新视野大学英语43读写教程单词表】unit10
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2020年07月29日 23:06
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町怎么读-鸿爪雪泥
(How to Cultivate "EQ";)
What is the most valuable contribution employees make to their companies, knowledge or judgment? I say judgment. Knowledge, no matter how broad, is useless until it is applied. And application takes judgment, which involves something of a sixth sense — a high performance of the mind.
This raises interesting questions about the best training for today's business people. As Daniel Goleman suggests in his new book, Emotional Intelligence, the latest scientific findings seem to indicate that intelligent but inflexible people don't have the right stuff in an age when the adaptive ability is the key to survival.
In a recent cover story, Time magazine sorted through the current thinking on intelligence and reported, "New brain research suggests that emotions, not IQ, may be the true measure of human intelligence." The basic significance of the emotional intelligence that Time called "EQ" was suggested by management expert Karen Boylston: "Customers are telling businesses, 'I don't care if every member of your staff graduated from Harvard. I will take my business and go where I am understood and treated with respect.'"
If the evolutionary pressures of the marketplace are making EQ, not IQ, the hot ticket for business success, it seems likely that individuals will want to know how to cultivate it. I have a modest proposal: Embrace a highly personal practice aimed at improving these four adaptive skills:
Raising consciousness. I think of this as thinking differently on purpose. It's about noticing what you are feeling and thinking and escaping the conditioned confines of your past. Raise your consciousness by catching yourself in the act of thinking as often as possible. Routinely take note of your emotions and ask if you're facing facts or avoiding them.
Using imagery. This is what you see Olympic ski racers doing before entering the starting gate. With their eyes closed and bodies swaying, they run the course in their minds first, which improves their performance. You can do the same by setting aside time each day to dream with passion about what you want to achieve.
Considering and reconsidering events to choose the most creative response to them. When a Greek philosopher said 2,000 years ago that it isn't events that matter but our opinion of them, this is what he was talking about. Every time something important happens, assign as many interpretations to it as possible, even crazy ones. Then go with the interpretation most supportive of your dreams.
Integrating the perspectives of others. Brain research shows that our view of the world is limited by our genes and the experiences we've had. Learning to incorporate the useful perspectives of others is nothing less than a form of enlarging your senses. The next time someone interprets something differently from you — say, a controversial political event — pause to reflect on the role
of life experience and consider it a gift of perception.
The force of habit — literally the established wiring of your brain — will pull you away from practicing these skills. Keep at it, however, because they are based on what we're learning about the mechanisms of the mind.
Within the first six months of life the human brain doubles in capacity; it doubles again by age four and then grows rapidly until we reach sexual maturity. The body has about a hundred billion nerve cells, and every experience triggers a brain response that literally shapes our senses. The mind, we now know, is not confined to the brain but is distributed throughout the body's universe of cells. Yes, we do think with our hearts, brains, muscles, blood and bones.
During a single crucial three-week period during our teenage years, chemical activity in the brain is cut in half. That done, we are "biologically wired" with what one of the nation's leading brain researchers calls our own "world view". He says it is impossible for any two people to see the world exactly alike. So unique is the personal experience that people would understand the world differently.
However, it is not only possible to change your world view, he says, it's actually easier than overcoming a drug habit. But you need a discipline for doing it. Hence, the method recommended here.
No, it's not a curriculum in the sense that an MBA is. But the latest research seems to imply that without the software of emotional maturity and self-knowledge, the hardware of academic training alone is worth less and less.
EQ Plays a Role in Personal Success
It turns out that a scientist can see the future by watching four-year-olds interact with a piece of candy. The researcher invites the children, one by one, into a plain room and begins the gentle torture. You can have this piece of candy right now, he says. But if you wait while I leave the room for a while, you can have two pieces of candy when I get back. And then he leaves.
Some children grab for the treat the minute he's out the door. Some last a few minutes before they give in. But others are determined to wait. They cover their eyes; they put their heads down; they sing to themselves; they try to play games or even fall asleep. When the researcher returns, he gives these children their hard-earned pieces of candy. And then, science waits for them to grow up.
By the time the children reach high school, something remarkable has happened. A survey of the children's parents and teachers found that those who as four-year-olds had enough self-control to hold out for the second piece of candy generally grew up to be better adjusted, more popular, adventurous, confident and dependable teenagers. The children who gave in to temptation early on were more likely to be lonely, easily frustrated and inflexible. They could not endure stress and shied away from challenges.
When we think of bri
lliance we see Einstein, a thinking machine with skin and mismatched socks. High achievers, we imagine, were wired for greatness from birth. But then you have to wonder why, over time, natural talent seems to waken in some people and dim in others. This is where the candy comes in. It seems that the ability to delay reward is a master skill, a triumph of the logical brain over the irresponsible one. It is a sign, in short, of emotional intelligence. And it doesn't show up on an IQ test.
For most of this century, scientists have worshipped the hardware of the brain and the software of the mind; the messy powers of the heart were left to the poets. But brain theory could simply not explain the questions we wonder about most: why some people just seem to have a gift for living well; why the smartest kid in the class will probably not end up the richest; why we like some people virtually on sight and distrust others; why some people remain upbeat in the face of troubles that would sink a less resistant soul. What qualities of the mind or spirit, in short, determine who succeeds?
The phrase "emotional intelligence" was coined by researchers five years ago to describe qualities like understanding one's own feelings, sympathy for the feelings of others and "the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living". This notion is about to bound into the national conversation, conveniently shortened to EQ, thanks to a new book, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Goleman has brought together a decade's worth of research into how the mind processes feelings. His goal, he announces on the cover, is to redefine what it means to be smart. His theory: when it comes to predicting people's success, brain capacity as measured by IQ may actually matter less than the qualities of mind once thought of as "character".
