Emotional Intelligence Myth #3: You can measure emotional intelligence

A new tweet recently appeared in my TOPSY In-tray: 15 Great Interview Questions That Measure Emotional Intelligence https://t.co/VqFM7DJdSP written by Jacquelyn Smith, a New York based business reporter.  The article provoked two questions:

1.      Do the 15 questions help you measure Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?

2.      Is EQ something you can measure?

As an example here are two of the questions from the article:

1.      How good are you at accepting help from others?

2.      On an “average day” would you consider yourself a high or low energy person?

These two questions are typical of most questionnaires that purport to measure EQ.  They are self-reporting questions where you are asked to rate your own emotional ability.  Unfortunately abilities cannot be accurately measured with self-reports.  Suppose you want to find out how good someone is mathematically.  Would you ask the person ‘How good are you at solving algebraic equations?’ or get the person to actually solve an algebraic equation.”

Another methodology is use some variant of 360-Degree Assessment and ask other people if they think you have emotion intelligence by asking such questions as:

Are you able to read people well. Do you manage emotions effectively. Do you understand my emotions.

Not True  Somewhat True Very True Not True  Somewhat True Very True Not True  Somewhat True Very True

Unfortunately such ratings of your behaviour are based upon on their own observations, as well as their own biases. They don't see you in all situations. They don't know how you think, or what you feel. Only you know that.  Observers if they are a competitive peer may have an axe to grind or if they report to you will only provide a flattering portrait.

Part of the problem is in the definition of emotional intelligence.  Salovey & Mayer who coined the term defined it as the ability to perceive, understand and manage emotions.  This led them to develop the MSCEIT (the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test which is based on a series of emotion-based problem-solving items where your score is based on how a majority would answer them.  Although promoted as an ability test, the MSCEIT is unlike standard IQ tests in that its items do not have objectively correct responses. Among other challenges, the consensus scoring criterion means that it is impossible to create items (questions) that only a minority of respondents can solve, because, by definition, responses are deemed emotionally "intelligent" only if the majority of the sample has endorsed them.

Hence I favour a different definition based on Goleman’s four steps:

Emotional Intelligence is achieving self- and social mastery by being smart with core emotions.

Self-Mastery = Awareness + Management (Steps 1 & 2 as defined by Goleman)

Social Mastery = Empathy + Social Skills (Steps 3 &4 as defined by Goleman

The key to emotional intelligence is to understand your core emotions compared to your transient emotions.  Your core emotions are driven by your temperament – what you are genetically born with.  Based on a study of 11,000 identical twins nature is around twice as important as nurture.  I have found the Humm-Wadsworth model of seven core emotions the most practical tool for people to use and once understood (takes a day) dramatically lifts their emotional intelligence.  They learn what are the core emotions that are dominant in their own temperament, and how to recognise the dominant core emotions in other people and how to handle them.

By the way in passing let me add that the 15 questions posed in Jacquelyn Smith’s article would be an excellent addition to any interviewer’s tool-kit.

Emotional Intelligence Myth#2: Micro-expressions work

In 2009 I attended a ‘Mind & Its Potential’ Conference in Sydney.  Among the speakers was Paul Ekman who introduced the Australian audience to micro-expressions.  These are brief flashes of the emotional truth belying a false face and last between one twenty-fifth and one-fifth of a second.  During his talk we underwent a training program where there would a face on the screen showing one emotion and which would suddenly show another emotion for microseconds and then revert back.  Ekman used a portfolio of seven emotions and I think 25 pictures.  At the end of session he asked us to put our hands up we had got more than 20 right, 15, 10 etc.  I was terrible at the recognition and I think of the audience of say 500 people two of us admitted we got less than five images correct.

Afterwards I bought Ekman’s book and then decided I would to the course that he sells on-line to improve your results.  While there was some improvement – I got around 40% correct – it was still pretty poor and I must confess that I concluded this was not a technique for me.

