Where are the core emotional drives located in our brain?

If there is one meme that occurs in the Emotional Intelligence world it is that the centre of our emotional drives is in the limbic system and in particular the amygdala.  This Youtube video and others on the same page are typical examples of the meme in action.  The Amydala Hijack was first popularised by Daniel Goleman in his defining book Emotional Intelligence.

There have been some dissenting views including this blog by yours truly.  One question raised in the blog still holds:  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

Finally I have read a neuroscience paper that supports the countervailing view. The paper is Distributed neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping and the authors are Aron K. Barbey, Roberto Colom, and Jordan Grafman.  To quote from the paper: “Together with cognitive intelligence, emotional and social intelligence form important components of general intelligence. One of the major differences between the two is that the former is thought to relate primarily to higher order mental processes like reasoning, while the latter focuses more on perceiving, immediate processing and applying emotional and social content, information and knowledge. It has also been suggested that another fundamental difference between the two may be that cognitive intelligence depends primarily on the prefrontal cortex, whereas emotional and social intelligence is more limbically tactical for immediate behavior suited more for survival and adaptation  However, thus far these theories are supported more by supposition than by empirical findings.” (my italics).

For their study the authors used 152 American Vietnam War veterans who had suffered brain damage from penetrating brain damage (shades of Phineas Gage).   The authors used a comibination of neuro-imaging lesion analysis, IQ testing, and EQ testing to develop a model of where our emotional drives are located.  The conclusion of the authors was that while historically, cognitive and emotional processes have been viewed as separate constructs their present study provides neuropsychological evidence that emotional and psychometric intelligence share neural systems and networks and that the orbitofrontal cortex plays a critical role.

This conclusion solves the problem of the location of the artistic drives noted above.  It also supports the Humm Wadsworth model.  This model proposes that our temperament is driven by our position on the spectrums of seven common mental illnesses (autism, depression, mania, neuroticism obsessive-compulsion, paranoia, and psychopathy) which would occur in the cerebral cortex and not the limbic system.

Why Core Memories and Not Core Emotions – A Review of Inside Out.

You cannot claim to be a blogger on Emotional Intelligence and not blog about Pixar’s latest film “Inside-Out”.  The film is getting terrific reviews.  I saw the film last Friday afternoon (30/7/15) and it is brilliantly creative.  Indeed some are describing it as the best film Pixar has ever made.
The film is about an eleven-year old heroine, Riley, who has lived her life in Minnisota, where she stars in ice hockey and collects a memory bank filled with joyful events.  But then Riley is forced to move across the country, where she finds herself insecure, unhappy and out of control.  In a few days she resolves these issues.  As a plot the film is simple.  What is different is that nearly all the film takes part in Riley’s head.   
In the film five emotions — personified as the characters Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness and Joy sit around a console in ‘Headquarters’ and grapple for control of Riley’s mind. They control the way Riley feels, and therefore thinks and acts demonstrating that emotions are crucial in the life choices we make.  In the film Joy and Sadness get ejected from ‘Headquarters’ and undergo a journey back to the centre of her control system via various parts of the brain: Abstract Reasoning, the Dream Factory, the Memory Dump, the Train of Thought, etc..  The sequences are simply brilliant.  Meanwhile Anger, Fear and Disgust are now in charge and lead Riley into an impulsive set of self-destructive actions.
In the beginning Riley’s personality is principally defined by Joy.  Sadness gradually takes control of Riley’s thought processes about the changes she is going through. This is most evident when Sadness adds blue hues to the images of Riley’s memories of her life in Minnesota. It guides Riley to recognize the changes she is going through and what she has lost, which sets the stage for her to develop new facets of her identity.
The film has a number of messages:
First, the search for happiness is not our ultimate life goal. We are best served by living from the inside out, using our emotions to inform our wishes and our choices to create a balance between intellect and emotion.  Emotions can organize — rather than disrupt — rational thinking.  Since the Ancient Greek Philosophers the prevailing view has been that emotions are enemies of rationality and disruptive of cooperative social relations.

Second, emotions can organize our social lives.  Anger moves social collectives to protest and remedy injustice.  Sadness prompts people to unite in response to loss. We see this first in an angry outburst at the dinner table that causes Riley to storm upstairs to lie alone in a dark room, leaving her dad to wonder what to do.  It is also Sadness that leads Riley to reunite with her parents.  So another key message it that you should embrace sadness rather than try to bury it with positive thinking. 

