He became president of Yale. He inherited
a challenge that required the same skills

00:07:48.402 --> 00:07:51.740
of him that Bill Clinton had
shown in that interaction.

00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:57.809
We had a residential college
named for John C. Calhoun.

00:07:57.892 --> 00:08:02.477
It's called Calhoun College.
John C. Calhoun was a senator,

00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:08.020
was the vice president of the United
States all before the Civil War.

00:08:09.420 --> 00:08:13.960
served as, I think, Secretary
of State and Secretary of War as well.

00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:19.520
But what he was most...
well-known for is his

00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:21.740
ardent defense.

00:08:22.260 --> 00:08:28.620
of slavery, slavery, not just
as a quote, way of life in the South.

00:08:28.950 --> 00:08:32.360
But to use his words...
as a positive good.

00:08:33.060 --> 00:08:34.700
He believed that.

00:08:35.640 --> 00:08:41.320
And he rooted it in white supremacy. He
viewed it as the proper order of society.

00:08:42.180 --> 00:08:45.817
And I imagine he must have gone to Yale
himself if a building was named after him.

00:08:45.900 --> 00:08:50.640
Yeah, he'd been vice president of the
United States. He was a Yale graduate.

00:08:50.820 --> 00:08:52.380
And when the...

00:08:52.650 --> 00:08:57.678
Building was built in about 1930. There
was a debate about who to name it for.

00:08:57.761 --> 00:09:00.954
And there were two colleges
being named that year.

00:09:01.037 --> 00:09:06.410
And they named one of the colleges after
a minister. And so the other was founded.

00:09:06.630 --> 00:09:08.810
to be named after the most prominent

00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:15.030
statesman who at the time
would have been Johnson Calhoun.

00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:20.738
So with that as history,
over the years, many decades,

00:09:20.822 --> 00:09:25.240
there had been more and less
protest about this name.

00:09:25.680 --> 00:09:30.740
Why do we name a college after
the most ardent defender of slavery?

00:09:31.890 --> 00:09:33.490
And so I...

00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:38.646
in some ways tired of receiving
petitions about this or watching protests.

00:09:38.729 --> 00:09:40.920
I said, let's have a conversation.

00:09:43.400 --> 00:09:47.640
And I gave my welcoming speech that fall.

00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:49.840
And, uh,

00:09:50.370 --> 00:09:55.870
I said, let's have the kind of
conversations you should have on campus.

00:09:56.280 --> 00:09:59.927
about whether we should
continue to have a college name

00:10:00.010 --> 00:10:04.819
for John C. Cullinan.
And I made the argument that good people,

00:10:04.903 --> 00:10:07.227
moral people, thoughtful people

00:10:07.310 --> 00:10:13.849
would likely find themselves on both
sides of this issue. Some wanting change,

00:10:13.932 --> 00:10:15.547
some saying we don't

00:10:15.630 --> 00:10:20.736
need to honor John C. Cullinan, and others
saying we may not agree with John C.

00:10:20.819 --> 00:10:25.433
Cullinan, But he's a public
figure, a historic figure,

00:10:25.517 --> 00:10:31.770
and universities should not be
in the business of effacing history.

00:10:38.630 --> 00:10:42.205
So early on,
as this controversy was brewing,

00:10:42.288 --> 00:10:46.107
you decided that the name
should not be changed.

00:10:46.190 --> 00:10:50.187
Talk about the moment you actually
announced this to the campus and what

00:10:50.270 --> 00:10:51.630
the reaction was, Peter.

00:10:52.830 --> 00:10:53.663
Sure.

00:10:54.190 --> 00:11:01.190
While our students generally wanted the
name to be changed, our alumni did not.

00:11:02.190 --> 00:11:08.227
And our faculty at that point were largely
not interested in this particular issue.

00:11:08.310 --> 00:11:12.941
And I talked to many experts,
the head of the NAACP,

00:11:13.024 --> 00:11:20.024
prominent African-American intellectuals
who had lived in Calhoun College when they

00:11:20.549 --> 00:11:24.810
were Yale undergraduates
and many, many others.

00:11:24.930 --> 00:11:30.250
And all of them were profoundly ambivalent
about the idea of effacing history.

00:11:31.170 --> 00:11:36.927
We should leave his name on there, many of
them said, but confront him in other ways.

00:11:37.010 --> 00:11:41.047
and so in light of that

00:11:41.130 --> 00:11:46.667
I had announced that we would maintain
the name but we would contextualize it

00:11:46.750 --> 00:11:49.927
we would put up educational
materials plaques and the like

00:11:50.010 --> 00:11:55.987
explaining who he was and what he believed
and why we left his name on the college

00:11:56.070 --> 00:12:01.947
well I think the next day
after announcing that decision

00:12:02.030 --> 00:12:08.330
there was very loud protest
on campus led by students.

00:12:09.370 --> 00:12:11.487
We had a town hall
meeting at which I spoke,

00:12:11.570 --> 00:12:14.087
and now the faculty were
quite energized by the issue.

00:12:14.170 --> 00:12:16.710
I think seeing how
upset the students were,

00:12:17.250 --> 00:12:20.810
they were then calling
for a different outcome.

00:12:24.750 --> 00:12:29.899
I understand that during the town hall
there was a moment when students were

00:12:29.982 --> 00:12:35.407
showering you with fake cash to make the
assertion that you cared more about you

00:12:35.490 --> 00:12:39.070
know donors and the alumni
than the well of students

00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:42.067
And that must have come
as something of a shock to you.

00:12:42.150 --> 00:12:43.677
That, of course, was a shock to me.

00:12:43.760 --> 00:12:46.680
You know, I was a very
student-oriented president.

