Status quo of Emotions and Emotional behaviour

The concept “Mature” emotional behaviour of any level is that which reflects the fruits of normal emotional development. A person who is able to keep his emotions under control, who is able to break delay and to suffer without self-pity, might still be emotionally stunned and childish. Like all major concepts of maladjustment and mental health, the concept of emotional maturity also happens to be a by-product of therapeutic intervention in the psychiatric setting. Emotional maturity is always relative. A five-year-old child has emotional maturity if he is capable of the emotional behaviour we judge fit for a five year old. Emotional maturity however, develops throughout life. It is also a form of maturity from which one can regress most quickly. The child becomes more emotionally mature as the parent permits him to accept responsibilities and became independent and self-sufficient. Jersild (1982) presents one of the most comprehensive lists of the stages involved in the child’s moving towards maturity in the emotional area.
 * 1) A change from being a creature who at first receives much, gives little, to one, who is capable of giving as well as of receiving, and capable of learning to get enjoyment from giving.
 * 2) Development of capacity to identify with a larger social group, and the ability to participate emotionally in the fortunes of the larger group.
 * 3) Development from the status of being the child of family to the status ultimately, of being able to have children of one’s own and along with this development a capacity to exercise the feeling and attitudes involved in being a parent psychologically, whether or not one is a parent biologically.
 * 4) Progressive sexual development and the capacity after puberty to enjoy mature sexual experiences.
 * 5) An increased capacity for bearing the inevitable sufferings and pains connected with life and growth without feeling abused.
 * 6) An increased capacity for sympathy and compassion as one assimilates the meaning for self and others of the joys and vicissitudes of life

One of the dimensions of personal experience is the emotional or affective dimension. Emotional process is not an isolated phenomenon but component of general experience, constantly influencing and influenced by other processes going on at the same time. Also emotion is a basic aspect of human functioning. Emotions are personal experiences that arise from a complex interplay among physiological, cognititive, and situational variables.

According to International Encyclopaedia of Psychology, (1997) “An emotion is a valence experience that is felt with some degree of intensity, involves a person’s interpretation of the immediate situation, and is accompanied by learned and unlearned physical responses”

Psychologist Robert Plutchik (1955) contends that there are eight innate, primary emotions: joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise, fear and acceptance. Like the colours of a colour wheel, primary emotions can combine to produce secondary emotions. For example, surprise plus sadness can produce disappointment; anger plus disgust can produce contempt; and fear plus surprise can produce awe. Since each primary emotion can vary in intensity, and each level of intensity for one emotion can combine with some other intensity of another emotion, the total number of possible emotions can run to hundreds.

Emotions are transitory states, and they have five charactertics.
 * 1) Emotions are experiences, not specific behaviours or thoughts. Although thoughts can sometimes lead to emotions, and behaviour can sometimes be caused by emotions, an emotion is a personal experience.
 * 2) An emotional experience has “valence”, meaning that the emotion has a positive or negative quality. Because emotions have valence, they often motivate people towards action. People tend to seek activities, situations, and people that enhance their experience of positive emotional states, and they tend to avoid situations that are connected with the experience of negative emotions.
 * 3) Emotions involve cognitive appraisals. That is, one’s interpretation of the immediate situation influences which emotion is experienced. For example, a child may experience either joy or fear when being chased, depending on whether the child interprets the chase as playful or dangerous.
 * 4) Emotions involve physical responses may be internal, such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure, or respiration; physical responses can also be external, such as facial expressions.
 * 5) Emotions can vary in intensity; Anger can become rage, amusement can become joy, and fear can be heightened to a state of terror.

Each of us develops inconsistent emotional pattern, we don’t remain the same today, tomorrow and forever. Emotional competence is greatly dependent on an accurate time of reference and on overall maturity.

The concept of maturity has not received a great deal of explicit attention in the literature. Delineation of libidinal development has been yielded the important formulation of the “Genital level” and “object-interest (Freud, 1924)”. Recent emphasis on the conflict between the regressive, dependents, versus the progressive, productive forces in the personality have directed interest towards the more detailed nature of maturity.


