EQ (Emotional Intelligence)

EQ (Emotional Intelligence)

In 2015 PIXAR released a movie titled “Inside Out”. The movie explores what goes inside a little girls head. It is staged inside the limbic system – the part in your brain that processes feelings and emotions. It personalized the 5 main emotions that everybody has namely; Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness. Joy is golden, spirited, motivated, overzealous, unsuppressed and delightful. Sadness is blue, soppy, depressed, overwhelming and deflated. Fear is purple, nervy, unsettled, worrisome, unfulfilled and insecure. Disgust is green, finicky, stylish, assured and confident. Anger is red, unreasonable, self-serving, tantrum throwing and unstable. The movie explores emotion regulation, the purpose of emotions and their functions, impulse, imagination, the amygdala (the fight or flight organ) the subconscious mind and the importance of sleep. It is an amazing movie – my all-time favorite without a doubt. It garnered universal acclaimed from critics all around the world who praised the movie for its impeccable story-telling, originality, imagination, research into neuroscience and the voice artists. It is acknowledged as one of the greatest amination movies of all time. The movie follows Riley an 11 year old girl whose world suddenly turns upside down when she has to move into unexplored territory, a new environment – the big city. Everything is so new to Riley and her emotions are all over the place. In her previous life she used to live in the countryside where there was space, a big yard, a conservative neighborhood where everyone knew and assisted one another. Hockey was her passion and she was in a team that was doing pretty well. She had a best friend that she loved wholeheartedly – her life was perfect! However her present was met with a lot of uncertainty. She now lived in house that was crammed and sandwiched into two other houses that had no space. The environment was clustered, loud and busy. The emotion Anger is elated when Riley’s family enter the city for the first to a loud and busy environment stating “These are my type of people.”! Now Riley has no friends or a hockey team – she has to start all over again. It is worth noting that Riley’s most dominating emotion before the big move to the city has been Joy. 

The emotions Joy, Anger, Disgust, Sadness and Fear are stationed in the mind’s headquarters (Limbic System) and they influence Riley’s actions via a control panel. All the memories of the day are stored each night to long-term memory. These long-term memories create her 5 “core memories” and they are represented as islands because they form her personality. These 5 islands stand alone because they represent who Riley is to the core. In the context of the mind, the islands represent the hippocampus which is responsible for memory in the human brain. The memories that are moved to long-term memory each night represent habits and the basal ganglia which is the element in the brain that helps with habits. Now, that Riley has to form new habits, her islands are in danger of being dismantled. Which is what happens as the story continues. The first island to go is “Friendship Island” – now that she is in a new environment, she has no friends and thus affecting her overall personality – she is left weak and vulnerable. Hockey Island is the next island that crumbles. Lacking a self-campus and self-identity, an idea comes from Anger that she should run away and go back to Minnesota to start new core memories – I mean that’s where she grew up and life was perfect before mom and dad decided to move! She steals money from her mom’s purse and heads to the bus station. It is interesting to note, the idea comes from Anger and by trait Anger is passionate, self-serving and in the moment. Anger’s idea was fueled by the Amygdala. The Amygdala has the tendency to hijack and bypass the neocortex which is the thinking brain. Riley knew what she was doing was wrong hence when she stole the money she was in stealth mode, aloof, making sure that her mother doesn’t see her. The Amygdala by trait acts! Hence it’s called the fight or flight organ. Tears are usually triggered by the amygdala, it is a very sophisticated organ. The Amygdala can house memories and response repertoires that we enact without quite realizing why because the shortcut from the Thalamus to the Amygdala completely bypasses the neocortex. When this decision was made, Anger didn’t think about the repercussions because he is so shortsighted, he was impulsive and the Amygdala fueled and gave life to this idea – resulting in Riley’s reaction. 

This action nearly results in the destruction of “Family Island” luckily Sadness comes in to save the day. For the duration of the movie, Joy makes it her duty to keep Sadness off the control panel as her and the other emotions don’t understand Sadness purpose in Riley’s life. Towards the end of the movie all that changes as she gives Sadness the podium. The change of heart comes from her journey with Sadness when both of them were sucked out of Headquarters. On their journey back to headquarters Joy, sees Sadness’ value as she regulated and helped the friends who were helping the two emotions – it was special. When Riley was on the bus awaiting for it to depart, she was emotionless and turning black inside. All the other emotions couldn’t do anything to save the situation. Sadness stepped up to the control panel and Riley snapped up and stopped the bus as it was leaving requesting to get off. She got home to the sight of her worried parents and started telling them what had happened (Sadness was still on the control panel). Riley was honest, she told her parents that she missed Minnesota, that she missed her friends and her previous life, she communicated all this in tears. Her parents listened with emphatic eyes and embraced her with a big hug – they further communicated that they too missed Minnesota and their old lives. Something that affirmed Riley’s sentiments and made her feel better. Both parents embraced Riley, it was a warm moment, it was a beautiful family hug. Sadness called Joy to the panel and they joined to create a new, cemented “family core memory”. The reason sadness is so important in life is because, it forces you to slow down, it forces you to contemplate about things, it helps you focus, it helps you organize or reorganize life and it enables you to keep moving forward. Sadness is the hero in any story. 