00:12:46.980 --> 00:12:51.797
I taught students introductory
psychology for many, many, many years.

00:12:51.880 --> 00:12:57.290
and so I was not happy
about that kind of protest.

00:12:58.230 --> 00:13:00.880
Several months later, in the summer,

00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:03.830
a worker in Calhoun College,

00:13:04.890 --> 00:13:06.790
I believe he was a dining hall worker,

00:13:07.380 --> 00:13:11.627
noticed that the iconography,
the symbolism,

00:13:11.710 --> 00:13:14.877
the windows, stained glass
windows in Calhoun College

00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:18.207
reflected themes relevant to the name.

00:13:18.290 --> 00:13:24.570
They reflected the Old South,
African-Americans picking cotton.

00:13:25.380 --> 00:13:29.010
John C. Calhoun is kind
of a statesman looking regal.

00:13:30.390 --> 00:13:37.390
And he, in a kind of emotional moment, he
broke one of these stained glass windows.

00:13:38.040 --> 00:13:41.797
I believe it was the one of the
African-Americans picking cotton.

00:13:41.880 --> 00:13:48.880
And he said that as a black man, I
couldn't stand looking at that every day.

00:13:53.710 --> 00:13:56.730
And I needed to do something.

00:14:04.350 --> 00:14:09.380
I'm wondering, Peter, as you heard about
all this protest and you saw how intense

00:14:09.464 --> 00:14:10.517
the feelings were,

00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:15.165
Did you have a moment when you felt
that you had in some ways misjudged

00:14:15.249 --> 00:14:20.290
the intensity, the depth of feelings
that existed on campus about this issue?

00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:28.510
Yes, and I think part of that
was that times were changing.

00:14:28.730 --> 00:14:31.130
This was all happening
in a dynamic environment.

00:14:31.710 --> 00:14:33.930
It was happening in real time.

00:14:34.550 --> 00:14:37.926
And I think when we began
this conversation, sure,

00:14:38.009 --> 00:14:39.600
students wanted change.

00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:46.693
But many other people quite reasonably
made the argument that a facing history

00:14:46.776 --> 00:14:48.360
was not appropriate.

00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:54.510
I think views shifted over
the course of that year.

00:14:55.510 --> 00:15:02.510
And in the course of grappling with my own
feelings about that I met with an African

00:15:03.417 --> 00:15:06.900
student who grew up in South Carolina

00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:14.440
In fact, she grew up, I believe, in a home
just off of Calhoun Street in Charleston.

00:15:15.520 --> 00:15:18.760
This student said to me
something very interesting.

00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:23.017
She said, I've known the name
of Calhoun all my life.

00:15:23.100 --> 00:15:24.380
I know who he is.

00:15:25.020 --> 00:15:28.680
I can handle being in a
space named for John C.

00:15:28.780 --> 00:15:29.613
Calvin,

00:15:29.700 --> 00:15:31.060
such as Calvin college,

00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:37.840
but I don't want to live
in a shrine to slavery.

00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:42.060
And I said, that's a powerful metaphor.

00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:46.260
What do you mean by that? She goes,
look at the stained glass windows.

00:15:46.660 --> 00:15:50.837
Look at the reliefs carved
into the stone walls.

00:15:50.920 --> 00:15:57.920
Look at the artifacts from plantations
in the South that are in the collection

00:15:58.421 --> 00:15:59.960
of this college.

00:16:01.100 --> 00:16:06.980
Look at the name that is on our T-shirts
when we go out and play intramural sports.

00:16:07.560 --> 00:16:12.220
This has become a shrine to slavery.

00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:16.357
And I swallowed hard.

00:16:16.440 --> 00:16:23.440
And I had a moment of emotional
understanding and deep empathy that

00:16:24.355 --> 00:16:31.355
the debate really wasn't entirely about
do you honor figures from the past,

00:16:33.215 --> 00:16:39.157
even if we completely
disavow their viewpoints now?

00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:42.637
or whether you efface history

00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:47.140
or whether times change
and who we honor should change.

00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:51.280
I suddenly got focused on how people feel.

00:16:52.420 --> 00:16:56.237
Thinking about that student
living in a shrine to slavery,

00:16:56.320 --> 00:16:57.940
thinking about our worker,

00:16:59.340 --> 00:17:05.377
so moved to an act of vandalism

00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:11.700
that he risked his job.
risked criminal prosecution.

00:17:13.700 --> 00:17:17.700
It was a shift in my thinking.

00:17:18.700 --> 00:17:21.700
And it was really
a processing of those emotions,

00:17:22.700 --> 00:17:29.121
triggered by my interaction with the
student primarily that created a moment

00:17:29.204 --> 00:17:35.880
of clarity for me and suggested that we
needed to consider an alternative path

00:17:38.840 --> 00:17:40.340
What did you end up doing?

00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:43.420
We ended up changing the name.

00:17:43.800 --> 00:17:48.049
The name of that college
is Grace Hopper College,

00:17:48.133 --> 00:17:52.117
named after early computer
scientists, I think

00:17:52.200 --> 00:17:53.817
before the field had even been invented.

00:17:53.900 --> 00:18:00.717
and a Navy Admiral, but we honored
her service and being one of the early

00:18:00.800 --> 00:18:06.060
founders of the field. She had
gotten her PhD in mathematics at Yale.

00:18:07.360 --> 00:18:14.360
But it was really this moment of insight
created by the arousal of empathy

00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:21.298
following an emotional conversation with a
student that set me anyway on a different

00:18:21.381 --> 00:18:23.000
course in my thinking.

00:18:23.900 --> 00:18:30.900
One of the most consequential
challenges we face in daily life

00:18:34.840 --> 00:18:38.360
is to read what is happening
in the emotional lives of other people.