At first glance, there would seem to be little that's new here. There may be no less original idea than the notion that our hearts have authority over our heads. "I was so angry," we say, "I couldn't think straight." Neither is it surprising that "people skills" are useful, which amounts to saying it's good to be nice. But if it were that simple, the book would not be quite so interesting or its implications so controversial.
This is no abstract investigation. Goleman is looking for methods to restore "politeness to our streets and caring in our community life". He sees practical applications everywhere for how companies should decide whom to hire, how couples can increase the odds that their marriages will last, how parents should raise their children and how schools should teach them. When street gangs substitute for families and schoolyard insults end in knife attacks, when more than half of marriages end in divorce, when the majority of the children murdered in this country are killed by their parents, many of whom say they were trying to discipline the child for behavior like blocking the TV or crying too much
, it suggests a demand for basic emotional education.
And it is here the arguments will break out. While many researchers in this relatively new field are glad to see emotional issues finally taken seriously, they fear that a notion as handy as EQ invites misuse. "People have a variety of emotion," argues Harvard psychology professor Jerome Kagan. "Some people handle anger well but can't handle fear. Some people can't take joy. So each emotion has to be viewed differently." EQ is not the opposite of IQ. Some people are blessed with a lot of both, but some with little of either. What researchers have been trying to understand is how they work together; how one's ability to handle stress, for instance, affects the ability to concentrate and put intelligence to use. Among the ingredients for success, researchers now generally agree that IQ counts for about 20%; the rest depends on everything from social class to luck.
The Major Qualities Making up Emotional Intelligence
Psychological experts agree that IQ contributes only about 20 percent of the factors that determine success. A full 80 percent comes from other factors, including what I call emotional intelligence. The following are some of the major qualities that make up emotional intelligence, and how they can be developed:
1. Self-awareness(自我意识).
The ability to recognize a feeling as it happens is the foundation of emotional intelligence. People with greater knowledge of their emotions are better pilots of their lives. Developing self-awareness requires tuning in to what emotions make our bodies feel like — literally, gut feelings(直觉). Gut feelings can occur without a person being consciously aware of them. For example, when people who fear snakes are shown a picture of a snake, monitors attached to their skin will detect sweat, a sign of anxiety, even though the people say they do not feel fear.
Through deliberate effort we can become more aware of our gut feelings. Take someone who is annoyed by an encounter for hours after it occurred. He may be unaware of his irritability and surprised when someone calls attention to it. But if he evaluates his feelings, he can change them.
2. Mood Management.
Bad as well as good moods add flavor to life and build character. The key is balance.
Of all the moods that people want to escape, rage seems to be the hardest to deal with. What should you do to relieve rage? One myth is that voicing your rage will make you feel better. In fact, researchers have found that's one of the worst strategies. Explosions of rage pump up the brain's arousal system, leaving you more angry, not less. A more effective technique is "reframing", which means consciously reinterpreting a situation in a more positive light.
3. Self-motivation.
Positive motivation — the gathering of feelings of enthusiasm, energy and confidence — is vital for achievement. Studies of Olympi
c athletes, world-class musicians and chess masters show that their common trait is the ability to motivate themselves to pursue harsh training routines.
To motivate yourself for any achievement requires clear goals and an optimistic, can-do attitude. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania advised the Metlife insurance company to hire a special group of job applicants who tested high on optimism, although they had failed the normal aptitude (才能) test. Compared with salesmen who passed the aptitude test but scored high in pessimism, this group made 21 percent more sales in their first year and 57 percent more in their second.
4. Impulse Control.
The core of emotional self-regulation is the ability to delay an immediate reward in the service of a goal. The importance of this trait to success was shown in an experiment begun in the 1960s by Walter Mischel at a preschool on the Stanford University campus. Children were told that they could have a single treat, such as a piece of candy, right now. However, if they would wait while the experimenter ran an errand, they would have two pieces of candy. Some preschoolers grabbed the treat immediately, but others were able to wait what, for them, must have seemed an endless 20 minutes.
The interesting part of this experiment came in later years. The children who as four-year-olds had been able to wait for the two pieces of candy were, as teenagers, still able to delay pleasure in pursuing their goals. They were more socially competent and self-confident, and better able to cope with life's frustrations. In contrast, the kids who grabbed the one piece of candy were, as teenagers, more likely to be inflexible, unable to make decisions and stressed.
The ability to resist temptation can be developed through practice. When you're faced with an immediate temptation, remind yourself of your long-term goals — whether they be losing weight or getting a medical degree. You'll find it easier, then, to keep from settling for the single piece of candy.
5. People Skills.
The capacity to know how another feels is important on the job, in romance and friendship, and in the family. The importance of good people skills was demonstrated by Robert Kelley of Carnegie-Mellon University and Janet Caplan in a study at Bell Labs. The labs are staffed by engineers and scientists who are all people of great intelligence. But some still emerged as stars, while others were never very successful.
What accounted for the difference? The top performers had a network containing a wide range of people. When a non-star encountered a technical problem, Kelley observed, "he called various technical experts and then waited, wasting time while his calls went unreturned. Star performers rarely faced such situations because they built reliable networks before they needed them. So when the stars called someone, they almost always got a faster answer." No matter what the
ir I Q, once again it was emotional intelligence that separated the stars from the average performers.