This intelligent movie communicates the importance of emotion regulation and intelligence and why it might be better than IQ. A test was conducted on 4 year olds to test impulse control and delay gratification. The tests were conducted on the children of Stanford graduates which implies that the children were from good families. It was a simple test; an examiner would leave one marshmellow on the table instructing the kid that if he could wait until he comes back that he would have two marshmellows – but if he can’t wait, then he can have that one. He would then exit the room to see what the kid would do. A grueling and brutal test for any 4 year old I assure you! Some kids distracted themselves by closing their eyes, tried to sleep, sang loudly or avoidance – they simply looked the other way and acted as if it didn’t exist. For their reward, the examiner would come in 10-15 minutes later and give them two marshmellows. While other kids simple couldn’t wait and just ate that one marshmellow. This test is interesting because it provides insights to the kid’s character and the trajectory that the child will probably take through life. 14 years later the kids were tracked down again to see the progress in their lives. The emotional and social difference between the grab-the-marshmallow preschoolers and their gratification-delaying peers was dramatic. Those who had resisted temptation at four were now, as adolescents, more socially competent: personally effective, self-assertive, and better able to cope with the frustrations of life. They were less likely to go to pieces, freeze, or regress under stress, or become rattled and disorganized when pressured; they embraced challenges and pursued them instead of giving up even in the face of difficulties; they were self-reliant and confident, trustworthy and dependable; and they took initiative and plunged into projects. And, more than a decade later, they were still able to delay gratification in pursuit of their goals. The third or so who grabbed for the marshmallow, however, tended to have fewer of these qualities, and shared instead a relatively more troubled psychological portrait. In adolescence they were more likely to be seen as shying away from social contacts; to be stubborn and indecisive; to be easily upset by frustrations; to think of themselves as "bad" or unworthy; to regress or become immobilized by stress; to be mistrustful and resentful about not "getting enough"; to be prone to jealousy and envy; to overreact to irritations with a sharp temper, so provoking arguments and fights. And, after all those years, they still were unable to put off gratification.

Belo Horizonte hosted the semi-finals between host nation Brazil and Germany. Heading into the match it was tipped at 50/50 and the Brazilians were relying on the support of their fans to tip the result their way. Brazil hadn’t lost in Belo Horizonte in over 39 years. Brazil had notable names missing through suspension or injury like their leader Thiago Silva who was suspended courtesy of a second yellow he incurred in the quarter-finals and of course their best player – the sensational Neymar Jr. who incurred a tournament ending injury. However, the stadium would be filled with more than 50 thousand Brazilians – what could go wrong? For the match they instilled David Luis as the captain and he was going to lead them to the finals! The two teams came out to mark the commencement of the game but before that they had to sing their respective national anthems. The Brazilian players sang loudly and passionately as if to compensate for the loss of their two biggest stars – the stadium was a buzz and vibrating and some of the players even cried because of the ecstasy. By contrast the Germans were businesslike, they looked focused and motivated and never exerted or strained their vocal chords for the anthem. The game commenced, the stadium was loud, all in support of the home nation Brazil. The fans expected a good game. The pressure was on and emotions where all over the place. Brazil were nervy with the ball. David Luis as the captain was too enthusiastic as he vacated his spot in the heart of defense to assist with the offensive play. Marcelo playing on the Left side of defense was too industrious. Maicon was passed his peak. Luis Gustavo and Fernaldihno didn’t complement each other. All this meant was for Germany to keep shape and stay calm  – Brazil were too out of control. 29 minutes later the scoreline was 5-0 in favor of the Germans. Even before half-time, the game had already been decided. With the final already secured, the German coach omitted his best defender at Half-time so he can rest. The game finished 7-1, the heaviest score-line in a World Cup semi-final match – Brazil were humiliated! 

  

The ability to regulate one’s emotion is a priceless asset. An asset the Brazilian team didn’t have. Maybe, the Brazilian women’s team would have done better. This is because women are better “Emotion managers”. They use their prefrontal cortex efficiently. This starts off when they are young girls playing and interacting with one another. On the playground, girls prefer to play in small groups. This helps with engagement and an overall serenity in the group. Boys on the other hand prefer big groups and numbers, this is because boys are more competitive. By trait, boys are threatened by anything that might challenge their independence, while girls are more threatened by a rupture in their relationships. So when a boy gets hurt during play, he does the honorable thing and moves aside so that play can continue as opposed to girls – girls tend to discontinue play to attend to the person who got hurt. I doubt the women’s team would have been beaten 7-1. They should have stayed together on the pitch where it matters most. The men’s team lost mentally and emotionally before the game even commenced. They played football with the Amygdala – they played with feelings and emotions! And because Germany where playing football with the Neocortex (the thinking brain), they saw the frailties and instability of the Brazilian team. Watching Brazil play in that match was like watching “The Wolf of Wall Street”, with David Luis as Jordon Belfort – impulsive, idiotic and expedient! Emotional illiteracy is dangerous!