00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:44.597
When we come back, how the ability to read
the emotional undercurrents in a room

00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:46.260
can transform our lives.

00:18:47.780 --> 00:18:50.680
You're listening to Hidden Brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.

00:18:53.900 --> 00:19:00.900
Transcription by CastingWords

00:19:23.900 --> 00:19:28.360
or magnificent musical compositions.
But dig a layer deeper,

00:19:28.444 --> 00:19:30.557
and you find that some of the

00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:35.759
smartest people are not very smart when it
comes to gauging the emotional temperature

00:19:35.842 --> 00:19:36.760
of a situation.

00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:42.718
When they meet someone new,
they find it hard to tell friend from foe.

00:19:42.802 --> 00:19:46.724
They are unaware of the emotional
undercurrent swirling around them,

00:19:46.807 --> 00:19:49.437
and they often behave
like bulls in china shops.

00:19:49.520 --> 00:19:54.697
Peter Salovey is a psychologist
at Yale University.

00:19:54.780 --> 00:19:58.580
He studies how our emotions shape
our decisions and our behavior.

00:20:00.020 --> 00:20:04.648
Peter, your research tackles
a long-standing belief of Western culture

00:20:04.731 --> 00:20:08.551
that thinking and feeling are
opposing forces in the mind.

00:20:08.635 --> 00:20:12.000
Talk a moment about the long
history of that idea.

00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:18.802
Yes, whether you're looking at, you know,
Stoic philosophers or many religious

00:20:18.885 --> 00:20:24.920
traditions and the like, the idea is that
we shouldn't be ruled by our passions.

00:20:25.004 --> 00:20:29.509
You know, rule your feelings
or your feelings will rule you.

00:20:29.592 --> 00:20:34.640
It's kind of the idea that on the
one hand, we have thought rules.

00:20:34.730 --> 00:20:38.985
and reason, and on the other
we have emotions, passions.

00:20:39.069 --> 00:20:44.409
The belief was somehow that our emotions
were vestigial, meaning, yes,

00:20:44.492 --> 00:20:49.367
they're part of our animal heritage,
just like our wisdom teeth,

00:20:49.451 --> 00:20:51.930
just like our appendices, but...

00:20:52.700 --> 00:20:54.400
We don't really need them anymore.

00:20:54.560 --> 00:20:56.560
We are a thinking species.

00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:05.300
Peter and a colleague, Jack Mayer, noticed
there were all kinds of situations where

00:21:05.383 --> 00:21:08.900
people are asked to read the emotional
temperature of a situation.

00:21:09.500 --> 00:21:12.440
Some people are better
at doing this than others.

00:21:12.530 --> 00:21:15.910
Wasn't this a kind of intelligence too?
they wondered.

00:21:16.700 --> 00:21:21.525
Together, they came up with a formulation
for the skill they were talking about.

00:21:21.608 --> 00:21:26.740
They called it emotional intelligence. The
idea came to them in the oddest of places.

00:21:26.824 --> 00:21:30.000
Not a lab... But as the two were
painting Peter's living room,

00:21:31.190 --> 00:21:34.977
Yeah, that is what happened.
And we're painting the living room.

00:21:35.060 --> 00:21:38.787
We're talking about emotions.
We're talking about intelligence.

00:21:38.870 --> 00:21:43.020
We both had done research on the impact
of mood and emotion on memory,

00:21:43.103 --> 00:21:47.314
on judgment, on decision making.
And we're just chatting as we painted.

00:21:47.397 --> 00:21:50.398
Jack was very nice to help
me paint my living room.

00:21:50.481 --> 00:21:54.170
We'd only been friends a year
or two at that point. And yeah.

00:21:54.860 --> 00:21:58.042
talked about this idea
of emotional intelligence.

00:21:58.125 --> 00:22:02.974
My original idea was let's develop
a framework for organizing all of these

00:22:03.057 --> 00:22:08.505
abilities having to do with the emotions
and their effect on thinking and behavior.

00:22:08.588 --> 00:22:12.520
Jack came out of a more
traditional intelligence framework.

00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:18.156
laboratory. but had now turned
his attention to mood and emotion.

00:22:18.239 --> 00:22:22.408
And he was wondering whether
you could measure any of this.

00:22:22.491 --> 00:22:28.040
And so we came together in that way.
Yes, and it was while painting my house.

00:22:32.580 --> 00:22:36.642
Peter and his colleagues have found
ways to measure emotional intelligence.

00:22:36.726 --> 00:22:39.627
Instead of asking people
about their emotional skills,

00:22:39.711 --> 00:22:43.580
people turn out to be poor judges
of their own emotional intelligence,

00:22:44.420 --> 00:22:47.200
Researchers came up
with a series of tests.

00:22:47.300 --> 00:22:51.267
How good were people at reading
the expressions of others?

00:22:51.350 --> 00:22:56.278
How well did they understand what was
happening in their own emotional lives?

00:22:56.361 --> 00:22:59.662
How skillful were they
at regulating their emotions?

00:22:59.745 --> 00:23:03.241
They came up with a measure,
very much like an IQ test.

00:23:03.324 --> 00:23:06.755
It came to be called
the Mayor-Salloway-Carruso Scale,

00:23:06.838 --> 00:23:08.270
or Mesquite for short.

00:23:09.050 --> 00:23:11.870
We did a study in which...

00:23:12.470 --> 00:23:14.630
You. came to the lab,

00:23:14.810 --> 00:23:18.490
as a participant in research
and had to interact with a stranger.

00:23:19.430 --> 00:23:21.930
And then the stranger would rate the.

00:23:22.610 --> 00:23:24.780
How... Well, did you listen?

00:23:26.030 --> 00:23:31.040
to him. How connected Were
you trying to be with him?

