Presentation 1: Emotional Intelligence: Is There Anything to It?
Emotional intelligence involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. The competencies involved in emotional intelligence include (a) appraising and expressing emotions in the self and others, (b) understanding emotions, (c) regulating emotion in the self and others, and (d) using emotions in adaptive ways. In this presentation, Dr. Salovey begins with a brief history of the idea of emotional intelligence and a formal definition of it. The challenges involved in measuring emotional intelligence as a set of abilities are described. He will then share the findings from several studies that address relations between emotional intelligence and competencies that matter in the workplace. Finally, Salovey will comment on the popularization of emotional intelligence by the media throughout the world and discuss some of the controversies that have ensued.
Presentation 2: Using Message Framing to Encourage Healthy Behavior in the Workplace and Community
Every year, millions of dollars are spent on public service and advertising campaigns to promote healthy behavior in the workplace and community. Why is it that some effectively motivate behavior change whereas others do not? The answer may lie in how the messages in these campaigns are crafted. Certain behaviors may be more effectively encouraged if they are framed in terms of the benefits versus the costs of that behavior, called gain-framing and loss-framing, respectively. Furthermore, some people seem to respond better when messages are individualized, or tailored, to the way they process health information. Salovey will describe a series of field experiments investigating the effects of framing and tailoring health messages.
Speaker Background:
Salovey is the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology. He joined the Yale faculty in 1986 after receiving an A.B. (psychology) and A.M. (sociology) from Stanford University in 1980, with departmental honors and university distinction, and a Ph.D. (psychology) from Yale in 1986. He holds secondary faculty appointments in the schools of Management and Public Health and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. He was appointed dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2003, dean of Yale College in 2004, and provost in 2008. Salovey has authored or edited 13 books translated into 11 languages and published more than 350 journal articles and essays, focused primarily on human emotion and health behavior. With John D. Mayer, he developed a broad framework called “emotional intelligence,” the theory that just as people have a wide range of intellectual abilities, they also have a wide range of measurable emotional skills that profoundly affect their thinking and action. In his research on health behavior, Salovey investigates the effectiveness of health promotion messages in persuading people to change risky behaviors relevant to cancer and HIV/AIDS.
