The Dark Side of Emotional Intelce
A. Some of the greatest moments in human history were fueled by emotional intelce. When Martin Luther King, Jr. presented his dream, he chose language that would stir the hearts of his audience. Dr. King demonstrated remarkable skill in managing his own emotions and in sparking emotions that moved his audience to action. Recognizing the power of emotions, another one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century spent years studying the emotional effects of his body language. Practicing his hand gestures and yzing images of his movements allowed him to become "an absolutely attractive public speaker," says the historian Roger Moorhouse—"it was something he worked very hard on." His name was Adolf Hitler.
B. Since the 1995 publication of Daniel Goleman"s bestseller, emotional intelce has been advocated by leaders, policymakers, and educators as the solution to a wide range of social problems. If we can teach our children to manage emotions, the argument goes, we"ll have less bullying and more cooperation. If we can cultivate emotional intelce among leaders and doctors, we"ll have more caring workplaces and more sympathetic healthcare. As a result, emotional intelce is now taught widely in secondary schools, business schools, and medical schools.
C. Emotional intelce is important, but the unbridled (无拘束的) enthusiasm has obscured a dark side. New evidence shows that when people practice 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 (触动心弦) and motivate them to act against their own best interests. Social scientists have begun to document this dark side of emotional intelce. In emerging research led by University of Cambridge professor Jochen Menges, when a leader gave an inspiring speech filled with emotion, the audience was less likely to examine the message carefully and remembered less of the content. Ironically, audience members were so moved by the speech that they claimed to recall more of it.
D. Leaders who emotions can rob us of our capacities to reason. If their values are out of step with our own, the results can be very serious. New evidence suggests that when people have self-serving motives, emotional intelce becomes a weapon for manipulating others. In a study led by the University of Toronto psychologist Stéphane Coté, university employees filled out a survey about their Machiavellian (马基雅维利主义的；不择手段的) tendencies, and took a test measuring their knowledge about effective strategies for managing emotions. Then, Core"s team assessed how often the employees deliberately undermined their colleagues. The employees who engaged in the most harmful behaviors were Machiavellians with high emotional intelce. They used their emotional skills to demean (贬低) and embarrass their peers for personal gain.
E. Shining a light on this dark side of emotional intelce is one mission of a research team led by University College London professor Martin Kilduff. According to these experts, emotional intelce helps people disguise one set of emotions while expressing another for personal gain. Emotionally intelt people "intentionally shape their emotions to fabricate favorable impressions of themselves," Professor Kilduffs team writes. "The strategic disguise of one"s own emotions and the manipulation of others" emotions for strategic ends are behaviors evident not only on Shakespeare"s stage but also in the offices and corridors where power and influence are traded."
F. Of course, people aren"t always using emotional intelce for immoral ends. More often than not, emotional skills are simply instrumental tools for goal accomplishment. In a study of emotions at the Body Shop, a research team led by Stanford professor Joanne Martin discovered that founder Anita Roddick used 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." When viewing Roddick as an exemplar of an emotionally intelt leader, it becomes clear that there"s a fine line between motivation and manipulation.
G. In settings where emotions aren"t running high, emotional intelce may have hidden costs. Recently, psychologists Dana Joseph of the University of Central Florida and Daniel Newman of the University of Illinois comprehensively yzed every study that has ever examined the link between emotional intelce and job performance. Across hundreds of studies of thousands of employees in 191 different jobs, emotional intelce wasn"t consistently linked with better performance. In jobs that required extensive attention to emotions, higher emotional intelce translated into better performance. Salespeople, real-estate agents, call-center representatives, and counselors all excelled at their jobs when they knew how to read and regulate emotions—they were able to deal more effectively with stressful situations and provide service with a smile.
H. However, in jobs that involved fewer emotional demands, the results reversed. The more emotionally intelt employees were, the lower their job performance. For mechanics, scientists, and accountants, emotional intelce was a disadvantage rather than an asset. Although more research is needed to unpack these results, one promising explanation is that these employees were paying attention to emotions when they should have been focusing on their tasks. If your job is to yze data or repair cars, it can be quite distracting to read the facial expressions, vocal tones, and body languages of the people around you. In suggesting that emotional intelce is critical in the workplace, perhaps we"ve put the cart before the horse (本末倒置).
I. 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 intelce in 1990. Why has it taken us so long to develop a more nuanced view After Daniel Goleman popularized the idea in 1995, many researchers proceeded to conduct studies that were fatally flawed (有缺陷的).
J. Thanks to more rigorous (严密的) research methods, there is growing recognition that emotional intelce—like any skill—can be used for good or evil. So if we"re going to teach emotional intelce in schools and develop it at work, we need to consider the values that go along with it and where it"s actually useful. As Professor Kilduff and colleagues put it, it is high time that emotional intelce is "separated from its association with desirable moral qualities." The Dark Side of Emotional IntelceThe concept of emotional intelce was introduced more than 20 years ago by Peter Salovey and John Mayer.