Assignment Code: BPCS-183 / ASST / TMA /2021-22

Course Code: BPCS-183

Assignment Name: Emotional Intelligence

Year: 2021-2022

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

NOTE: All questions are compulsory.

Assignment One

Answer the following descriptive category questions in about 500 words each. Each question carries 20 marks. 3 x 20 = 60

Q 1) Define emotion. Explain the components and functions of emotions.

Ans) Emotion is a complex chain of loosely connected events that begins with a stimulus and includes feelings, psychological changes, impulses to action and specific goal directed behaviour (Plutchik).

Woodworth defines emotion as a stirred-up state of an organism that appears as feelings to the individual himself and as a disturbed muscular and glandular activity to an external observer.

Morris states that emotion is a complex affective experience that involves diffuse physiological changes and can be expressed overtly in characteristic behaviour patterns.

Components Of Emotions

Emotions can be viewed as having five components:

1. Affective: also referred to as a conscious, subjective feeling. Individuals monitor their internal, felt states and recognise what they are feeling.

2. Cognitive: involves describing or assigning meaning to the emotion. Thus, thinking about a feeling is very different from the actual feeling. Individuals try to understand the reason behind why something is happening and try to judge how an event might impact them.

3. Physiologic: bodily reactions such as palms sweating upon feeling anxious.

4. Motivational: Going toward or away from an action or person. This component is also referred to as action tendencies, which refers to specific actions that the individual takes that may be voluntary or involuntary.

Functions of Emotions

They offer us with information and serve a specific purpose. Because of the functions they fulfil, they became a part of the human experience and have remained such.

Each function is associated with a certain utility or role:

Intrapersonal functions: This domain relates to the roles that emotions play in people's lives. They aid in the direction of behaviour and decision-making so that we can both live and operate as human beings. Happiness encourages creative thinking and broadens our concentration, allowing us to notice fresh ideas and minor details. Even mild grief encourages us to examine information more carefully and completely, which leads to more realistic thinking and better judgement.

Interpersonal functions: Emotions between individuals serve these functions. The act of expressing emotions acts as a communication to others about how one feels about them or about the connection, what one's intentions are, and what one's needs are. When we make a favourable facial expression, such as a grin, other individuals are more likely to approach us. Empathy or sympathy may be elicited as a result of expressing sadness.

Social and cultural functions: This component is concerned with the role of emotions in the formation and maintenance of civilizations and cultures. Trust, for example, is frequently used as a social glue to keep organisations together. Societies emerge from cohesive groupings, which have their own distinct cultures. Individuals and communities are informed about unique display norms for emotional expression via cultural codes.

Q 2) Discuss the concept and components of emotional intelligence.

Ans) Emotional intelligence can be divided into two categories: emotions and intelligence. When questioned about emotions in general, the first responses are likely to represent an essentially limiting perspective on emotions. Emotions are generally thought to make us inefficient, to be a show of weakness, to be a distraction, and to be an impediment to good judgement and decision making. When examined through this lens, the two words in the term emotional intelligence appear to contradict one another. Modern neuroscience, on the other hand, has helped to dispel these beliefs by highlighting various vital tasks that emotions fulfil. Emotions, we now know, provide key feedback and information about our reality, ignite creativity, aid decision-making, improve thinking, and promote trust and connection—all of which are essential if we are to not just function but thrive as humans.

Components Of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be divided into four parts that are all interconnected:

1. Perceiving emotions: This is the fundamental ability to recognise and register emotions in ourselves and others. People with strong emotional intelligence can recognise when they are feeling a certain emotion and utilise their vocabulary to define it. For example, having the sensation of "butterflies in the stomach" while being aware that they are nervous or anxious. They are extremely sensitive to other people's emotions and can read people's facial expressions and body language to determine if they are angry, sad, pleased, or a variety of other emotions. This is a crucial skill since it is extremely difficult to comprehend or change a feeling without first recognising its experience.

2. Understanding emotions: This section discusses how to use the specific information that distinct emotions convey and how that information may influence their behaviour. As previously said, each emotion provides individuals with unique information about their surroundings while also energising them to act in a specific direction. People who are emotionally savvy may ‘read' this information and utilise it to guide their actions. Understanding that one's rage at a friend may stem from a feeling of being treated unfairly by them, for example. Understanding the feelings of others is similar; noticing that a sibling is hunched over and interacting with others less may signal that they are disturbed or depressed about something.