00:23:31.550 --> 00:23:38.370
How empathic. Did you sing? and for our

00:23:39.230 --> 00:23:40.850
Participants who scored

00:23:41.450 --> 00:23:43.050
Well, on the mesquite,

00:23:43.760 --> 00:23:49.320
The stranger rated them more highly.
But also, we could show...

00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:55.150
videos of that interaction.
to others who had no idea

00:23:55.550 --> 00:23:58.683
Of course, what the experiment
really was about.

00:23:58.766 --> 00:24:03.537
And they rated the person as more
sociable, better able to make friends.

00:24:03.620 --> 00:24:09.060
and the like if they had higher scores.
We can also do just correlational studies.

00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:13.083
How many friends do you have?
It's predicted by the mesquite,

00:24:13.167 --> 00:24:18.025
by our emotional intelligence measure.
Do you engage in pro-social behaviors

00:24:18.109 --> 00:24:20.840
with friends? Are you more likely to help?

00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:27.358
To share. Thank you. Or are you more
likely to get into arguments and fights?

00:24:27.442 --> 00:24:30.859
All of it predicted
by emotional intelligence.

00:24:30.943 --> 00:24:34.900
So I'm sure everyone
listening knows of someone who,

00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:38.847
Who... Everyone wants to be their friend.

00:24:38.930 --> 00:24:42.633
Because they listen well,
they empathize, they reflect feelings,

00:24:42.716 --> 00:24:44.550
they seem to be able to pick up

00:24:45.260 --> 00:24:46.760
on something about you,

00:24:47.990 --> 00:24:54.068
that many others don't. And they seem
to be able to kind of walk a mile in

00:24:54.151 --> 00:24:58.677
your shoes. And not surprisingly,
they are the kinds of

00:24:58.760 --> 00:25:02.841
individuals who you would
love to have as a friend.

00:25:02.924 --> 00:25:09.046
You've also looked at how emotional
intelligence makes a difference in other

00:25:09.129 --> 00:25:15.660
realms of life. Young people who are more
emotionally intelligent tend to be less

00:25:15.743 --> 00:25:21.947
likely to engage in risky behaviors.
Why do you think this might be the case,

00:25:22.030 --> 00:25:22.863
Peter?

00:25:24.200 --> 00:25:29.838
Yeah, that's right. We've shown
correlations between mesquite scores

00:25:29.921 --> 00:25:36.018
and the likelihood of... using drugs
or alcohol, particularly in adolescence,

00:25:36.101 --> 00:25:41.823
higher scores on the Mesquite predict
less likelihood of drug or alcohol use,

00:25:41.907 --> 00:25:47.410
less likelihood of delinquent
behavior. I think some of it is

00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:53.110
You know, if you're more in touch
with your own emotions, You don't need...

00:25:53.810 --> 00:25:57.944
What would I say? Elicit substances
to help you regulate them.

00:25:58.027 --> 00:26:01.684
You're less likely to need
to self-medicate. Similarly,

00:26:01.768 --> 00:26:07.466
if you're better able to empathize, better
able to understand the emotions of another

00:26:07.549 --> 00:26:12.310
person, you're less likely to have
conflict with them, less likely to.

00:26:12.830 --> 00:26:18.646
Think the way to settle... differences is
through fighting. Maybe most importantly,

00:26:18.729 --> 00:26:23.994
you're more likely as a kid to stay
in school because you like school and you

00:26:24.077 --> 00:26:28.161
like learning better.
So I think it's all of a piece, right?

00:26:28.244 --> 00:26:33.022
You're happier in the school environment,
more likely to make friends,

00:26:33.105 --> 00:26:36.008
less likely to become
frustrated, drop out,

00:26:36.092 --> 00:26:41.148
more likely to not self-medicate
with drugs or alcohol when you get older.

00:26:41.231 --> 00:26:44.180
It's all of a piece. you

00:26:45.050 --> 00:26:49.464
And this is not just when you are looking
at the behavior of students and young

00:26:49.548 --> 00:26:53.590
people. You find emotional intelligence
plays a role in our work lives.

00:26:54.140 --> 00:26:59.969
For sure. One small study we did was at
an insurance company where we measured

00:27:00.052 --> 00:27:03.759
traditional intelligence.
We measured personality.

00:27:03.842 --> 00:27:08.686
And we also gave them a ski
or measure of emotional intelligence.

00:27:08.769 --> 00:27:10.740
And what we predicted was.

00:27:12.290 --> 00:27:16.430
A time later. were The performance...

00:27:16.790 --> 00:27:19.150
reviews you received from your boss,

00:27:19.700 --> 00:27:24.021
And whether you were likely to get
a promotion and how big a raise that you

00:27:24.104 --> 00:27:27.896
received at work. But the emotional
intelligence test that we use,

00:27:27.979 --> 00:27:32.124
the mesquite, was a good predictor
of those kinds of workplace outcomes.

00:27:32.207 --> 00:27:36.351
People who are better able to regulate
their own emotions were at a huge

00:27:36.435 --> 00:27:38.020
advantage in the workplace.

00:27:39.410 --> 00:27:43.553
You've written and talked quite a bit
about what an emotionally intelligent

00:27:43.636 --> 00:27:48.117
manager looks like, Peter. What are the
qualities of individuals in the workplace

00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:51.750
and what are they able to do
in their interactions with others?

00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:56.480
So the emotionally
intelligent manager said, Bye.

00:27:56.690 --> 00:27:58.110
They recognize...

00:27:58.430 --> 00:28:04.470
What might be going on in a situation
beyond what people are simply saying?

00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:10.618
They recognize that somebody might be
saying one thing but feeling another

00:28:10.701 --> 00:28:15.958
and that that needs to be explored
in depth. But I could tell you a story.

