Understanding and Applying Emotional Intelligence in Nursing

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Emotional Intelligence in Nursing
Introduction
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 brings about the idea that the more someone aware of their own emotions and other peoples emotions they will have a significant increase in personal and professional success by applying strategies from the four core emotional intelligence skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. The idea of emotional intelligence was first prospered in 1964 and since then other physiologists have added their insights and broken it down into four to five different categories, with a changing definition. Emotional intelligence (EQ) was recently defined as ones ability to recognize own emotions and other people’s emotions and applying this …show more content…

It was hypothesized that, “like intelligence, emotional sensitivity might be characterized by a general factor which operated in a variety of media,” or just reasonable to assume, “emotional sensitivity was a specific function of the particular mode of expression,” (Beldoch, 1964, pg. 31). Later, in 1990, two psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey coined the term EQ, breaking it into four branches: identifying emotions on a nonverbal level, using emotions to guide cognitive thinking, understanding the information emotions convey and the actions emotions generate, and regulating one’s own emotions, for personal benefit and for the common good ("EQ explained," 2016). They described that emotions arise in a response to an event that could either be occurring in the moment or in the past that could have been triggered and has a positive or negative meaning to the person (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Then in 1995, Daniel Goleman, took EQ one step further by reworking the existing definitions of intelligence by incorporating five essential elements for EQ. Goleman’s elements for EQ are: emotional self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills; however, there were not many …show more content…

The reason that I choose this concept is because it combines all the other concepts presented in this book. Since EQ can be learned rather than something one can be born with, like IQ, I believe that by using it everyday others will learn from me. As a case in point, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 mentioned that within the past five years the amount of people who are attuned to their own emotions and emotions of others have increased from 13.7% to 18.3% (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009). Credit for this increase in EQ has been attributed to the fact that EQ is contagious, infecting people with knowledge of emotions who have never been introduced to the concept of EQ (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009). Since relationships are important in the nursing realm, with patients and coworkers, I will use the strategies presented within the concept of relationship management to depict emotionally in tuned treatment and emotional awareness of coworkers. For example, while working with patients and coworkers I will avoid giving mixed signals, build trust, acknowledge their feelings, complement their feelings and show it when I appreciate extra help (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009). By using these skills, I believe that patients will be more open with me when asking questions and believe that I see them as a human rather than just another patient. I also believe that using these skills

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