The theory of emotional intelligence, as presented in the 1995 book by the same name, has not passed the test of time or kept pace with ongoing neuroscientific research.
That is also the case for:
- Paul MacLean’s theory of the triune brain (reptilian/instinctual, mammalian/emotional, and human/rational)
- the VAK (visual/auditory/kinesthetic) and VARK (visual/auditory/reading-writing/kinesthetic) theories of learning styles
- Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
It’s true that these theories and notions are widely known and, in many instances, still used and taught. But familiarity alone is often enough to breed acceptance, and popularity is not a measure of validity.
Most of these theories were based on the best available information at the time, along with a common-sense understanding of how humans function in the world. The same is true of the belief that the amygdala is the brain’s fear circuit.
Now we know more.
Whether our goal is to successfully navigate the collective challenges we face, to be more effective, or to lead satisfying and meaningful lives—or even all three—we need to question our beliefs and the theories and assumptions we may still be taking for granted.
The Old View: Detection and Control
The previous conception of emotional intelligence rested on two particular assumptions:
- We can detect emotions accurately in other people based on their facial and bodily expressions.
- Emotions are automatically triggered by events, but we can learn how to control them.
Point number one has been debunked through research testing the hypothesis directly. But those results should not have been news.
In the early twentieth century, the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov produced a film of unnarrated images: a corpse in a coffin, a lovely young woman, and a bowl of soup. In between these images, Kuleshov squeezed shots of an actor’s face. The audience noted that when the soup was shown,the actor emoted hunger. When the corpse was shown, he looked sad. When the lovely young woman appeared, the actor’s face was transformed by lust.
In fact the actor wasn’t emoting at all. After every shot, Kuleshov had inserted exactly the same footage of an actor staring impassively into the camera. —Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal
Expectations play an enormous role in the interpretations made by the brain. We often see what we expect to see rather than what’s actually there.
As for point number two, as discussed in the last newsletter, there are no dedicated emotional circuits that are triggered by external events. And the brain doesn’t have separate processes for emotion and cognition; therefore one cannot control the other. Cognition and emotion are equally important, as both are involved in System 1 and System 2 processing.
The New View: Prediction and Granularity
Our predictive brain is constantly trying to interpret what’s going on, both internally and externally, in each situation it encounters in order to determine what we should do next. In one situation (set of circumstances), the brain might interpret an event one way, while in another situation, it might interpret a similar event in a different way. The reactions we have are based on the interpretations, not on the events themselves.
Prediction is always a guessing game. But because emotion is such an integral and crucial part of interpretation, we can increase the odds of our brain guessing correctly by increasing our emotional granularity.
Yes, emotional granularity is a thing. In fact, it is many things—which is kind of the definition of granularity. What it means in regard to emotional intelligence is that the more expansive and finely tuned our feeling vocabulary is the better equipped we’ll be to make sense of our experiences and accurately interpret our own and others’ emotions.
Here’s an example of increasing emotional granularity, moving from the non-granular general feeling bad to the first distinction of angry/mad (as opposed to sad or anxious, for example), and then fine-tuning that feeling to one of 10 possible permutations* of angry/mad.
Creating Your Experience
Artists tend to have a more nuanced perception of colors than non-artists, as do musicians in regard to music, architects in regard to buildings, botanists in regard to plants, and sailors in regard to the sea. Their training alters their experience and with it their sense of who they are.
We can similarly train ourselves to distinguish, appreciate, and detect more nuanced emotions than we habitually identify, which can, in turn, alter what is possible for us to experience and, therefore, who we are, who we can be, and what we can do.
Your personal experience is actively constructed by your actions. You tweak the world, and the world tweaks you back. You are, in a very real sense, an architect of your environment as well as your experience. —Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made
This feeling vocabulary chart might give new meaning (or at least new answers) to the question how do you feel about that?
*There are, of course, more possibilities, but you get the point.