Lecture 12: Emotional Intelligence

key thing to know is

what kids are capable of and how demonstrated

importance of play

- skill development

- learning about rules and roles

- age-mixed play

joint attention

- focus on what another person is focused on

- important for language learning

imitation and overimitation

- mimic what they see adults do, even unimportant actions

social referencing of another person's reactions

kids look up to caregivers to see how they react to things

- help them determine if something is good, bad, or worth doing

- cues from other's reactions!

tips to foster persistence

- praise the process (effort not outcome --> growth mindset)

- model success AND struggle (show kids that you may also fail at initial attempts to do something)

- enable small wins

baby effort experiment

- no effort condition of getting toy loose --> kid who saw no effort demonstration given new toy and quickly loses interest in toy and tosses it

- effort condition of getting toy loose --> kid keeps pressing new toy's button over and over

- infants press button more after watching adults persist!

the value of persistence

- not mere imitation — generalizes to novel goals and tasks (new toys)

- most effective if you call children's attention to your effort

when an adult repeatedly took over and solved challenging puzzles for preschoolers ... --> applies to ...

they persisted less in unrelated tasks; helicopter parents

helicopter parenting can lead to

- lack of independence

- low confidence

- struggles with failure

- ineffective coping skills

- anxiety and depression

parenting style

- authoritarian

- permissive

- authoritative (BEST AND MOST POSITIVE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL OUTCOMES AND SCHOOL PERFORMANCE)

authoritarian

- shape, control, and judge behavior and attitudes of child in accordance with set standard of conduct

- LACKS WARMTH; does not consider child's perspective or feelings

- associated with externalizing behavioral problems

externalizing behavioral problems

aggression, disruptiveness, defiance, and impulsivity

permissive

- attempts to behave in a nonpunitive, acceptant, and affirmative manner toward child's impulses, desires, and actions

- does not encourage child to obey externally defined standards

- ALSO associated with externalizing behavioral problems

authoritative

- attempts to direct child's activities in a rational, issue-oriented manner (tries to guide child's behavior like authoritarian)

- BUT, has warm, open, understanding, empathy for child's feelings and perspective

- FIRM BUT FRIENDLY (Not just firm or just friendly)

authoritative associated with ...

highest adolescence school performance, well-being, and social skills

prosocial game

- choice of keeping one reward for yourself and giving one to other kid in experiment (1, 1)

- other choice of keeping one reward for yourself and none for other (1, 0)

--> most kids will share at 3-6, and even more 7-8

sharing game

- one for me and one for you (1, 1) or two for me and none for you (2, 0)

- very few share at 3-4, but increases from 5-6 and even more 7-8 (most selfish when 3-4, most fair and prosocial when 7-8)

strategic prosociality

- ~70% of kids give other kid 4 stickers if they're staring at you

- ~35% of kids give other kid 4 stickers if they're not staring at you

negative vs. positive reciprocity

"an eye for an eye" vs "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours"

positive and negative reciprocity develop at

different rates!

- when you're younger (4-5 y.o.) you understand eye for an eye (you steal back when they go for you)

- positive reciprocity only develops with age (need to be 8-9 to give back to someone who's given you something)

the protraction of adolescence

- "while the age at which people become physically adult has gone down, the age at which they take on adult roles and responsibilities has gone up"

- "adolescents are essentially adults who have been denied a place in adult society"

--> physically becoming an adult at a younger age and socially at an older age

different brain areas develop at ___ and the ____ takes longest

- different rates!

- prefrontal cortex

hitting peak now for

- digit symbol coding, digit span, and visual tasks (working memory)

- vocabulary keeps going up and peaks much older in adulthood

--> different cognitive skills DEVELOP DIFFERENTLY and hit peaks DIFFERENTLY

Sully

example of peak cognition

adolescents and older adults don't like to wait for things they want

amount of money required to wait is higher at younger and older ages (concave up)

- in between more patient

intertemporal choice task (get money now or more later) measures

temporal discounting (delayed gratification)

marshmallow experiment

testing self control/cognitive control in young kids

- delayed gratification

preschool delay of gratification in marshmallow experiment correlates with

better self control and SAT scores (both verbal and quant) in adolescence

socioeconomic status predicts

individual differences in neurocognitive abilities

kids coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less ... and have higher ... --> could be involved with ...

less exploratory; higher loss aversion; neurocognitive trends

education strongly correlates with ...

earnings in adulthood

mean starting salary for Yale students

$90,097

teachers matter more than schools data

- gain related to teacher effectiveness much higher than gain related to maturation/getting older

- even if in most effective school with least effective teacher --> below average

- least effective school with most effective teacher --> better than average

high value-added teachers impact test scores

- huge positive boom in schools with good teachers (higher scores persist after)

- huge negative boom in schools with bad teachers (and persist)

college attendance and earnings

increase with higher value teachers added

effective teachers have

- enthusiasm, relationship with children, high motivation and commitment

- more important than years of experience and technical knowledge

traditional view of emotion in relation to cognition

emotions are bad and you need to control them to not get in way of rational thinking

- passion and reason antithetical

- emotions chaotic and immature

- disorganized

- disturbances of individual

- cause loss of cerebral control

BUT, take home message is

emotions are good and important for success!

emotions are

adaptive, functional, and ORGANIZING of cognitive activities and subsequent behavior

- emotions AROUSE, SUSTAIN, and DIRECT activity

- emotions are, it seems, themselves a high order of INTELLIGENCE

- ENERGIZE behaviors and SIGNALS what needs to be avoided or not

leadership

teamwork and citizenship

Freud's theory of leadership

- crowds susceptible, want leader

- strong EMOTIONAL ties between leader and followers

- strong communication skills

- just and equal treatment

- emotion = positive!

Burn's theory of leadership distinguishes

- transactional leadership (securing benefits for the group)

- transformational leadership (raising one another to higher levels of motivation and morality)

presidential difference

key feature is emotional intelligence

Google and some med schools screen for ...

soft skills and emotional intelligence

multiple mini interview

- multiple stations 7-10 mins

- oral communication, social and nonverbal skills, teamwork, ethical scenarios, role playing

what is emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and express emotions accurately and adaptively

MSCEIT has both ... and is ...

- consensus and expert answers that help with EQ rating/score

- reliable!

EQ can predict/correlates with

- secure attachment (+ - high EQ, high secure attachment)

- display photos of family (+)

- work as a care-taker/nanny (+)

- illicit drug use (-)

- fights and vandalizing (-)

- positive relations (+)

- mental health (+)

- mental illness (-)

- good workplace (+)

- good peer/supervisor ratings (+)

- salary/rank (+)

can you train EQ?

yes, you can learn EQ