For those unfamiliar with Ekman’s work the core hypothesis is that The face is the most powerful indicator of deception.  According to Ekman micro-expressions tell you whether a person is lying or not.  His technology is the basis of the TV program Lie to Me and Ekman is famous for his ability to read faces for signs of what people are thinking and feeling. In his best seller Blink, Malcolm Gladwell writes that "much of our understanding of mind-reading" is owed to Ekman and his collaborators.  Ekman’s work helped inspire an immense federal program in American airports called SPOT, for Screening of Passengers by Observational Techniques. Costing about $200-million annually—$900-million in all since 2007—the program, run by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), deploys more than 3,000 officers to look for behavioural cues in the faces and body language of airline passengers.

So somewhat chastened by my experience and Ekman’s reputation I decided that I would I put the micro-expression technology in the bottom drawer.

However a recent article The Liar's 'Tell': Is Paul Ekman stretching the truth? paints a completely different picture about the usefulness of micro expressions.  There have been a number of experts testifying before Congress that Ekman’s work lacks scientific validity.  The result was in November 2013, the Government Accountability Office recommended that Congress cut the funding of the TSA program. The watchdog agency argued that neither scholarship in general nor specific analyses of SPOT offered any proof that malign intent could be divined by looking at body language or facial cues.

The article argues the pros and cons of using micro-expressions.  The one safe conclusion from the article is there is no doubt being able to hear a prospective liar talk and listening carefully to the narrative noticeably improved lie detection results and also made the training more effective.

In our workshops we teach our participants a simple mnemonic TOPDOG which stands for talk, organisation, position, dress, office, and gambit.  By using the following clues:

1.      The way the individual talks (we agree here with Ekman);

2.      The organisation the individual works for;

3.      The individual’s position in the organisation;

4.      The individual’s dress;

5.      The individual’s office or working environment;

6.      The first meeting with an individual

participants learn within several hours how to recognise which of the seven core emotions are dominant in a person’s temperament.  They learn how to quickly recognise the group most likely to lie, the corporate psychopaths. 

According to my Chinese partner, Michael Chen of Zest Learning, who this year has signed up over 20 major organisations on selling and management training programs in China it is TOPDOG which is the most attractive part of the training programs.

Emotional Intelligence Myth#1: The Amygdala Hijack

Recently I read a very interesting article by Linda Elder, an educational psychologist, Critical Thinking and Emotional Intelligence.  One of my core beliefs (bowing to J S Mill) is that you learn more from critics of an idea than enthusiastic adherents and I thought her article insightful.

Linda begins by defining the human mind as comprised, at minimum, of three basic functions: cognition, feelings, and volition which constantly interact and influence each other.  Most EQ believers would agree with this definition. 

Her next step is more contentious.  She then argues the mind’s triad is under the sway of two contrary tendencies of the human mind, the tendency of the mind to gravitate toward egocentrism (the child), or the tendency of the mind to take into account a more comprehensive, and more "rational" view (the adult).  As one becomes older Elder argues that there is not necessarily a shift from child to adult but that we learn multiple ways to manipulate others, to influence or control others to get what we want. We even learn how to deceive ourselves as to the egocentrism of our behaviour.  However we can as adults become non-egocentric, both intellectually and "morally."  For example science itself exists only because of the capacity of humans to think in a non-egocentric fashion.

The importance of this step becomes apparent when Elder begins to critique Goleman.  Goleman stresses in his books and articles, quoting brain research, how important it is to differentiate between the neo-cortex that formulates thoughts, and the amygdala/limbic system (or early evolution reptilian brain) that generates emotions, and yet acknowledge that each must have, respectively, an emotional component and a cognitive component built into them.  Thus we have two brains and two minds and that the neo-cortex has nothing but higher motivation, desires, and values and the amygdala nothing but lower modes of cognition.  In addition the amygdala/limbic brain works faster and more intuitively than the neo-cortex

Also according to Goleman what can happen is that under emotional stress the amygdala can hijack the operation of the neo-cortex.  As an example Goleman uses a burglar Richard Robles out on parole after having served a three year sentence for more than 100 break-ins to support a heroin habit. Robles, according to the story, decides to break into, and rob just one more home and breaks into an apartment of two young women. While he is tying one of them up, she says she will remember his face and help the police track him down. In a frenzy he grabs a soda bottle and clubs both girls to the point of unconsciousness, then awash in rage and fear, he stabs them over and over with a kitchen knife. Looking back at that moment some twenty years later he says, "I just went bananas. My head just exploded.”

