Infusing Emotional Intelligence into FYE Courses at Peace College

The following article has been submitted by Korrel Kanoy, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Psychology at Peace College. In it she details how her campus has had great success applying Emotional Intelligence with their first year students, and she provides advice for other campuses who are considering incorporating emotional and social topics into their first year curriculum.

Peace College, a private, liberal arts college for women, began infusing emotional intelligence (EI) concepts into our First Year Experience (FYE) class during the fall 2008 semester.  Our class is designed to help students make a successful transition to college and what better way to do that than to equip students with EI knowledge and skills?  We found it easy to infuse EI concepts throughout our FYE curriculum and would expect most colleges to have the same experience. 

Consideration of the value of a liberal arts education becomes meaningful to 18 year olds when contextualized in terms of their goals and ambitions (self actualization) or even the level  of understanding related to why they came to college (self awareness). A discussion of study skills becomes even more relevant if impulse control (study first, party later) also becomes a meaningful part of the conversation.  Discussions about roommate issues and changing relationships with family members become more meaningful when independence, empathy and interpersonal relationship constructs are added to the discussion.  The list goes on. 

In fact, we found it so easy to incorporate EI into our FYE curriculum that it became difficult to know where to stop.  By the end of the semester, my students were drawing connections to EI even when I wasn’t doing so. When we were covering identity development related to career choice, A particularly astute student commented that it would be hard to develop a meaningful career identity without first having well developed self awareness and a certain level of independence from parents who might try to influence choices.

To initiate this program, we trained 21 faculty and staff members to interpret the EQ-i® and each first-year student met with a trained interpreter for 30 minutes.  After completing the interpretation, each student designed a self-development plan based on two EI areas she wanted to improve.  Development plans were shared and discussed with instructors and students began making the connections between EI and their personal and academic success.  For example, one student in my FYE class made the connection that she needed to listen more and talk less during class (her empathy and interpersonal relationship scores were low), and as a result, her relationships with her peers improved noticeably.

One word of caution though – before implementing required EQ-i testing, be sure your Counseling Center staff understands the EQ-i and is prepared for a possible increase in requests for meetings.  Our staff noticed about a 30% increase in appointments right after EQ-i interpretations were completed.  Apparently, students’ self awareness or the desire to get more structured help improving EI led students to seek out our counselors.  And, in a few cases, a score or scores (e.g., self regard)were so low that faculty referred the student for counseling.

One final note – our preliminary analysis of data from these entering first-year students showed that EI skills were predictive in two areas.  First, higher optimism, along with better high school grades and higher verbal SAT score were predictive of better academic performance by mid-term of the first semester.  By the end of the term, two EI subscales emerged as predictors of first to second semester retention.  Higher optimism and better impulse control predicted retention better than any academic measure.   As a result of this preliminary data, we plan to infuse more programming related to developing impulse control and optimism in our first-year orientation programs, our residence life programming and our FYE curriculum.

What’s the Matter with Kids Today?

Gambling behavior in youth has been linked to a number of bad outcomes, including criminal behavior, poor academic achievement, school truancy, financial problems, poor social relationships, substance abuse, depression and suicide. Problem gambling is reported to occur 2-4 times more often in youth than in adults.  This is prompting teachers, parents, and youth psychologists to ask, “what’s the matter with kids today?” 

 

Could it be Emotional Intelligence, or a lack thereof?

 

A recent study conducted by Dr. James Parker and his colleagues found evidence of a relationship between youth troubles—in this case problem gambling, internet misuse, and video gaming—and Emotional Intelligence. The study involved 667 adolescents who were divided into two groups: 13-15 year olds and 16-18 year olds.

 

Study Participants completed an internet addiction questionnaire, a problem video gaming scale, a gambling questionnaire, and the youth version of the EQ-i (EQ-i YV). This battery of tests found that males generally scored higher than females in measures of problem gambling, while there was no gender difference in internet use.

 

Parker and his colleagues found a relationship among the various problem behaviors that he measured and referred to it as “dysfunctional preoccupation.” That is, gambling, excessive internet use, and gaming addiction seemed to be related and not separate issues.

 

But what about Emotional Intelligence? EI was found to be a moderate to strong predictor of these problems, with a significant negative correlation between EI and dysfunctional preoccupation. Based on path analysis, EI accounted for 58% and 31% of the variance in addiction-related behaviors for the younger and older groups, respectively.  The EI skill most indicative of problem behavior was interpersonal EI, suggesting that perhaps youth with poor social skills are more prone to addictive behaviors. Another possibility is that these addictive behaviors create a deterioration of their interpersonal skills in youth.

 

Clearly, this is an area worthy of further research.

Reference
Parker, James, Taylor, Robyn, Eastabrook, Jennifer, Schell, Stacey, & Wood, Laura. (2008). Problem gambling in adolescence: Relationships with internet misuse, gaming abuse, and Emotional Intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 174-180. 

Are Emotionally Intelligent People Healthier?

There are many reasons why people can benefit from being more emotionally intelligent. There are benefits at work, at home, and in social relationships. But every now and again I come across studies that look at our health and well-being.  In a study carried out by Gladys Shuk-fong Li at the National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan, the relationships among EQ, physical activity and health-related physical fitness were explored.

Gladys recruited 599 college students from the north, central, south and east parts of Taiwan to participate in the study.  Based on their exercise behavior, students were classified into three groups of physical activity level—High (good level of exercise), Middle (insufficient exercise) and Low (inactive) —and were each administered the EQ-i^®.