 * 1) One of the most obvious pathways of development, long emphasized by Sigmund Freud and Franz Alexander, is form the parasitic dependence of the foetus to the relative independence of parent, with parental capacity for responsibility for spouse and child.
 * 2) Intimately bound-up with the organism’s development from parasitism on the mother to relative independence from the parents is its increased capacity for responsibility and productivity and its decreased receptive needs. Children learn to control their hostilities, their sexuality and other impulses, and to develop the orientations of maturity largely through the incentive of being loved.
 * 3) Third characteristics of maturity is relative freedom from well-known constellation of inferiority, egotism and competitiveness.
 * 4) Another aspect of maturity consists in the conditioning and the training necessary for socialization and domestication.
 * 5) Hostile aggressiveness, using the term to include all sorts of anger, hate, cruelty and belligerency, is always a sign of emotional irritation or threat.
 * 6) Another important attribute of maturity is a firm sense of reality.
 * 7) Another characteristics of maturity is flexibility and adaptability.

According to Smitson, W.D. (1974) emotional maturity is a process in which the personality is continuously striving for greater sense of emotional health, both intra-physically and intra-personally. According to Dictionary of Psychology, emotional maturity is a state or condition of having reached an adult level of emotional development and therefore no longer displaying emotional patterns appropriate to children. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, emotional maturity is the state in which one’s emotional reactivity is considered appropriate and normal for an adult in a given society. The clear connotation in most cultures is one of self-control and the ability to suppress extreme emotional reactions. Emotional maturity, then, is not a state in which all problems are solved but, instead, is a continual process of clarification and evaluation, an attempt to integrate feelings, thinking and behaviour.

Kaplan and Baron (1986) elaborate the characteristics of an emotionally mature person; say that he has the capacity to withstand delay in satisfaction of needs. He has belief in long term planning and is capable of delaying or revising his expectations in terms of demands of situations. An emotionally mature child has the capacity to make effective adjustment with himself, members of his family, his peers in the school, society and culture. But maturity means not merely the capacity for such attitude and functioning but also the ability to enjoy them fully. According to Bernard (1954) following are the criteria of mature emotional behaviour:
 * 1) Inhabitation of direct expression of negative emotions.
 * 2) Cultivation of positive, upholding emotions.
 * 3) Development of higher tolerance for disagreeable circumstances.
 * 4) Increasing satisfaction from socially approved responses.
 * 5) Increasing dependence of actions.
 * 6) Ability to make a choice and not brood about other choices.
 * 7) Freedom from unreasonable fear.
 * 8) Understanding and action in accordance with limitations.
 * 9) Awareness of the ability and achievement of others.
 * 10) Ability to err without feeling disgraced.
 * 11) Ability to carry victory and prestige with grace.
 * 12) Ability to bounce back from disappointing experiences.
 * 13) Ability to delay the gratification of impulses.
 * 14) The enjoyment of daily living.

A person can be called emotionally mature if he is able to display his emotions in appropriate degree with reasonable control. Almost all the emotions can be distinctly seen in him and the pattern of expression is easily recognised. He will express his emotions in a socially desirable way. He is able to exercise control over his emotions i.e. sudden inappropriate emotional outbursts are rarely found in him. He is able to hide his feelings and check his emotional tide. He is not a daydreamer and does not possess the desire to run away from realities. He is more guided by intellect than his emotions. He does not possess the habit of rationalization i.e. he never gives arguments in defence of his undesirable behaviour or improper conduct. He possesses an adequate self-concept and self-respect. He is not confined to himself. He thinks for others and is keen to maintain social relationship. His behaviour is characterised by greater stability. He shows no sudden shift from one emotion to another.

Emotionally disturbed behaviour can be described in the following: He reacts like a child, he looks for sympathy, conceited, quarrelsome, infantile, self-centred and demanding person, has preservative emotions, is emotionally excitable and feel very much upset to loose a game (Gibb, 1942, Brogden, 1944, and Cattell, 1945).

