Emotion differentiation

How to spot it

Say your state as a sentence with a cause in it, then check whether a third of the feeling is left over: if it is, the label is the wrong one.

The research behind the term

The term is not our invention. It comes from published research, and what follows is what that research found — our own synthesis of the published abstract, not a translation of the original.

What it found

• A framework of emotional intelligence is formulated for the first time as a set of skills rather than a personality trait.
• These skills concern the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, its effective regulation, and the use of emotions to motivate, plan and achieve.
• The concept is situated within the literature on intelligence — and on social intelligence in particular — so as to show the place of emotion in traditional conceptions of intelligence.
• The role of emotional intelligence in mental health is discussed.

How it found it

A theoretical article that reviews the debate over whether emotion is adaptive or maladaptive and builds from it a unifying framework for emotion-related skills.

What it means for emotional intelligence

This is the founding formulation of the concept — and it defines it from the outset as a skill. What is a skill can be practiced; what is taken to be character cannot.

Practised in

The term does not stay a definition. It appears inside missions where the pattern happens in real time and you have to recognise it as it happens to you.

• Two Hours Later

  Level 1