![]() ![]() A sense of control and mastery of one's body, behavior, and world the child's sense that he is more likely than not to succeed at what he undertakes, and that adults will be helpful. The report lists the seven key ingredients of this crucial capacity-all related to emotional intelligence:6 1. “A child's readiness for school depends on the most basic of all knowledge, how to learn. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species.” Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.) And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. “The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. Socrates's injunction "Know thyself" speaks to the keystone of emotional intelligence: awareness of one's own feelings as they occur.”Įmotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ The sudden awakening of the samurai to his own agitated state illustrates the crucial difference between being caught up in a feeling and becoming aware that you are being swept away by it. Startled at seeing the truth in what the master pointed out about the fury that had him in its grip, the samurai calmed down, sheathed his sword, and bowed, thanking the monk for the insight. "That," the monk calmly replied, "is hell." His very honor attacked, the samurai flew into a rage and, pulling his sword from its scabbard, yelled "I could kill you for your impertinence." ![]() The monk replied with scorn, "You're nothing but a lout - I can't waste my time with the likes of you!" “A belligerent samurai, an old Japanese tale goes, once challenged a Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. ![]()
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