3. Managing emotions: When someone immediately recognises and understands their emotions, it becomes much easier for them to consider the following steps in order to modify them. This is true for both oneself and others. Recognizing that one is depressed and desiring to change that emotion may prompt one to make plans to see a movie, visit a friend with whom one enjoys conversing, or just call the person. Deep breathing and relaxation techniques may be used to calm oneself down if one wants to minimise his or her rage.

Using emotions: It is more than merely dealing with or regulating emotions to be able to use one's emotions. It entails the ability to use emotions to improve our thinking, decision-making, and interpersonal interactions.

Q 3) Discuss the ability model of emotional intelligence.

Ans) Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso proposed the ability model, a four-branch framework for emotional intelligence. In reality, it was in 1990 that he invented the term "emotional intelligence." The requirement to define emotional intelligence as an ability rather than a trait or attribute led to the development of the four-branch model. According to the experts, there are two kinds of wide intelligences: hot and cool. Cool intelligence refers to intellectual knowledge rather than personal knowledge, such as verbal-propositional intelligence, math skills, and visual-spatial intelligence. Because they deal with processing personal information related to "social acceptance, identity coherence, and emotional well-being," hot intelligences are considered personal. While repeated failures to comprehend information connected to these areas can lead to "psychic distress," Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey (2016) suggest that competent reasoning about feelings and social information can improve people's coping skills and functioning. Emotional intelligence, they believe, is a form of wide, hot intellect.

Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso's emotional intelligence model defines emotional intelligence as "the ability to perceive emotions, access and generate emotions to aid thought, understand emotions and emotional meanings, and reflectively regulate emotions in ways that promote emotional and intellectual growth."

Individuals differ in their abilities to 1. process emotional information and 2.relate emotional processing to broader cognition, according to this concept.  As a result, the ability model emphasises emotional information - understanding and managing emotions - while also emphasising the importance of logic and other cognitive functions in the appropriate processing of this emotional data. It is a developmental model of EI that progresses from basic to more sophisticated tasks requiring increasing complicated skills from childhood to adulthood.

The four branches/tiers comprise:

Branch 1- The ability to recognise emotions in faces and photographs is referred to as emotional perception. It is the most basic and early branch, involving the recognition of emotions expressed through facial expressions and body language. It aids in the perception, awareness, and expression of emotions in oneself and others. This aids in delivering proper input to the following tier's cognitive system.

Branch 2- Emotional facilitation is the ability of emotions to assist and facilitate thinking in order for a person to act in a planned manner. It refers to the ability to combine emotional and cognitive impulses to facilitate thought. Emotional data is used to improve, alter, and prioritise thinking, as well as to aid judgement and decision-making.

Branch 3- Emotional understanding entails labelling and distinguishing between emotions in order to analyse and make sense of them. It refers to the ability to comprehend emotions and the interactions that exist between them. As a result, it entails abstract processing of emotional data.

Branch 4- The most complex and separate from the others is Emotional Management, which focuses on using emotions to optimise reactions to one's surroundings, such as reframing and adjusting assessments to regulate emotions. It entails the ability to control one's emotions in order to improve one's personal and interpersonal efficiency.

Assignment Two

Answer the following short category questions in about 100 words each. Each question carries 5 marks. 8 x 5 = 40

Q 4) Describe the strategies to develop self-actualization.

Ans) Various phases and tactics can aid an individual's progress toward self-actualization. The following are some of them:

1)      Awareness about oneself

2)     Complete acceptance of oneself

3)     Controlling of one’s emotions

4)     Decide your goals and show perseverance

5)     Looking for opportunities

6)     Cultivating a proper mindset

Self-actualization is the highest aspiration of any human being. It's worth noting that just because a person is able to live out his or her life's purpose doesn't indicate that self-actualization is complete. Rather, self-actualization is a dynamic and never-ending process. Once a person achieves their objectives, there is always the opportunity to grow and progress to a greater level in life.

Q 5) Discuss the relationship between emotions, thinking and behaviour.

Ans) Emotions, thought, and behaviour are all intertwined. The easiest way to illustrate their relationship is to use contemporary emotion models. Imagine your friend yelling at you out of nowhere. This is an emotional stimulation, and you may interpret or judge the outburst as "my friend is upset with me" or "my friend is disrespectful" when you meet it. You will have a feeling depending on how you think about the stimuli. Following that, some type of adaptive behaviour will emerge. If your interpretation of the circumstance is that your friend is upset with you, you may be perplexed and inquire as to why they are upset. If you believe your friend is being impolite, you may become enraged and shout out at them, changing your behaviour dramatically.

