Emotional Intelligence

EQ-i stands for Emotional Quotient Inventory and is the standard abbreviation for Emotional Intelligence which is a fairly new and broader measure of a person’s intelligence. EQ-i takes into account a number of different talents people have in areas like dealing with others, being good with your hands, being able to visualize things, etc. Standardized I.Q. tests mainly measure our mental sharpness, language and math skills but that is only one talent among several different kinds that more completely measure your intelligence.

It turns out that it is several other areas of intelligence that actually indicate how successful we can expect to be. I was surprised to learn that the majority of successful people just have average scores on IQ tests! Studies now show that interpersonal skills, self-knowledge and persistence are more important factors. Daniel Goldman found that most Asian students are more successful than their white classmates, not for their IQ level but because of their perseverance and that IQ contributes no more that 20% to overall intelligence. As an aside, I find it interesting that finishing work that they start is one of the main characteristics of a successful person.

It has taken over 20 years of work but Emotional Quotient tests are now scientifically verifiable and widely used in many areas like hiring employees, training personnel, choosing leaders and finding out more about a persons strengths and weaknesses. For instance people with low scores in Intrapersonal areas that measure how well you know yourself, tend to have unresolved personal issues and to be insecure. On the other hand, those who have a good knowledge of themselves are inclined to be more open to exposing their feelings and tolerant and those qualities lead to success.

The five intelligences measured in one of the several EQ-i tests are: Spatial or ability to visualize; Linguistic, a facility with words and languages; Logic-mathematical, abstractions, reasoning, and numbers; Bodily- Kinestics, control of motions and skill in handling objects; Musical, sensitivity to sounds, rhythms; Interpersonal, interaction with others; Intrapersonal, knowing yourself.

Now it’s time to test your own emotional intelligence - just click on the underlined EQ test.. I found the test was an interesting and worthwhile exercise

If you have a special interest in Leadership or Buying & Selling issues, EQ-i studies have interesting insights to contribute. Rie

EQ Revisited

“All animals are created equal and some more equal than others.” George Orwell

In my blog post before Christmas, I wrote about EQ’s being a comparative measure of animal itelligences. I said then that I would get back to the subject and, though Christmas season and another post intervened, here are a few thoughts about our relationships with other animals. In man’s long history as hunter-gatherers when we had no dominance over animals, we treated them as equals, not perhaps in intelligence, but as living creatures with the same rights as we did to live their own lives and survive by avoiding those that would prey on us and killing those we could catch for our own nourishment. In the culture of North American natives, this respect is retained and an animal is given thanks for giving up its life to feed the hunter and his family. Domestication of animals began back in around 1400 BC and the first species to willingly accept a close relationship with man were canines – dogs. Then came sheep, probably because if you captured the lead sheep, all the others would follow. Then came goats and cattle and chickens and so on. Once the animals were at our mercy and we made a business of raising and slaughtering them for food, we tended to treat them as a commodity and often disregarded their rights. It is horrifying to learn of the cruelty in the way chickens and pigs in particular are treated in order to make maximum profit from them. In early times there was a period when wild hogs, who can be affectionate, clean and playful, were becoming accepted as wonderful pets but the ease and economy with which pigs can be raised for food has now overcame any tendency to treat them as anything but products for profit. Except in China, dogs and cats have survived as pets. I live with a dog and a cat and while I only seem to enjoy watching the cat and stroking it when it wants petting, with the dog it’s different. I regularly try to communicate with him by talking to him and making eye contact. He loves the attention and somehow we both know we are bonding and I enjoy being rewarded with the unconditional affection he so enthusiastically gives. Actually scientific research shows that owning a pet of any sort is generally so good for you that you will actually tend to live longer. I think that is because tensions are relieved and we get comfort because we know that a pet is guileless, trusting and trustworthy. Dogs desire to please makes them ideal to train to become ‘service dogs’ and they can be an invaluable companion help for a blind or otherwise disabled person. Smart little capuchin monkeys with their human-like fingers make them ideal helpers especially for quadriplegics. As a pet, however, Capuchins present many problems, not the least of which is that they live to be 40 years old. In the end, I doubt that dogs and cats need worry that they will lose their place as all-time most popular pets. Rie

Christmas Turkey

Years ago we were invited to spend Christmas with our friends Ted and Ros in Mexico. Before leaving I called Ted and asked if there was anything we could bring from home. He had a list - an electric blanket, 5 lbs. of King Cole tea, and a few other things I can’t remember. We had to bring an extra bag for everything.

