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Emotional Intelligence
| Date: |
22 August 2004 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Kate Barry
Kate Barry
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Throughout the country thousands of students are preparing to write exams. Years of education are about to be put to the test. Since early childhood their parents have spent a small fortune trying to give them the edge, because ultimately they'll be competing for jobs and a place in the sun. But what do they really need to succeed?
Zaa Nkweta (Carte Blanche presenter): 'While it has always been accepted that those with a high IQ will perform better than those with a low IQ, it has now become acknowledged that emotions play a greater role in our personal success. It's your EQ rather than your IQ that will determine whether you rise to the top of the pile or end up down here, on the street.'
Research suggests that emotional intelligence is the key to success in life. The concept was popularised by this best-selling book in 1996, but it was Charles Darwin - back in the 1800s - who started exploring how human beings survive and thrive. We have evolved over millions of years, but our emotions come from the most primitive part of our brain, so our feelings can dominate our thinking.
But how do we decide who is emotionally intelligent? These students are writing the Bar-On EQ-i test, the world's first scientific measure of emotional intelligence. The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory consists of 133 statements that cover a wide range of emotional and social functioning. The students rate how true each statement is for themselves.
Prof. Reuven Bar-On: 'The test I devised called EQ-I is a self report and that will give fairly accurate information how the person is functioning emotionally and socially.'
The test was developed by Professor Reuven Bar-On as part of his doctoral thesis at Rhodes University.
Prof. Bar-On: 'Preliminary work was done here in South Africa. I continued that work in other parts of the world afterwards. At first, it was five, six, seven different countries, going from the United States, Israel, India, Nigeria, Germany, Argentina and eventually expanding that more.'
The test has been translated into 30 languages and taken by more than a million people worldwide.
Zaa: 'So what does it take to be emotionally intelligent? Professor Bar-On has five basic requirements. If you're lacking in any one of these, chances are that you'll never reach your full potential'
1. The ability to understand your emotions: Self-awareness
Film clip from Bridget Jones's Diary: 'At times like this, continuing with one's life seems impossible, and eating the entire contents of one's fridge seems inevitable.'
2. The ability to understand others' emotions: Empathy
Film clip from Bridget Jones's Diary 'Oh, I'm sorry, Dad. Well, she loves you really - you love each other. This is only a temporary glitch.'
3. The ability to control your emotions: Impulse control
Film clip from Bridget Jones's Diary: 'I should have done this years ago...
Done what? This! [First character punches second character.]'
4. The ability to adapt to change: Flexibility
Film clip from Bridget Jones's Diary: 'I just don't know... it's been very hard... I'm joking, you daft cow!'
5. And being motivated: Optimism
If you have these five qualities then you'll score well on the EQ test.
Prof. Bar-On: 'A hundred is the average. Above a hundred is more emotionally socially intelligent, below 100 is less.'
10 000 South Africans have taken the EQ test, but how do we rate? - it was administered by RAU's Professor Deon de Bruin.
Prof. Deon de Bruin: 'Compared against the normative American sample, the scores of South Africans measured up very well.'
Zaa: 'So are we coping? Are we optimistic, self aware, empathetic?'
Deon: 'We are very aware of the difficult issues we face in our own country. There's lots of talk of trauma, a lot of talk of a difficulty in coping, job losses, and so on and so forth. But despite those factors, we seem to be holding up quite well, and it speaks well for the resilience of South Africans'
Zaa: 'If you think that getting in touch with your emotions is just for sissies, think again. Companies are now using emotional intelligence tests to determine who has leadership potential and who doesn't.'
Beer-swilling men who think emotional intelligence is an oxymoron should note that brewery giant SAB encourages it.
Darryl Wright (SA Breweries): 'We like to hire people with a strong ego sense, and we measure potential and their intellect. And we thought that, well, maybe we can go back and use a tool to assess and try and determine a person's level of self-awareness and EQ. What we have found out [from] the evidence is that we would like to use it as a growth tool rather than as a selection tool.'
