Nature of Emotions

• Emotion is your reaction to a stimulus; and comes from your limbic system, the area in your brain that reacts automatically to the world around you without your rational thought or reasoning (Hasson 2012)
• Three components of Emotion: Cognitive, Physical, Behavioral
• Cognitive – refers to the person's appraisal of the situation
• Physical – component of emotion is your body's reaction to a situation
• Behavioral – components are the action tendency to deal with certain emotions like running away a frightening situation or leaving tasks because of boredom
• Emotions can be measured through: Self-report instruments or psychological tests. Monitoring of blood pressure, heartbeat, sweating of palms, blood chemistry, brain activities. Behavioral manifestations like facial expressions and voice tone.
• Two different types of emotion: Positive, Negative
• According to Goleman, Emotional intelligence is the ability to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations, to control and delay gratification, to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think, to empathized, and to hope.
• Five Domains of Emotional Intelligence

  • Knowing one's emotion or self-awareness
  • Managing Emotions
  • Motivating oneself
  • Recognizing emotions in others
  • Handling emotions