As we were unpacking, Ros kept saying: “Ted – you shouldn’t have asked the MacBeaths to bring all these things!” to which he replied: ”If the MacBeaths hadn’t wanted to bring all these things – they didn’t have to bring them.”

After a meal the next day, we offered to do the dishes. When Ros was saying “No no…” Ted broke in with: “If the MacBeaths want to do the dishes, let’s let them do them.” In always accepting our help with their chores, Ted made us feel welcomed and more like family than visitors. We all had such a good time we stayed over a week.

They had invited friends to come for Christmas dinner and on the big morning Ted was up very early and in the kitchen with the door closed. He was preparing the turkey and during the morning we could smell it cooking. By lunch it was on it’s platter and sitting on the side board in all it’s golden glory. I was concerned about it not being hot for dinner that was still hours away, but Ted assured me that, with hot vegetables and gravy, no one would notice. They didn’t and I didn’t and it was a beautifully relaxed party!

Ted and Ros were artists and they were captivated with the Mexicans' lavish use of colour especially at Christmas. Their enthusiasm was catching - I loved the hand -cut red, green and pink paper garlands suspended across narrow streets, casting interesting shadows and the fantastic piñatas of all sizes and shapes that appeared everywhere.

It was an unforgettable Christmas! Rie

Animal Intelligence

A person’s IQ is accepted as a way of measuring how intelligent they are but have you ever wondered how intelligent a horse is or a cat? [click on table to enlarge it]

I was fascinated when I read that an EQ [Encephalization Quotient] test has been devised to give a rough measure of the intelligence of different species.

The test involves knowing the average weight of the brains of an animal but it turns out that the larger an animal is, the more brains it needs to just do the things that keep it alive, like breathing and moving around, etc. That problem was overcome by taking a creature’s lean body weight into consideration in comparing brain sizes.The larger the weight of the brain relative to the body weight, the more of the brain is available for learning new things and applying that knowledge – or in other words, the more intelligent.

It turns out having a larger brain is not necessarily better, because the larger the brain, the more energy it takes to develop it and feed it. [In my ‘Memory’ post I mentioned that our human brains actually uses 1/4 of the total energy our bodies require!]. But Mother Nature is usually frugal about using energy and apparently animals tend to just develop the size of brain they need and that's about it.

In the face of that evidence, the often repeated ‘home truth’ that we humans don’t use half the capacity of our enormous brain is questionable. Neuroscience is such a hot research area these days – I’m hoping I’ll be around long enough to learn more about this 'extra' unused capacity!

You may have noticed that I’ve recently set myself the goal of writing something to post every Friday night - but am late this week. That’s because, in trying to explain the surprises I found in the EQ table, I got carried away. The next post will probably be about the relationships we have to animals and some ideas about the why. Meanwhile - Happy Holidays! Rie

Cold Blood

It’s December and in northern countries like Canada, in spite of global warming, we can still count on the cold. Surprisingly however, I’ve noticed on the coldest and stormiest days that encounters with neighbors and strangers are more friendly and cheerful. I think it’s because we are all in the same boat - sharing the struggles and discomfort of our plight.

To add to discomfort it can be risky when it is bitterly cold. We’ve all heard stories of people suffering fatal heart attacks while shoveling snow or playing winter sports and the hospital statistics corroborate the stories.

In mammals like us, our body has to be kept at a remarkably constant temperature and when we are out in the cold, blood gets directed from close to the skin to our body core. Because the same amount of fluid is then in a smaller core volume, our blood pressure goes up.

If we are exerting ourselves with shoveling snow or skating, our heart rate goes up too and we need more oxygen to keep functioning so we have to breath faster. That makes things worse because the intimate contact of the cold air in our lungs tends to cool the blood and that can be dangerous! Experiments show that if our blood temperature drops, platelets in the blood tend to stick together and form clots. If the clots are big enough, they can cause a heart attack.

Let me hasten to add that only a few who exert themselves in the cold will ever have a heart attack! But those who just may have clogged arteries or high blood pressure anyway, be warned and use common sense – wear a hat [your brain is actually 80% blood by volume and you need to keep it warm] and breathe through your scarf.