00:28:16.042 --> 00:28:20.300
In early days, David Caruso
and I were doing some training.

00:28:20.690 --> 00:28:26.690
at a large investment bank.
And this was before the Great Recession.

00:28:28.010 --> 00:28:33.111
And this was a bank that was quite
affected by the Great Recession.

00:28:33.195 --> 00:28:34.510
And these were...

00:28:35.180 --> 00:28:41.556
Essentially, vice presidents and senior
vice presidents engaged in banking,

00:28:41.639 --> 00:28:47.840
engaged in trading, engaged in providing
investment advice and the like.

00:28:48.710 --> 00:28:53.710
And only... 10% of them or so
were going to be promoted today.

00:28:54.200 --> 00:28:57.460
to their ultimate goal, which
was to become a managing director.

00:28:58.280 --> 00:29:02.340
which is where much more
serious compensation is received.

00:29:03.860 --> 00:29:06.040
And so we would ask
at the beginning of our

00:29:07.100 --> 00:29:09.450
conversations at the
beginning of our sessions.

00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:13.340
How many of you feel that you
are above average in IQ?

00:29:13.820 --> 00:29:17.047
And every hand would go up. Then we'd say,

00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:23.272
how many of you feel that you have strong
analytic or mathematical or economics

00:29:23.356 --> 00:29:29.261
skills for your jobs? And every hand
would go up. We'd look at them and say,

00:29:29.345 --> 00:29:33.359
I don't understand.
You all are above average in IQ.

00:29:33.443 --> 00:29:39.427
You all feel you have the analytic
and economic and mathematical skills to do

00:29:39.511 --> 00:29:41.390
your job. And yet,

00:29:42.200 --> 00:29:46.309
90% of you are not going
to get to be managing directors.

00:29:46.392 --> 00:29:49.913
What is that all about?
And they would say, well,

00:29:49.996 --> 00:29:53.600
I guess some people are
better able at inspiring.

00:29:54.110 --> 00:29:59.950
others. Some people are better
able to manage their own emotions.

00:30:00.270 --> 00:30:02.670
Some people are better able to

00:30:03.210 --> 00:30:07.267
manage a group's emotions. Some people
are more charismatic and they'd start

00:30:07.351 --> 00:30:08.184
to generate

00:30:08.340 --> 00:30:12.940
what it meant to be an emotionally
intelligent person in that context.

00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:15.860
and recognizing that that
was the differentiator.

00:30:16.380 --> 00:30:19.560
not the analytic skills.
Everybody was smart.

00:30:25.950 --> 00:30:30.596
I understand, Peter, that some research
has also employed brain scanning to study

00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:34.650
the brain activity of people as they
solve emotion-related problems.

00:30:35.730 --> 00:30:41.274
In the study that you're referring to,
we ask people to solve problems that were

00:30:41.357 --> 00:30:46.070
social in nature, problems about
conflict with others and the like.

00:30:46.590 --> 00:30:50.650
And maybe the most
important thing, Aspect.

00:30:50.850 --> 00:30:51.683
of that work.

00:30:52.500 --> 00:30:57.740
is it has seriously challenged
the idea that cognition,

00:30:58.050 --> 00:30:59.650
and emotion are separate.

00:30:59.760 --> 00:31:05.390
You can see in fMRI scans that the parts
of the brain thought to be involved

00:31:05.473 --> 00:31:10.877
in emotion and the parts of the brain
thought to be involved in thinking,

00:31:10.961 --> 00:31:15.020
in decision making,
in problem solving, in creativity.

00:31:15.780 --> 00:31:17.940
are closely connected.

00:31:18.750 --> 00:31:22.730
that there's dense and multiple
connections among them,

00:31:22.950 --> 00:31:29.820
and that when you activate, what we would
think of as a strictly cognitive activity.

00:31:30.300 --> 00:31:33.314
you're also activating
the emotion side of things.

00:31:33.397 --> 00:31:37.217
You also can study people with
different kinds of brain damage,

00:31:37.300 --> 00:31:42.234
people who've had strokes, for example.
And if those strokes affect the emotional

00:31:42.317 --> 00:31:46.220
parts of the brain, they also
have an impact on their thinking.

00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:56.257
Emotions provide us
with useful information.

00:31:56.340 --> 00:32:01.440
crucial data points that we can use
to inform our responses and our decisions.

00:32:01.830 --> 00:32:06.488
Yet people vary widely in their
ability to identify, understand,

00:32:06.572 --> 00:32:11.230
and manage emotional signals.
Is this capacity innate and fixed,

00:32:11.313 --> 00:32:13.610
or an ability we can cultivate?

00:32:15.350 --> 00:32:19.192
When we come back, how to sharpen
our emotional intelligence?

00:32:19.275 --> 00:32:22.750
You're listening to Hidden Brain.
I'm Shankar Vedanta.

00:32:31.830 --> 00:32:32.663
you you

00:32:35.160 --> 00:32:35.993
you

00:32:41.370 --> 00:32:43.943
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

00:32:44.026 --> 00:32:49.003
Have you had times in your life when you
or someone you know handled a situation

00:32:49.086 --> 00:32:51.490
with exquisite emotional intelligence?

00:32:52.170 --> 00:32:56.770
Or can you think of a moment when
you were, well, an emotional idiot?

00:33:22.170 --> 00:33:25.780
Peter Salovey is a psychologist
at Yale University.

00:33:25.863 --> 00:33:30.570
He studies how our emotions shape
our decisions and our behavior.

00:33:32.370 --> 00:33:37.024
Peter, researchers have developed
a program intended to help people increase

00:33:37.107 --> 00:33:40.016
their emotional intelligence.
It's called RULER.

