Emotions are powerful things and we've been ignoring them for a long time.
At our peril it would seem. "Stressed out" is a common answer to "How are you?" and incidents of violent rage are daily reported in the media. Recently a man, apparently angry that the police hadn't arrested his son, allegedly set alight a car in which his son and friend were sleeping, killing one of them.
It's a tough world to live in, and emotional intelligence (EI, measured as EQ), or how to manage our emotions, is increasingly becoming a sought-after skill.
Some would say it's the key to success.
Emotional Intelligence has been a buzzword in the corporate world for about 10 years. Now it is being taken up in schools, the sporting world (it's used for example in the cricket world to assess the ability to interpret emotion) and even by lawyers.
Marianne Roux is an industrial psychologist who lectures at Stellenbosch University's Business School, runs a management development programme and works with private institutions. She has developed the "Train the Trainer" EQ programme to develop capacity inside organisations.
Why the trend towards EI?
"For so long our sources of power were land and borders," she says. "Today it's relationships.
"In the 1980s at business schools, 90 percent of what was taught was cognitive, strategy and analytical thinking skills."
Skills then much sought-after were being logical and being able to integrate information. Now computers do that.
"In the competitive world we want to get the best out of each person. Today people are quite fickle - if people aren't happy they will leave your company, or won't buy your products.
"You have to be a lot more creative and focused. And you have to be culturally flexible and a global player."
It's a stressful environment. "I'm seeing executive derailment, depression, autoimmune diseases increasing. People can't handle the pressure. it's become too tough, executives are having to run leaner organisations, with fewer people. Something is giving."
She says our schools are also taking strain: violence, anorexia, bullying - young people are not coping emotionally.
"We have to do something, we have to get resilient," says Roux. "EI helps you to cope with demands; it's an insurance policy, a survival kit for the 21st century.
"EI makes you more resilient, it improves relationships.
"It's a proactive strategy to prevent future problems, to prevent depression, burnout, low productivity."
Because behaviour is learned, getting to children at school, while they are still being socialised, is the best time.
"It's difficult to impact on personality and behaviour after the age of 35 - so between 10 and 35 is a good time."
Emotional intelligence has many components (see box) and is measured in various ways.
EI, according to researcher Dr Reuven Bar-On, is the non-cognitive competencies, the choices you make in daily behaviour that help you cope with environmental demands and pressures. For example do you set boundaries or not; do you show you care or are you stoic? If you're upset, do you calm down and deal with it, or not? The better the choices you make, the better the behaviour.
"We keep on our masks until we're under pressure," says Roux, "and then our shadow selves come out. EQ is finding the authentic persona behind the mask that we wear to protect ourselves."
Two ideas are important in EI: contrary to traditional Western thinking, you cannot separate emotion and reason. The thinking was "I think or I feel". However research shows that the same areas of the brain are used for both functions.
And you can change your behaviour.
EI, as a concept, emerged from the two streams. Personal mastery was adopted in the business world in the 1980s, and emotional intelligence was a term coined by two psychologists, John Mayer and Peter Salovey, in the early 1990s.
In 1995 the two strands came together in Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence, and the EQ wave gathered momentum.
An Israeli, Bar-On (who did his doctorate at Rhodes University), developed his model, which is the one Roux uses. It covers all contexts: school, general and executive.
"The idea is that if we have self-awareness and can recognise our behaviour, and how what we do impacts on others, we can regulate it," says Roux.
We all know that those who were high academic achievers at school are not always the ones who achieve in later life. And that's been borne out by research, says Roux.
There are different assessments of EQ, a measure, like IQ, which is an instrument used to measure emotional intelligence, to give you insight and feedback about your areas of competencies and inadequacies.
Behaviour is unconscious and learned, says Roux. You can make it conscious and learn new behaviours. "But the system works to maintain equilibrium, and you need support to change behaviour - it could be a group or a partner."
Coaching can help you move from being a victim to being a person who takes responsibility for yourself.
When you realise you have choices, you can stop hiding behind your labels, such as "I'm an angry person", or "I'm a timid person", says Roux.
"You can relabel yourself. And maybe you need to be pushed to a new label."
One of world's top companies, Cemex (in Mexico) will now only have people in its talent pool (future leaders of the organisation) who are in the 85th percentile for EQ.
"We're going to see that more," says Roux. "In business schools now, 30 percent to 40 percent of programmes are aimed at EQ, teamwork, leadership.
"It's an organisational advantage to have EI - staff are more productive and happier."
EQ testing should be used only as a development tool, cautions Roux, never for performance rating.
Your EQ can be too high - it's called an overstated EQ - you can be too independent, too assertive, too dominant. And there's no gender
difference on the whole.
The definition that Sun Valley Primary School uses, which is simplest to understand and apply, is RURU:
R - recognise emotions, having the language to talk about them
U - understand emotions. Why do I feel this, what happened?
R - regulate emotions. Turn emotions on and off. I feel down, what can I do?
U - use emotions; when do I use them, how do I use them? mastery of emotions
Emotional intelligence is made up of five main groupings. Industrial psychologist Marianne Roux, who has developed the "Train the Trainer" EQ programme, says we all have different measures of the following skills according to our upbringing, habits and defence mechanisms:
- self regard
- emotional self awareness assertiveness (setting boundaries, managing conflict)
- independence
- self-actualisation
- social responsibility (being a responsible citizen)
- inter-personal relationships (how do you create and maintain relationships)
- stress tolerance
- impulse control (if you are too impulsive, creates stress)
- reality testing (can you look at a situation objectively)
- problem solving
- flexibility (are you tolerant of others)
- Moderates all the others - level of optimism , have you chosen to be happy.