I had a couple of horses one year and over wintered them in an unheated barn. Some nights were 35C below zero [around -30F] and I worried about them and started thinking about how the animals in the woods survived and why their feet didn't freeze.

It turns out that in wild creatures [birds included] the arteries delivering warm blood down the legs are intimately intertwined with the veins bringing cold blood back from the feet. The heat exchange means that there is a temperature gradient from near freezing in the foot to near body temperature at the top of the leg. Sometimes when my feet feel like they are freezing, I think of how great it would be if we humans had the same marvelous mechanism! Rie

Purpose

I hate to sound like a broken record but I still have something I want to say about Mother Nature’s recently recognized dictum: ‘If you pump energy into an isolated system, order will increase.’

Our Earth is isolated – it’s like a self contained space ship as it speeds through space in its orbit around the sun. In the 4.6 billion years since it first formed, Earth has been receiving enormous quantities of radiant energy from the sun every day and has evolved through natural processes to produce ever more ordered and complex systems culminating so far in the most complex of all things on Earth: the human brain. Is the process of increasing complexity on earth going on through us? It certainly appears to be!

As possessors of this amazing brain of ours, we are self-aware and have a strong desire to make sense of why we are here and what our purpose could be. Though it may be considered somewhat simplistic, if we reflect on the natural processes that caused our genesis, we get a direct answer. Our purpose is to make the world a more ordered and hopefully better place. That idea is reinforced by the observation that that's what we have a tendency to do naturally and feel 'good' about doing anyway.

Watch small children who are given a box of blocks - they build. I have a 100-year old friend who spends most of her day ‘playing’ solitaire and I’ve just realized why. She doesn’t have much energy but is still using what she has to create order by starting with a well worn pack of cards that she shuffles and, if she follows a few simple rules and wins, has the satisfaction of accomplishing the creation of four ordered stacks from Ace to King in each of the suits. She wouldn’t do it unless she got some satisfaction in that accomplishment.

If we are aware of how we are spending our time and energies during a day, we realize mostly we are just keeping order in either our living space, our workspace, our files, or our organizations. It is sometimes repetitive and that's not very rewarding but we do get a really good feeling of accomplishment and well being when we put our energy into creatively building order in an area that particularly interests us.

If we have developed in a healthy environment and do what comes naturally, we tend to use our energy to just generally increase order in our immediate world and help others when we can, to do so in theirs. Trying to make the world a better place in my own small way and striving to understand this complex environment we live in, have been good enough goals for me to consider as my purpose in life.

In 1860 Abe Lincoln said ‘When I do good, I feel good and when I do bad, I feel bad and that’s my religion.’ It could be considered mine too. Rie

Entropy reversed

I had an ulterior motive when I wrote the last blog post. It was a needed lead-up to its final italicized statement:

If you pump energy into an isolated system, order will increase.

It 's easy to prove the opposite. Just be lazy for a while and don’t put energy into keeping your living space in order. Disorder [entropy] increases, and it can get really messy!

It isn’t so easy to do an objective experiment to prove that adding energy to an isolated system brings about order. However, I did read of a very convincing such test suggested by Dr. John Todd in his forward to Gaia’s Garden, a book by Toby Hemenway. I was so impressed, in fact, that I have described it below and quoted Dr.Todd himself:

In teaching ecology classes Dr. Todd asked his students to collect samples of equal volume from at least three aquatic habitats, such as a small pool in the woods, an animal wallow on a farm, and a river- or lakeside marsh. They were then to mix them together in a glass jar until it was about half full, and with the jar’s lid screwed on tightly, turn it upside down and place it in a sunny window. They were then required to watch and record the unfolding drama within over a period of weeks.

Quoting Dr. Todd: “In the presence of sunlight, a microcosm, or miniature world, begins to organize itself. … Within days, an internal physical structure or architecture starts to evolve, complete with biological zones of activity. … The communities that adapt within are unique. … And each of the student’s microcosms develops differently. … If a blind is left closed and the sunlight blocked for several days the ecosystem within will collapse. But if the jar is returned to the light soon enough, the living system will begin to reorganize itself. The self-repair process generates a new system, usually different than the one from which it was derived … yet as a whole, the system is amazingly persistent. … The miniature ecosystem (on my desk) that I am looking into now as I write may well outlive me.”

Amazing? I rest my case that the reverse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics holds true. Rie