Q 6) Explain self-control and describe strategies to develop self-control.

Ans) Self-control is a very fundamental and crucial skill to learn to achieve a balanced state of mind. It also helps one to take an informed decision. That is, equipped with the awareness of one’s emotions, one can take stock of the situation and take desirable steps as per the requirements of the situation. Self-control as a part of self-regulation involves the ability to deliberately regulate one’s emotions, thoughts and actions. It encompasses skills such as emotion regulation, control, and perseverance.

One of the strategies for self-regulation is self-distancing. It can help in controlling one’s emotions. Self-distancing refers to the mental distance or psychological distance deliberately created by an individual between the self and a stimulus by having the individual think about their thoughts, feelings or actions from an outsider’s perspective.

Q 7) Explain the importance of assertiveness.

Ans) Assertiveness means to assert one’s rights, to speak up for oneself what one thinks and feels.

It includes the following main points:

1)      Assertiveness is an important interpersonal skill related to emotional intelligence.

2)     It consists of five C’s – Clear, Concise, Confidence, Courage and Controlled.

3)     The message is conveyed in a concise manner and clearly with courage, confidence and in a calm controlled manner.

4)     It respects the need of oneself as well as the need of others.

5)     Assertive people can fight for their rights and at the same time able to care for others also so as not to hurt their feelings or beliefs.

6)     They are able to express themselves without any anxiety, nervousness or boasting.

7)     They exhibit appropriate control over their impulses and emotions.

Thus, we can see that assertive behaviour can help us communicate well with others and achieve success in life.

Q 8) Describe the strategies related to interpersonal aspect for improving emotional intelligence.

Ans) Emotional intelligence (EI) is a skill that anyone may develop and improve at any time in their lives. It is important for one's success and pleasure in life because it combines intellectual and emotional abilities.

The strategies for improving emotional intelligence can be divided into two categories:

1)  intrapersonal strategies (knowing aspects of emotions, self-awareness, assertiveness, mindfulness, coping strategies, positive attitude, and resilience) and

2) interpersonal strategies (knowing aspects of emotions, self-awareness, assertiveness, mindfulness, coping strategies, positive attitude, and resilience) (developing empathy, communication skills, decision making and problem-solving skill, conflict management skill).

Q 9) Discuss how EI can be applied at the workplace.

Ans) Empathy and social skill are two fundamental components of EI that play a significant role in professional success. Empathy is the ability to recognise and understand the feelings of another, and it influences how we see another person or situation. Empathy not only makes interpersonal collaboration easier, but it also minimises prejudice, aggressiveness, and violence. The second component that contributes to professional success is the effective application of social skills. The most significant social skills in the job are those that deal with interpersonal interaction, conflict resolution, and negotiating. Social skills include good communication, collaboration with people, cooperative attempts to attain goals, and effective team-building talents.

Q 10) Describe the skills required to develop awareness and understanding of emotions in others.

Ans) Three interconnected skills are required for others to be emotionally aware:

1)      Emotion perception

2)     Emotion recognition

3)     Emotion interpretation

The ability to recognise emotions in others is known as emotion perception. Making appropriate judgements about another's subjective experience by interpreting their physical changes through sensory systems and inferring the implicit meaning of these observed changes is what emotional awareness regarding others implies. Emotions can be communicated in a variety of ways, including verbally, nonverbally, or a combination of both.

Emotions can be sensed visually, audibly (for example, tone and pitch of speech), olfactorily, and through body sensations. Other people's emotions can be perceived in a variety of ways. We normally detect signs for inferring the emotional state of the individual with whom we are interacting through our visual system. The auditory system, which receives input in the form of voices and diverse sounds from the environment, provides another mechanism of emotion identification.

Q 11) Discuss self-motivation as one of the emotional competence.

Ans) In the context of emotional competence, self-motivation refers to keeping oneself motivated and driven toward a goal by skilfully controlling one's emotional experience and expression. A fundamental quality of emotional competence is the ability to maintain motivation by controlling emotions in the face of failure or even triumph. Self-motivation is the force that propels us forward — it's our internal drive to succeed, produce, develop, and progress. When you believe you're ready to give up or don't know where to begin, it's your self-motivation that keeps you going.

Motivation is the final part of emotional intelligence that involves personal skills. Our personal drive to develop and succeed, devotion to our goals, initiative, or readiness to act on chances, as well as optimism and resilience, are all examples of self-motivation. In this sector, self-motivation and personal time management are essential talents.