Therefore, the emotionally mature is not one who necessarily has resolved all conditions that aroused anxiety and hostility but it is continuously in process of seeing himself in clearer perspective, continually involved in a struggle to gain healthy integration of feeling, thinking and action.

Education plays a vital role in changing one’s behaviour. High School education plays a crucial part in determining one’s emotional maturity. This period is associated with adolescents and their social problems which are the results of misinterpretation of one’s sentiments, feelings and emotions. Emotions play a significant role in directing and shaping maturity and adjustment. The maturity of the individual has a marked impact on the behaviour of individuals.

One outcome of healthy emotional development is increasing “emotional maturity”. Emotional maturity is regarded as relative, not final or absolute. Two, four or six year olds are “emotional mature” if they show capacity for emotional behaviour that is true to their level of development even though all the three groups are quite immature when compared with the eighteen or twenty year olds. The process of maturity emotionally is never complete, for a person in fairly good health mentally continues to grow more “mature” in his attitude towards life and towards himself as long as he lives. Thus the major aim of a good educational programme is to help learners to gain adequate emotional maturity.

A relatively new concept “emotional intelligence” with the one’s general intelligence has emerged on the educational and social scenario. The famous psychologist E.L. Thorndike through his concept of social intelligence laid down a solid foundation of the essence of emotional intelligence in 1920. He used the term social intelligence to describe the skill of understanding and managing other people. Gardner (1975) introduced the idea of Multiple Intelligences, which included both interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence. Sternberg (1988) also carried out the concept of social intelligence in the name of contextual intelligence through his triarchic theory of intelligence. This component of one’s intelligence (other components being componential and experimental) relates with one’s capacity of making adjustment to various contexts with a proper selection of contexts so that one can improve one’s environment in a proper way. The term emotional intelligence appears to have originated with Charles Darwin in 1872, who theorized about a broader emotional social intelligence necessary for human survival and adaptation. In modern times, the term EI was popularized by Daniel Goleman (1995), who published several books and articles describing EI and its application to business.

According to Thorndike (1914), “Intelligence may be defined as the power of good response from the point of view of truth of fact”. “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to one’s surroundings” (Piaget, 1952). Intelligence is a set of cognitive abilities which allow us to acquire knowledge to learn and to solve problems. Emotion and Intelligence are like the two sides of a coin. Without our emotions Intelligence becomes meaningless. Arora R.K. (1992) studies revealed the high intelligence group was significantly highest in emotional stability and they performed better than the low intelligence group. Harder the task a teacher can perform the greater his intelligence. A teacher should be intelligent enough to identify, use, understand and manage his emotions which, in turn helps to display his intelligence pertaining to the situations.

Lately in 21st Century, Psychologists made serious attempts to find out whether or not one’s general intelligence is all and all for his success in all walks of life. Researchers were puzzled by the fact that whether IQ could predict to a significant degree the academic performance and to some degree, professional and personal success. There was some thing missing in the equation. Some of those with fabulous IQ scores were doing poorly in life. One of the missing parts in this success equation that was discovered by the latter researchers like Peter Salovey, John Mayer, Daniel Goleman, etc. was emotional intelligence. In this regard Goleman (1995) made a provocative claim that if IQ contributed upto 20% to life’s success, the remaining was fulfilled through one’s emotional intelligence and as a result predicted “EI would contribute to the success at home, at school and at work”. Mayer and Salovey (1990)in their persistent efforts for going into the nature of emotional intelligence they tried to define emotional intelligences as the ability to perceive accurately, appraise and express emotions, generate feelings that facilitate thoughts and an ability to regulate emotions to promote growth”. This definition points towards ability of an individual, whereas Goldman model is a mixed model. A more comprehensive definition was given by bar on(1997) where he defined emotional intelligence as an array of non-cognitive capabilities competencies and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressure. These environment demands and pressures are faced by each one of us irrespective of our nature of job or duties that we perform. Be it a doctor, businessman, a bureaucrat, an engineer, a teacher or a student, the vicissitudes and pressure of jobs vary in nature but are omnipresent. Now the difference lies in how each one of them performs his/her duties and manages the pressure.