00:33:40.099 --> 00:33:43.567
I understand this is an acronym.
What does it stand for?

00:33:43.650 --> 00:33:47.183
So RULER is an acronym
developed by Mark Brackett,

00:33:47.267 --> 00:33:51.390
who's a professor here at Yale
in the Child Study Center.

00:33:51.660 --> 00:33:56.233
Happened to have been my postdoc
and my collaborator Jack Mayer's graduate

00:33:56.317 --> 00:34:00.930
student. Years and years ago.
And RULER is an acronym for

00:34:01.110 --> 00:34:05.600
The skills that he and his
colleagues teach today, Kids.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:08.740
From kindergarten through high school,

00:34:08.850 --> 00:34:12.170
to become more emotional,
intelligent human beings.

00:34:12.900 --> 00:34:17.140
The first R is recognizing emotion,
the ability to understand.

00:34:17.430 --> 00:34:20.870
Know what you're feeling.
Know what another person is feeling.

00:34:21.420 --> 00:34:25.700
to recognize emotions through
nonverbal cues or verbal ones.

00:34:26.730 --> 00:34:30.938
The U is understanding emotion.
What does this emotion mean?

00:34:31.022 --> 00:34:34.729
How does it transition in time?
How does it progress?

00:34:34.813 --> 00:34:39.522
How do small emotions like irritation
turn into big ones like rage?

00:34:39.605 --> 00:34:43.027
How does it affect
our thinking and our behavior?

00:34:43.110 --> 00:34:47.330
What does it motivate us to do?
The L is labeling emotions.

00:34:47.640 --> 00:34:51.919
Can I use words to describe
this emotion to others?

00:34:52.002 --> 00:34:58.760
Can I reflect someone's feeling back
to them using words? Can I identify words?

00:34:59.160 --> 00:35:01.300
where emotion words might fit.

00:35:01.560 --> 00:35:08.334
into an emotion space defined by pleasant
and unpleasant dimension and an active

00:35:08.417 --> 00:35:13.327
versus calm dimension.
Most emotions and feeling states are.

00:35:13.410 --> 00:35:17.347
can be mapped onto those dimensions.

00:35:17.430 --> 00:35:19.590
The E is expressing emotion.

00:35:20.460 --> 00:35:24.193
What am I showing on my face
when I express an emotion?

00:35:24.276 --> 00:35:29.882
How do I modulate those expressions when
I am in different settings at work versus

00:35:29.965 --> 00:35:30.798
at home?

00:35:31.290 --> 00:35:32.530
at a funeral,

00:35:32.850 --> 00:35:38.714
versus at a party. Am I aware of cultural
differences in the way emotions are

00:35:38.798 --> 00:35:39.631
expressed?

00:35:40.860 --> 00:35:46.080
It's another part of all of this. Do I
understand that in certain cultures...

00:35:46.710 --> 00:35:48.590
Weeping openly is...

00:35:49.050 --> 00:35:55.500
Perfectly acceptable and in others,
a more stoic attitude is expected or

00:35:55.583 --> 00:36:01.670
that expressing great joy at one's
accomplishment might be perfectly

00:36:01.754 --> 00:36:07.470
acceptable in America. But...
a little embarrassing in a place like

00:36:07.560 --> 00:36:13.540
Japan. The final R is regulating emotion.

00:36:14.070 --> 00:36:18.656
And this is the area of emotional
intelligence that has received the most

00:36:18.739 --> 00:36:23.389
research attention. A wonderful
researcher named James Gross, for example,

00:36:23.473 --> 00:36:28.537
at Stanford University, who is studying
the way in which we manage our emotions,

00:36:28.620 --> 00:36:34.500
primarily through cognition
for decades and decades. And, uh,

00:36:35.070 --> 00:36:38.986
regulating our emotion. We need
to remember we're regulating our emotion,

00:36:39.069 --> 00:36:40.110
but we also want to

00:36:40.680 --> 00:36:46.800
Regulate the emotions of others sometimes.
Why might I want to cheer myself up?

00:36:46.890 --> 00:36:50.698
Well, perhaps because I'm
going to do something creative.

00:36:50.781 --> 00:36:55.408
Why might I want to calm myself down,
actually feel less happy? Well,

00:36:55.491 --> 00:36:56.324
because I...

00:36:56.430 --> 00:37:01.190
might have a task in front of me where
I need to be vigilant and careful.

00:37:01.620 --> 00:37:04.970
and slow. For example,
proofreading a manuscript.

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

00:37:10.777 --> 00:37:15.420
of that talk. to manage other people's,
regulate other people's emotions.

00:37:15.540 --> 00:37:17.190
Before they have to listen to me.

00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:24.196
. So, uh... Ruler is recognizing,
understanding, labeling, expressing,

00:37:24.279 --> 00:37:25.830
and regulating values.

00:37:26.490 --> 00:37:27.323
At it...

00:37:27.570 --> 00:37:34.050
forms five kinds of skills that you
might want to teach to school children

00:37:34.200 --> 00:37:36.360
as they learn about their emotions.

00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:39.337
And it more or less maps onto the four...

00:37:39.420 --> 00:37:45.224
domains that the mesquite, which is
our ability-based motion test, measures.

00:37:45.308 --> 00:37:49.020
We organize them slightly
differently than Ruler,

00:37:49.104 --> 00:37:52.280
but you can see the overlap very clearly.

00:37:58.590 --> 00:38:02.825
I understand that when people ask you
how they might improve their own emotional

00:38:02.908 --> 00:38:06.388
intelligence, you have a couple
of practical suggestions for them.