The groups were differentiated on their EQ scores: Students who were significantly higher in Intrapersonal, Stress Management, General Mood, and Adaptability scores were more physically active. There was no difference on the Interpersonal scores.

A number of subscales of the EQ-i showed significant differences among the three groups of physical activity. These scales include Self-Regard, Emotional Self-Awareness, Assertiveness, Independence, Self-Actualization, Social Responsibility, Problem Solving, Stress Tolerance, and Optimism.

Relationships were also examined between BMI, physical strength, body flexibility, and cardiovascular function, finding a positive correlation between physical activity levels and physical fitness scores, muscle strength, and cardiovascular function. No differences were found on BMI or flexibility.

Gladys then compared a number of health and wellness variables with participant demographics to see how they related to emotional intelligence. Of her measures, physical activity was the best predictor of EQ. This was followed by mental health, gender, social ability, and flexibility.

This study raises a number of issues related to emotional intelligence and health. Of course, with correlation-based studies we can never be sure of causality. Do people who get fit become more emotionally intelligent, or do emotionally intelligent people become more fit? I think I’ll put my money on the latter.

Looking at some of the factors that differentiated the groups, I would guess that part of being self-actualized involves looking after yourself, and fitness is just one of the areas self-actualized people pay attention to. As well, we have seen in other studies that stress tolerance and optimism tend to be related to good health and better recovery from illness.

While I’m sure there are many possible interpretations, this study alerts us to another important area that is influenced by emotional intelligence. It’s also great to continue receiving studies from countries around the world that help validate EI and its measurement through high quality instruments.

Reference:
Shuk-fong Li, Gladys. (2007). The Relationships of EQ, Physical Activity, and Health Related Physical Fitness in Taiwan College Students. Unpublished study. National Chung Cheng University; Taiwan.

The social element of computer studies

If you were trying to choose a metric for predicting the success of students in a technologically focused field like computer studies, emotional and social measures, likely, would not appear at the top of your list. The obvious choices would seem to be tests of problem solving ability or mathematical proficiency. However, just as in the workplace, social proficiency seems to outweigh technical aptitude as a predictor of success among information technology students. This predictive ability of Emotional Intelligence scores was the focus of a recent study conducted by researchers at Virginia Tech. For more in formation on the findings of the study, please visit Science Daily’s site.

How stress impacts Emotional Intelligence and leader performance

Dick Thompson, Ph.D., President & CEO of High Performing Systems, Inc. joined us for ICEI^™ 2007, where he spoke on How Stress Impacts Emotional Intelligence and Leader Performance. In this article, he outlines the role stress plays in reducing one’s ability to fully access his/her emotional intelligence which may lead to degraded leader performance.

EI and health behavior

D’Arcy Yeager at the New School for Social Research is conducting an interesting study that looks at Emotional Intelligence as a predictor of an individual’s compliance with a medical procedure. This has been an important area in the health care field – trying to determine which factors are important in individual’s adherence to medical instructions or what is known as positive self-care.

D’Arcy’s study focused on people with Type I of Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM). This is an illness with a very high rate of mortality and morbidity. Treatment involves intensive daily monitoring of blood sugar and insulin levels and self-regulation of lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise. Success in glycemic control has been attributed to a patient’s self-efficacy ; that is, one’s ability to cope with daily emotional and physical rigors.

This study looked at 42 Type 1 Diabetics, 28 female and 14 male. All subjects completed the EQ-i and were asked to report on their demographic information, as well as their level of confidence in self-care. Information collected included the sugar and HbA1c levels in their blood.

This was the first study examining the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and glycemic control. There were significant relationships found between lower HbA1c scores and higher levels of specific EQ-i scale scores. The most significant scales were: Stress Tolerance, Impulse Control, Reality Testing, Flexibility, Problem-Solving, Self-Regard, and Emotional Self-Awareness.

While this is only one study, it is hoped that it can be replicated elsewhere. It is a very important study because it may lead to important clues for intervention for people with serious medical illnesses where compliance with complex treatments is critical. Rather than over-focusing on the medical procedures, or reasons why it’s important to comply, interventions can be targeted to specific emotional and social areas that may in turn lead to increased compliance.

Emotional Intelligence and health

Is Emotional Intelligence good for your health? Well it seems so according to a meta-analytical study carried out by Nicola Schutte and her associates. What is a meta-analytical study? It involves combining a number of studies that all focus on a similar area and analyzing their pooled results to draw an overarching conclusion.

In this study, looking at Emotional Intelligence and health, the authors combined a number of research studies for a total of 7,898 participants. The studies looked at different measures of Emotional Intelligence that included the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i^®), the Assessing Emotions Scale, and the Trait Meta Mood Scale.

The researchers discovered that there was a relationship between Emotional Intelligence and health: a correlation of .29 with mental health; .31 with psychosomatic health, and .22 with physical health. To simplify, Emotional Intelligence as measured here accounts for approximately 9% of the variance in mental health; just over 9% with psychosomatic health; and 4% for physical health.

Those were the results when studies using all three measures were combined. The authors also concluded that the EQ-i had a significantly stronger association with mental health than the other measures, which, once again, speaks to the broad applicability of this assessment.

Reference:
Schutte, Nicola S¹; Malouff, John M¹; Thorsteinsson, Einar B¹; Bhullar, Navjot¹; Rooke, Sally E¹A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between emotional intelligence and health. Personality and Individual Differences. Vol 42(6), Apr 2007, pp. 921-933