Elder disagrees and proposes that Robles represents a paradigm case of a person engaged in egocentric, self-serving thinking, completely unconcerned with the rights of others. He used his cognition to rationalize his actions, leading him to believe that killing was necessary to avoid being caught.  I agree, using the Humm Wadsworth components Robles is a classic Hustler with very low Normal, viz. the ideal psychopath.

Elder also proposes a second argument against the two ‘brains’ model that I also find compelling.  While it is easy to see that the various sciences: biology, chemistry, geology, physics, mathematics, etc., are products of the rational neo-cortex brain it is difficult to see how the arts: poems, novels, plays, dances, paintings, etc., are products of the amygdala.  I can understand how the fight or flight response is generated there but not vast range of artistic creations. 

The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence

This year has seen the popularisation of a new topic in Emotional Intelligence, namely that it has a dark side.

For example in the 2 January 2014 edition of The Atlantic Adam Grant argues that if Emotional Intelligence is defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions then Adolf Hitler, who spent years practicing his hand gestures and analyzing images of his movements allowed him to become an absolutely spellbinding public speaker, was one of its greatest practitioners.

According to Grant another proficient EQ expert is the founder of Body Shop, Anita Roddick She leverages emotions to inspire her employees to fundraise for charity. As Roddick explained, “Whenever we wanted to persuade our staff to support a particular project we always tried to break their hearts.” However, Roddick also encouraged employees to be strategic in the timing of their emotion expressions. In one case, after noticing that an employee often “breaks down in tears with frustration,” Roddick said it was acceptable to cry, but “I told her it has to be used. I said, ‘Here, cry at this point in the ... meeting.”  

Grant argues that as people hone their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating others. When you’re good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.  Emotional intelligence helps people disguise one set of emotions while expressing another for personal gain.  What is seen on Shakespeare’s stage is common in the offices and corridors of power.  For example ‘honest’ and ‘honesty’ appear 52 times in Othello, half of them used by Iago himself.  Iago is the master of the dark side of EQ as typified in his famous ironical quote where he explains what he will not do and why: "I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at; I am not what I am." (Daws are jackdaws – a bird noted for thievery.)

More than two decades have passed since psychologists Peter Salovey at Yale and John Mayer at the University of New Hampshire introduced the concept of emotional intelligence in 1990. After Daniel Goleman popularized the idea in 1995, emotional intelligence became a desirable moral quality for most people as it was gradually realised that it is not always the best workers who receive raises and promotions but the workers with the best social and political skills.

However while EQ can be used to help, protect, and promote oneself and others, it can also be used to promote oneself at the cost of others. In its extreme form, EQ is sheer Machiavellianism – the art of socially manipulating others in order to achieve one's own selfish ends.  Iago is wonderful example of this and so are corporate psychopaths.  Now there have been many recent studies that demonstrate the dominant people in group situations are often the best at deception.  Even more surprising for the researchers these people would openly admit that they would often (daily) engage in anti-social behaviour.

For those of us familiar with the seven Humm components none of this is a surprise.  A core emotional component of the Humm is the Hustler.  About 14% of the population have strong Hustler component which makes them opportunistic, shrewd, entrepreneurial, and charming. They quickly work out if you can help them succeed in life and will adopt Machiavellian strategies if they think you can.  do the deal or not. They’re also short-term – they want results now, or very soon. Promising an H a significant financial reward next year will probably not interest them. They are very loyal to their own families and team. But mostly they’re loyal to themselves and they will work hard to make sure they get what they believe they’re entitled to.  A personality with a high Hustler and high Normal will often be successful in life.  The combination of high Hustler and low Normal is generally a corporate psychopath.  I have blogged extensively about this topic and if you want to read some of them here is a list:

The Emotional Intelligence of a Psychopath

How do you recognise a corporate psychopath? Part 1

Recognising the Corporate Psychopath (Part II)

How common are corporate psychopaths in politics?

Is Kevin Rudd a 'corporate psychopath'?