00:38:06.471 --> 00:38:09.141
And one sounds like advice
from an English teacher,

00:38:09.224 --> 00:38:13.351
which is to read good literature. Why
would why would reading help us increase

00:38:13.435 --> 00:38:15.270
our emotional intelligence, Peter?

00:38:16.110 --> 00:38:20.513
Well, it is an interesting question
because one of the things we know is

00:38:20.597 --> 00:38:23.567
that your emotional
intelligence can be improved.

00:38:23.650 --> 00:38:28.116
It's one of the reasons people love
the concept of emotional intelligence

00:38:28.199 --> 00:38:33.163
is because unlike IQ, which is kind of
difficult to change very much after you're

00:38:33.246 --> 00:38:37.774
a teenager, you can improve your emotional
intelligence over the course of

00:38:37.858 --> 00:38:38.730
your lifetime.

00:38:38.970 --> 00:38:45.095
Merely aging and gaining life experience
typically improves your emotional

00:38:45.178 --> 00:38:48.450
intelligence. Kind of amazing that way.

00:38:49.680 --> 00:38:54.330
Now the difference In terms of how we
would go about improving our intelligence,

00:38:55.050 --> 00:39:00.180
our emotional intelligence concerns
whether we're talking about kids

00:39:00.263 --> 00:39:06.340
or adults. For kids, teaching these
skills directly, in the classroom.

00:39:06.450 --> 00:39:11.145
as part of a social emotional learning
program is probably a pretty effective

00:39:11.229 --> 00:39:12.470
and efficient way to

00:39:12.690 --> 00:39:17.706
To learn these skills, it's a little
more difficult as adults to take a class

00:39:17.789 --> 00:39:22.690
in emotional intelligence. And so we
have to look for other ways to do it.

00:39:23.370 --> 00:39:25.430
I believe I don't have a lot of

00:39:25.830 --> 00:39:29.190
data on which to base this,
but I believe that's where the arts

00:39:29.640 --> 00:39:34.667
can really help us. So imagine that when
we're reading great literature and trying

00:39:34.750 --> 00:39:37.690
to understand the motives of characters.

00:39:38.850 --> 00:39:43.530
and why someone is behaving
as they are, Why they might

00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:47.120
behave in ways that look
conflicted. All of that

00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:50.840
helps us develop a more
sophisticated understanding.

00:39:51.810 --> 00:39:55.970
of emotions, a greater ability
to recognize emotions and label them.

00:39:56.130 --> 00:39:59.927
and maybe even manage them.
I think having experiences

00:40:00.010 --> 00:40:04.093
you're looking at visual art,
looking at, let's say,

00:40:04.176 --> 00:40:10.101
at paintings in an art museum, and
reacting to them emotionally might help.

00:40:10.185 --> 00:40:13.870
In Santander, Spain,
there is an entire museum

00:40:14.680 --> 00:40:19.907
organized, art museum, organized
around the idea of emotions, emotions,

00:40:19.990 --> 00:40:26.660
and creativity. Using the art museum
experience to practice your art,

00:40:26.770 --> 00:40:33.290
emotions. I think listening to music
is a great way to practice feeling and

00:40:33.490 --> 00:40:39.920
emotions that Mike. Not.
feel that often in the outside world.

00:40:40.090 --> 00:40:45.002
I particularly like theater. And when
I was in high school, I was an actor.

00:40:45.085 --> 00:40:50.263
And I often think theater is a wonderful
way, because you're watching behavior,

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

00:40:55.608 --> 00:41:00.497
connected to thinking and behavior.
In method acting, one of the Thank you.

00:41:00.580 --> 00:41:03.940
techniques you might use
to create an emotion is actually to

00:41:04.570 --> 00:41:07.390
enact the behaviors
associated with that emotion.

00:41:07.900 --> 00:41:14.460
And then that emotion might follow. Act as
if crying and crying might follow. Well,

00:41:14.860 --> 00:41:20.499
Having those kind of experiences, either
as an observer or actually being on stage

00:41:20.582 --> 00:41:26.152
yourself, might help you learn, develop
a more sophisticated understanding of how

00:41:26.235 --> 00:41:31.120
our emotions work and how they're
connected to behavior and cognition.

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

00:41:35.993 --> 00:41:40.167
with, you know, different equipment. And
all of a sudden you realize that you had

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

00:41:44.613 --> 00:41:48.367
in different places. And in some ways,
what you're talking about emotions

00:41:48.450 --> 00:41:50.080
is actually not that different.

00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:03.240
exploring and strengthening.

00:42:03.490 --> 00:42:07.337
I think that's exactly right,
Shankar. And the more you do it,

00:42:07.420 --> 00:42:11.901
the better you develop these skills
so that empathizing becomes natural,

00:42:11.985 --> 00:42:13.877
so that recognizing emotions...

00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:18.981
in someone who is saying something
different than their feeling becomes more

00:42:19.065 --> 00:42:22.020
second nature so that
you develop over time.

00:42:22.540 --> 00:42:24.860
Muscles that allow you

00:42:25.660 --> 00:42:29.380
to take advantage of of the data that,

00:42:30.070 --> 00:42:33.728
that is inherent in our emotional
system. And it becomes,

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.

00:42:39.194 --> 00:42:43.330
Yes, we see and we hear and we
taste and we smell and we touch.

00:42:43.900 --> 00:42:45.720
But we also feel our emotions.

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

00:42:53.521 --> 00:42:55.500
attention to. Why is it?

00:42:56.200 --> 00:43:01.620
that I'm thinking about, well,
let's say purchasing a product.

00:43:02.260 --> 00:43:05.660
but I get a feeling in the pit
of my stomach that's a little queasy.

00:43:06.250 --> 00:43:11.147
shouldn't I stop and Think about why
that product made me feel that way.