A major theme of the film revolves around the concept of ‘core memories’.  The core memories are objects of major importance in Inside Out.  Memory is represented as a series of rolling balls, coloured by the prevailing emotion at the time they occur.  Like all memory balls, core memories represent past events of Riley's life. However, they have a much greater importance than usual memories. They represent key moments that have defined Riley's current personality. Core memories appear brighter than any other memory and power each Island of Personality.  Core memories are usually stored in the centre of Headquarters in a dedicated circular tray, from which they emit a beam of light through a glass tube all the way to their respective Island of Personality.  In the film these core memories get separated when Joy and Sadness are ejected from ‘Headquarters’ and subsequently are carried around by Joy in a bag.

The question I have is about emotions.  Paul Ekman, who was the scientific consultant to Pixar, has put forward the hypothesis that there are six core emotions: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, Joy and Surprise.  In addition he has stated our identities are defined by specific emotions, which shape how we perceive the world, how we express ourselves and the responses we evoke in others.  Other people have said there are only four arguing that the difference between anger and disgust and between surprise and fear were socially, not biologically, based.

I would argue that your dominant 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.  This is the key to emotional intelligence, understanding your core emotions compared to your transient emotions.  If you want to learn about the Humm download a free white paper on using Emotional Intelligence in either selling or management .  http://www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com/eq-free-white-papers/

My e-books available in Kindle format explain the technique in more detail.

The film is also described as suitable for people between 4 and 94.  I would quibble with the lower limit.  In the film I saw there were two children aged between 4 and 6 who found some of the sequences quite frightening.  Eight would be my lower limit.

Finally watch the credits at the end.  There is a whole swath of simple 10 second scenes where you visit the ‘Headquarters’ of different characters (including a dog).  They are very funny and very perceptive.

How Machiavellian are You?

As I have stated in previous blogs one of the greatest strengths of the Humm-Wadsworth is that it incorporates the Hustler as one of its seven components.  The Hustler is driven by the desire for material success and is flexible, charming, and potentially ruthless in achieving his or her goals. 

Niccolo Machiavelli is generally credited as being the first write to promote the doctrine that the end not only justifies the means, but that a person’s actions can only be properly judged through their outcomes.  Neither intentions nor ideals are important except in so far as they allow people to reach their goals.  Thus while much writing on leadership advises people to take the high road, Machiavelli said that leaders can succeed by less scrupulous means.  This has led to a definition of a "Machiavellian" personality as a person who is determined to achieve their goals, no matter what.  Machiavellianism is now often grouped with two other personality traits: narcissism, and psychopathy and the three are known as the Dark Triad:

·         Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.

·         Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others; a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception.

·         Psychopathy is characterized by enduring antisocial behaviour, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.

The above is a great checklist for the Hustler.  Note this is a spectrum component – we all have some Hustler within our personality.  What ameliorates the component is how much Normal we also have – which again is a spectrum component but that fortunately increases as we age.  The Normal is driven by the desire for order and determines how law-abiding we are.

Today Psychtests.com has just released a new test to determine how much Machiavellianism you have in your personality.  You can read the press release Social Butterfly, Master Manipulator - PsychTests’ Study Reveals The Dark Side Of Social Insight here.  The thrust of the article is that Social Insight, a key factor in emotional intelligence, is largely considered a valuable skill. Being able to perceptively and accurately appraise people and anticipate what they might say or do allows a person to adjust their own behaviour and social approach accordingly.  However Social Insight, if not complemented by empathy and a strong sense of social responsibility, can lead to dishonest, deceptive, and manipulative behaviour.

The article is worth reading but best part is a link to the new test they have developed which measures the degree of Machiavellianism in your personality.  If you want to find out if you have a touch of Machiavellianism go here.  While the first part is subjective there are an excellent set of mini-case studies at the end.

I scored 60 out of 100 with the following comment.

You are not a full-blooded Machiavellian, but do share some of the traits of this personality type. This may be a function of your world view: While you consider it important to conduct yourself with integrity, you also recognize that sometimes, you need to look after yourself and perhaps even be a little under-handed. It's well and good to take the high road, but sometimes, you may feel that being selfish, or at least self-preserving, is necessary. You are likely resourceful, and have a reasonably good understanding of human nature.