Emotional Quotient motivates us to purpose our unique potential, purpose and activities our innermost values aspirations, transforming them from things we think about to what we live (Robert Cooper). Josh Freedman, editor of Emotional Quotient today perceives Emotional Quotient as the capacity to create positive outcomes in our relationships with ourselves and others. These learnable skills create joy, love and success of all kinds. EQ stands for Emotional Quotient, adopted from the term Intelligence Quotient. A high Emotional Quotient is exhibited by tolerance, empathy and compassion for others, the ability to verbalize feelings and the resilience to bounce back from emotional upset. Teachers with high Emotional Quotient will have more confidence and trust in themselves and will experience more love and joy in their life. “Emotional Quotient” represents a relative measure of a person’s healthy or unhealthy development of their innate emotional intelligence. It is possible for a teacher to start out with high Emotional Intelligence, but then be emotionally damaged during the teaching profession causing a low emotional Quotient later in life. It is also possible for a teacher to start out with relatively low emotional intelligence, but receive healthy emotional modeling, nurturing etc. which will result in moderately high Emotional Quotient. Emotional Quotient is one of the greatest contributors to a person’s excellence and leadership. Increased Emotional Quotient moves individual and terms to stronger resilience enhanced performance and greater success. William Stern introduced intelligence Quotient. The performance of any one or any intelligent test would be very well indicated by the ratio of the mental age to the chronological age, which for reason of convenience may be expressed as percentage. IQ = (Mental age / Chronological age) * 100 A high Intelligence Quotient is all about how quickly you can do puzzles and how many words you know. It might get a person a high grade or marks. According to Goleman (1996) an individual’s success at work is 80 per cent dependent on emotional intelligence and only 20 per cent dependent on intelligence Quotient (IQ). However, an Emotional Quotient matter more in shaping the individual personality than Intelligent Quotient (IQ)

According to GOLEMAN Emotional Intelligence may refer to the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for motivating emotions well in our selves and in our relationships. It describes abilities distinct from but complementary to academic intelligence. Goleman identifies five elements as the components of emotional intelligence: Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, Empathy, and social skills. Self-awareness The key to success knows oneself. Self-awareness knows one’s internal states, preferences, resources, intuitions, etc. it indicates the ability to recognize, understand and accept one’s moods, emotions, drives, strengths and shortcomings as well as to see how these affects other people. Self-regulation Self-regulation refers to managing and handling impulses, distressing feelings and upsets rather than denying or repressing these feelings. It implies making a choice as to how we express our feelings. Self-regulation helps in staying compose, focused, calm and helps thinks clearly even under pressure. Motivation Motivation helps in the achievement of goals. It is an ability to pursue goals with energy and persistence. It provides the drive and zeal to shape our thoughts and actions. Empathy It refers to the ability to put oneself into another’s shows and look at things or think from his point of view. It can be called the foundation skill for all social competencies. Emotionally balanced people are generally empathetic and not sympathetic. Social Skills Social skill is an ability to built rapport with various sections of society and create network of people.


 * 1) As inspirational subjects like art, literature, poetry and music help in developing an appreciation of the beautiful and sublime emotions in life. They should be included in the curriculum.
 * 2) Religious beliefs and an abiding faith in God help in tolerance and stability of emotions. Hence ecumenical subjects at the preliminary level can be taught to students.
 * 3) There should be no suppression of emotions. They should be sublimated through constructive activities.  Here sports, games, dramatics, and similar co-curricular activities are of great value. 
 * 4) Skill, confidence and involvement in work as well as a healthy sense of humour are basic to emotional intelligence. Therefore work ethics and balance work and healthy living must be stressed in due course of study.
 * 5) Emotions should be concentrated or directed towards some good object or healthy idea. Such a direction and concentration can lead to development like justice, patriotism and other moral qualities.