Yesterday, Mr. Stewart gave us a "homework" assignment to analyze the emotional intelligence of our friends, family, and classmates. First, I analyzed my parents to see how high their emotional intelligence is. Although my parents are both very good at distinguishing what type of mood I'm in, I have noticed that my mom is a lot better at saying the "right" thing for my given mood than my dad is. For example, there was one day that I was very angry and did not what to talk to anyone, and I thought that I made that fairly obvious. However, my dad kept bothering me about the subject that I did not want to talk about, which promptly made me scream "shut up!!!!" After that, he got incredibly angry and decided to do the exact opposite of what I said to do, and made me three times more angry. Today as I was considering this event, I thought about the EQ of my dad. Instead of responding to my words and my body language, he decided to act as he pleased and tried to "win the argument." This made me think back to the article we read yesterday where the person presenting the EQ workshops had to consider the four ways to respond. My dad chose not to respond with emotional EQ, but rather chose to stand his ground and make me even more angry.
Today, we learned about how EQ can be used negatively as well as positively. I have seen both sides of these in one of my friends. My friend has very high emotional intelligence, and can often tell how I am feeling and why I am feeling that way before I share my feelings. This works to an incredible advantage because he understands me and I don't really have to explain my reasoning, because he already gets it! But his EQ also works to a terrible disadvantage because he knows that he has a very high emotional intelligence and is 100% sure that he is right, even when he is not. For this reason, he doesn't believe me when I tell him that he is wrong because he is so used to being right. Since he is so persistent, I have found myself sometimes doubting my own feelings because he is so sure that I am wrong.
All in all, I think that having a high emotional intelligence is very important because it creates a mutual understanding between people, and people can tell what others are going through without needing an explanation. Although emotional intelligence can be used negatively, I believe that the positives of having a high EQ outweigh the negative effects of manipulation.
Very interesting. I guess Mr. Stewart was right when saying women tend to be a lot more emotionally intelligent than guys. My family seems to be the same way when dealing with EQ.
ReplyDeleteI can sympathize with you. My father often says the wrong things at even worse times. My mother however, almost always knows what to say. I think maybe it has something to do with natural maternal instinct or the like.
ReplyDelete