According to John Mayer (University of New Hampshire psychologist and one of the first to study emotional intelligence) self-awareness is being “aware of both our mood and our thoughts about mood.” It is also explained by Goleman (2002) as the ability to read and understand your emotions as well as recognize their impact on others. It can simply be put that self-awareness is a basic understanding of how we feel and why we feel that way. The more we are aware of our feelings that easier they are to manage and dictate how we might respond to others.
Emotional awareness is the result of this sequence:
1. Sense the emotion (feeling)
2. Acknowledge the feeling
3. Identify more facts
4. Accept the feeling
5. Reflect on why the emotion is showing up in that moment.
Notice what other feelings are present or came before it.
Ask yourself what its purpose might be, what it is communicating, demonstrating, or trying to teach you.
6. Act – bring your thoughts and feelings up and take appropriate action, if needed.
7. Reflect on the usefulness of the response and what lesson you would like to take away.
(The Emotionally Intelligent Team by Marcia Hughes and James Bradford Terrell, 2007, pg. 76-77 )
This sequence happens continuously all day long as each feeling comes into the picture. The importance of self-awareness is to better understand that these feelings are constantly coming and going and it is important to deal with them in an appropriate manner. It is equally important to be able to evaluate how this impacts the moods and emotions of others.
There was a study done by Sigal Barsade (2002) on “The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence on Group Behavior” that shows that our emotions can be contagious and shared with others, even if we do not mean to. There is a process innate in human behavior that can cause us to mimic another person’s facial expressions and is communicated through nonverbal behaviors. The study also found we can influence each other socially; positive emotions towards others influenced cooperativeness and conflict in the study. Barsade, S. G. (2002).
Reference:
The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence on Group Behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 644-675.
Primal Leadership: Realizing the Importance of Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Business School Press: Boston. Goleman, D. (2000).
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