This is an assessment I am happy with.

Why Seven is the Magic Number

In May 2015 I wrote a blog Emotional Intelligence and the Ring of Gyges which discussed two seminars about Positive Psychology that I attended.  One takeaway from the talk was that you should focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses.  This is a standard trope of the Positive Psychology pack along with the advice that you could learn about your strengths doing either R2 Strengths or a VIA inventory.  R2 Strengths ranks 60 characteristics and costs a minimum of £20 while VIA ranks 24 and is free.  Those who know me will not be surprised to learn I chose the latter.

The VIA Inventory said my three strongest strengths were Love of learning, Perseverance and Judgment while at the bottom were Forgiveness, Humility, and Spirituality.  Those who know me would not be surprised and knowing that I have high Politician and Engineer components in my temperament this list was not unexpected.  Again however the same criticism that I applied in my original blog still holds: where is the Hustler?  In the VIA list there is no place for shrewdness, flexibility, commercial acumen, and entrepreneurship.  All these are strengths of the Hustler component are not on the VIA 24 item list.  Neither do they make the R2 list of 60 strengths!!

However another criticism now raises its head. When confronted with a list of 24 items, let alone 60, I just turn off.  This is just too much for the poor manager or salesperson to learn.  In practical terms seven is the maximum number that should be in a list, which is why I like the Humm with its seven components.  Whenever I see a list such as the 10 characteristics of the successful leader I give in.

Professor George A. Miller’s great paper The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information published in 1956 is as relevant today as it was over 50 years ago.  The opening paragraph still resonates:

“My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far more than a random accident. There is, to quote a famous senator, a design behind it, some pattern governing its appearances. Either there really is something unusual about the number or else I am suffering from delusions of persecution.”

Seven is for most people the limit of short term memory and if you are going to develop a practical system that is the maximum number of items should have.  It is why telephone numbers should be seven digits long.  It is why children learn the days of the week quickly but take much longer to learn the months.

Review of Emotalerting: The Art of Managing the Moment

My latest project is trying to clear the backlog of books on my Kindle. I was trying to work out why this book was on my kindle when I realised that you can see what orders you have made and the price you paid for it. I purchased (?) this book for nothing in January 2015. Obviously it was a promotion.

The author describes himself as Spiritual Formation Pastor and Emotional Intelligence Coach. He received a Doctor of Ministry by writing a thesis on how EQ can aid spiritual formation and (while this is a guess) one would think the thesis finally produced in 2013 is the basis of the book. I confess this is the first time I had heard of this degree.

The book is not long (151 pages) and contains 10 chapters. The first four chapters are a standard introduction to the topic of emotional intelligence covering definitions, the limbic brain, neurophysiology, Goleman’s self and social mastery, etc. He does introduce the reader to Emotalerts which are emotional triggers that get alerted by stimuli happening around us. If the emotion overwhelms our behaviour it is a hijack; if we manage to control the emotion it is an emotalert.

In Chapter five Carlyle Naylor tells his life story. Dostoyevsky would have loved it. Multiple stepfathers, estrangement with his mother, murder of one ex-stepfather by another, thrown out of his home before leaving high school because he was too much a do-gooder. Writing his story down must have been a cathartic experience for the author.

The next five chapters are then Naylor’s attempt to improve the Emotional Intelligence model. He introduces various concepts such as Heart intelligence (which is a form of Spiritual Intelligence) and the Impulsive, Reflective and Ethical Human Wills. This tripartite division reminded me of Freud’s id, ego and super-ego. He then lists off 9 emotalerts that are within all of us. Among them for example are impulsively jumping to conclusions on limited evidence and automatically believing the best in people. I must confess that I am an Occam's razor sort of guy and hold to the principle that "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." I don’t like the theories of multiple intelligences.

Also a number of the emotalerts really appeared to me what you would derive from a combination of education, experience and common sense. But then I am now 70, have fortunate to been educated at Cambridge and the London Business School and 25 years of venture capital have given me unbelievable insights into human behaviour. On the other hand Naylor does wear his heart on his sleeve, his writing is honest and a young person reading this book would pick up some useful tips about life.