Emotional Intelligence Includes Empathy, Listening As Well As Verbal Skills

March 29, 2000

Harrisburg, Pa. -- Prospective business leaders can learn to measure quantitatively their own ability to read another person's emotions, a key emotional intelligence activity needed for successful employee relations, according to a Penn State study.

"Emotional intelligence, commonly defined as communication or `people' skills, is usually equated with verbal skills, including a talent for initiating social interaction, establishing camaraderie and attracting others through the use of humor," says Dr. David A. Morand, associate professor of management at Penn State Harrisburg.

"But emotional intelligence also consists of understanding, empathy, listening and especially the ability to `read' the emotions of others, as well as your own, then act accordingly. This second part of emotional intelligence is as important as the first. Both parts are vital for someone aspiring to a key management position in the business world."

Morand is author of the article, "The Emotional Intelligence of Managers: Assessing the Construct Validity of a Nonverbal Measure of "People Skills," scheduled for the spring issue of the Journal Of Business and Psychology.

His study measured the emotional intelligence of 41 MBA students, 24 male and 17 female, all employed full time with an average of 8.7 years of work experience.

"While emotion is displayed through many channels, including posture, hand gestures and vocal intonation and pitch, my current research focuses on facial expressions. These are heavily laden with emotional information, perhaps far more so than any other channel," Morand notes. "A stream of research points to 6 universal facial expressions reflecting basic emotions: happiness, fear, sadness, surprise, anger and disgust."

The Penn State researcher exposed his subjects to photographs of 17 faces from the book "The Face of Emotion." Sixteen of the photos showed the 6 universal emotions, while one was neutral. The exposure time for each photograph was 1 second.

"This brief exposure time mirrors the fact that emotional displays in everyday face-to-face encounters are often quite fleeting and nuanced, even cloaked," Morand says. "The photos were scanned using an optical character scanner, then integrated into a `slideshow' presentation on a computer screen, such that a given face appeared on the computer screen for only 1 second. Study participants were given a list of the 6 basic emotions plus neutral emotion, then asked to circle the emotion they thought corresponded to that displayed. They had 5 seconds between displays of each photograph to record their choice. During this time the screen was blank. A sound cue, integrated into the computer program, sounded just prior to the display of the next photograph, alerting subjects to be ready to view the next stimulus face."

After being exposed to the faces, the students took three written tests, one of them the well-known Meyers-Briggs survey measuring personality types. The students on average were able to identify correctly the emotional state of 13 out of 17 faces displayed. Those students best able to pick up emotions in facial expressions also tended to show higher levels of emotional intelligence as determined by the written tests.

"The ability to get along with, to develop trusting relations with, and to communicate effectively with others comprises a set of skills long deemed central to the task of management," Morand says. "These social or `people' skills allow managers to establish warm, empathic, non-directive, trusting relations with subordinates. Business students should realize early on that emotional intelligence forms part of the right stuff of leadership."

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Contacts:

Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 (o)

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (o)/ (814) 238-1221 (h)

EDITORS: Dr. Morand at (717) 948-6158 or at by email.