Emotional Intelligence was an international phenomenon, appearing on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year and selling more than five million copies worldwide. Now, once again, Daniel Goleman has written a groundbreaking synthesis of the latest findings in biology and brain... read more
“Some degree of anxiety seems to be a price we pay for true emotional intimacy.”
That special connection, Rosenthal has found, always entails three elements: mutual attention, shared positive feeling, and a well-coordinated nonverbal duet.Highlighted by 154 Kindle customers
When someone dumps their toxic feelings on us—explodes in anger or threats, shows disgust or contempt—they activate in us circuitry for those very same distressing emotions. Their act has potent neurological consequences: emotions are contagious. We “catch” strong emotions much as we do a rhinovirus—and so can come down with the emotional equivalent of a cold.Highlighted by 146 Kindle customers
In short, self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection—or compassionate action.Highlighted by 120 Kindle customers
Emotional contagion exemplifies what can be called the brain’s “low road” at work. The low road is circuitry that operates beneath our awareness, automatically and effortlessly, with immense speed.Highlighted by 113 Kindle customers
Forthrightness is the brain’s default response: our neural wiring transmits our every minor mood onto the muscles of our face, making our feelings instantly visible. The display of emotion is automatic and unconscious, and so its suppression demands conscious effort. Being devious about what we feel—trying to hide our fear or anger—demands active effort and rarely succeeds perfectly.22Highlighted by 94 Kindle customers
The ingredients of social intelligence I propose here can be organized into two broad categories: social awareness, what we sense about others—and social facility, what we then do with that awareness.Highlighted by 81 Kindle customers
In today’s psychology, the word “empathy” is used in three distinct senses: knowing another person’s feelings; feeling what that person feels; and responding compassionately to another’s distress. These three varieties of empathy seem to describe a 1-2-3 sequence: I notice you, I feel with you, and so I act to help you.Highlighted by 80 Kindle customers
Edgar Allan Poe had an intuitive grasp of this principle. He wrote: “When I wish to find out how good or how wicked anyone is, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my own mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.”16Highlighted by 78 Kindle customers
Empathy is the prime inhibitor of human cruelty: withholding our natural inclination to feel with another allows us to treat the other as an It.Highlighted by 62 Kindle customers
By the time the low road has reacted, sometimes all the high road can do is make the best of things. As the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wryly noted, “Man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing one.”Highlighted by 56 Kindle customers
Prologue Unveiling a new science
Part 1 * Wired to connect
1. The emotional economy
2. A recipe for rapport
3. Neural WiFi
4. An instinct for altruism
5. The neuroanatomy of a kiss
6. What is social intelligence
Part 2 * Broken bonds
7. You and it
8. The dark triad
9. Mindblind
Part 3 * Nurturing nature
10. Genes are not destiny
11. A secure base
12. The set point for happiness
Part 4 * Love's varieties
13. Webs of attachment
14. Desire: his and hers
15. The biology of compassion
Part 5 * Healthy connections
16.Stress is social
17. Biological allies
18. A people prescription
Part 6 * Social consequences
19. The sweet spot for achievement
20. The connections corrective
21. From them to us
EPILOGUE What really matters
Appendix A The high road and low roads: A note
Appendix B The social brain
Appendix C Rethinking social intelligence
Acknowledgment
Notes
Index
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