00:43:11.230 --> 00:43:17.825
Why is it that I might find
myself attracted to another person.

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.

00:43:24.370 --> 00:43:28.479
What does that tell me? What does
that tell me? And so for the most part,

00:43:28.563 --> 00:43:31.090
people go through life
ignoring all of that.

00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:35.500
And what I'm suggesting is these are data.

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

00:43:40.813 --> 00:43:43.600
something with you,
tomorrow I'm going to go.

00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:48.647
ask my boss for a raise.
When you role play it,

00:43:48.730 --> 00:43:52.670
You learn how expressing certain
words creates certain feelings in you.

00:43:53.740 --> 00:43:57.220
You learn when your feelings
are maybe going to...

00:43:57.850 --> 00:44:00.050
push you in directions
you don't want to go.

00:44:00.190 --> 00:44:03.519
And you can practice
modulating those feelings.

00:44:03.602 --> 00:44:08.830
You can practice regulating them.
You can practice taking a deep breath.

00:44:09.220 --> 00:44:15.340
pausing, giving yourself a minute to calm
down and then continuing on. Our whole

00:44:15.460 --> 00:44:19.920
conception of emotional intelligence
is that these are skills.

00:44:20.410 --> 00:44:25.390
You use the metaphor muscle.
You can think of these as skills, skills,

00:44:25.510 --> 00:44:28.607
just like an athletic
skill where, you know,

00:44:28.690 --> 00:44:34.461
when you develop those muscles and you
take thousands and thousands of foul shots

00:44:34.544 --> 00:44:38.364
from the basketball foul line,
you get better at them.

00:44:38.447 --> 00:44:43.351
The same is true when you role play
emotionally evocative situations.

00:44:43.434 --> 00:44:47.398
What can I learn from watching
the way my body responds,

00:44:47.481 --> 00:44:51.890
my thoughts change and my feelings
are expressed differently?

00:44:52.120 --> 00:44:53.570
and have an impact on others.

00:44:54.220 --> 00:45:01.220
The idea of emotional
intelligence is new. In fact,

00:45:06.910 --> 00:45:13.910
you might say it's one of the most popular

00:45:24.220 --> 00:45:29.691
intelligence. Sadly, however, a lot of
what you may have heard about this concept

00:45:29.774 --> 00:45:33.051
is wrong. In our companion
story to this episode,

00:45:33.134 --> 00:45:37.028
available exclusively
to subscribers to Hidden Brain Plus,

00:45:37.111 --> 00:45:42.240
we explore how the enormous popularity
of emotional intelligence has spawned

00:45:42.323 --> 00:45:46.628
a number of myths and misguided
notions. If you're a subscriber,

00:45:46.711 --> 00:45:49.180
that episode is available right now.

00:45:49.270 --> 00:45:53.492
It's titled, Emotional
Intelligence Isn't About Being Nice.

00:45:53.575 --> 00:45:58.527
If you're not yet a subscriber,
please visit support.hiddenbrain.org.

00:45:58.610 --> 00:46:02.905
If you're using an Apple device,
go to apple.co.hiddenbrain.

00:46:02.989 --> 00:46:07.575
You'll instantly have access
to all our subscriber-only content,

00:46:07.659 --> 00:46:10.547
including past episodes. Again?

00:46:10.630 --> 00:46:16.230
That's support.hiddenbrain.org
and apple.co.hiddenbrain.

00:46:18.450 --> 00:46:22.777
Peter Salovey is a psychologist at Yale
University. Along with Jack Mayer,

00:46:22.860 --> 00:46:25.936
he helped coin the concept
of emotional intelligence.

00:46:26.019 --> 00:46:30.465
Peter has written and co-written several
books about emotional intelligence,

00:46:30.548 --> 00:46:33.290
including The Emotionally
Intelligent Manager,

00:46:33.670 --> 00:46:38.110
how to develop and use the four
key emotional skills of leadership.

00:46:39.060 --> 00:46:41.687
Peter, thank you so much
for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

00:46:41.770 --> 00:46:43.847
Thank you, Shaker.
It was a delight for me,

00:46:43.930 --> 00:46:45.990
and I very much enjoyed our conversation.

00:46:46.810 --> 00:46:48.210
I truly enjoy your show.

00:46:48.820 --> 00:46:50.740
.

00:46:53.020 --> 00:46:57.764
If you have a personal story about
emotional intelligence that you'd be

00:46:57.847 --> 00:47:01.028
willing to share with
the Hidden Brain audience,

00:47:01.111 --> 00:47:05.107
or a question or comment about
the research in this episode,

00:47:05.190 --> 00:47:09.730
please find a very quiet room
and record a voice memo on your phone.

00:47:09.814 --> 00:47:14.422
Two or three minutes is plenty.
Then email the file to us at feedback

00:47:14.505 --> 00:47:19.317
at hiddenbrain.org using the subject
line emotional intelligence. Again,

00:47:19.400 --> 00:47:21.780
that's feedback at hiddenbrain.org.

00:47:23.020 --> 00:47:26.200
Hidden Brain is produced
by Hidden Brain Media.

00:47:26.284 --> 00:47:30.853
Our audio production team includes
Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong,

00:47:30.936 --> 00:47:35.089
Laura Querell, Ryan Katz,
Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury.

00:47:35.172 --> 00:47:37.880
Special thanks today to Simon Linstead.

00:47:38.080 --> 00:47:40.420
Tara Boyle is our executive producer.

00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:42.590
I'm Hidden Brains Executive Editor.

00:47:44.020 --> 00:47:47.020
I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

00:47:57.130 --> 00:47:57.963
Thank you.

00:47:58.810 --> 00:47:59.643
you

00:47:59.980 --> 00:48:02.010
you Thank you. you