Prof. Bar-On: 'We've looked at a number of different occupations - people that we know it takes a lot of emotional social intelligence - senior executive leaders, aeroplane pilots, psychiatrists, physicians, people in the healthcare professions that work with people.'
Zaa: 'If you're feeling like an emotional dimwit, don't worry. There's hope for you yet. Unlike IQ, it is possible to up your EQ score. With the right intervention you could become an emotional genius in your old age.'
Stephanie Vermeulen (EQ trainer): 'I use the analogy of a motor car; that emotions are like warning lights and if our oil light goes on in the car, we really have to stop and do something about it. The same applies to our emotions, but we've never learnt that they have a deep intelligence in them. And it's that intelligence that actually guides us to what will give our lives meaning, what our life work is, how we can make a difference in this lifetime.'
Stephanie Vermeulen is an EQ trainer who has written a book on the subject.
Stephanie: 'For me one of the interesting things about emotional intelligence is that it's the only western theory that is close to the African concept of Ubuntu. Because, from a leadership perspective, we understand that you can't be successful on your own, so in the west, people believe that if I push hard enough, if I push myself hard enough, if I work hard enough, then my success will come. But the African concept of Ubuntu is very clear - that nobody can survive or be successful on their own.'
Zaa: 'How do South Africans rate in terms of impulse control?'
Stephanie: 'When we look at impulse control, one of the easiest things to detect whether a nation is good at impulse control or not, is the credit index of a country. Now ours is showing that in South Africa, that South Africans tend to live about 60% above their means. Now that shows that we're tending to spend a lot; and why people tend to do that is to make themselves feel better. So when our self esteem is low we kind of need this image that is elevated, so that other people won't detect our insecurities.'
But when it comes to South African children, these cracks are showing. 1200 Urban and rural schoolchildren have taken the Bar-On test. The results were studied by Profesor Kobus Maree of Pretoria University.
Prof. Kobus Maree: 'If you look at the... not only the violence levels in our schools, but also the number of suicides, you realise that something is going wrong: our children don't know how to listen to other people, they don't have people that listen to them. Our children do not recognise their own feelings, they do not even always recognise anger! What's more, they don't know how to cope with anger, they don't know how to deal with it in a non destructive way.'
Zaa: 'Is this learnt behaviour?'
Kobus: 'I've had the situation where people have looked straight into my eyes and said, 'My role models are criminals. Why would I want a job? This is the situation where I live. Why would I act otherwise?' So yes, you're right, I think it's learnt behaviour to a great extent.'
Unless we start teaching emotional intelligence to our children, they are at greater risk of making the wrong choices, according to Professor Bar-On. A group of convicted criminals did his EQ test, and showed interesting results.
Prof. Bar-On: 'Poor empathy, very low empathy, the inability to understand other human beings or care about other human beings, number one; the second part of that is - no social responsibility, not being accountable for one's actions; and the third was very low impulse control. It's like a walking time bomb.'
He has also proved that emotional intelligence has an impact on our health, and has tested the EQ of a group of children who survived cancer.
Prof. Bar-On: 'Optimism appeared to be one of the key components that differentiated cancer survivors from children who had never been diagnosed with cancer. Others were assertiveness, ability to talk about themselves, being able to assert themselves and going through a painful situation like being diagnosed and being treated for cancer. Then, maybe, I should talk about it... flexibility was another component in emotional intelligence - to adapt, to be flexible.'
Zaa: 'And the future of emotional intelligence? Do you think it will become more incorporated into our own lives?'
Prof. Bar-On: 'I see the future in emotional intelligence going in the direction of how best to raise children. What do we need to be good effective parents and then what are the best methods? What works best with whom? How do we work best with children? How can we amass research findings and apply that research to raising and educating children to be more socially intelligent?'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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