In this chapter, we will learn the basics of neuroscience behind the most important competencies of emotional intelligence. You cannot master the EI competencies without mastering the basic knowledge behind them. To know how the brain processes our emotional data it is important to understand the role of emotions in self-awareness, self-control, changing behavior and defeating thoughts, managing stress, improving decision-making, and building strong and meaningful relationships. We will cover:
- The three functional brains
- Emotions and the emotional brain:
- Neuroscience behind decision making
- Neuroscience behind mindfulness
- Neuroscience behind gratitude
- Neuroscience behind empathy
Emotions are not just a matter of the heart, they are also a result of brain biochemistry--this is the conclusion from neuroscience, medicine, psychology, and management. Neuroscientists believe that the control center of emotions in the brain is the limbic system, as it stores every experience we have from the first moments of life. The limbic system is like a chain of warehouses where our personal impressions are stored since before we acquired the verbal or higher thinking abilities to put them into words. It is this vast warehouse of feelings and impressions that provides a context and meaning for our memories. Without memories we can hardly make decisions.
Messages are transmitted to the brain by neurons, traveling through an electrical transmission system. However, in the 70s, scientists discovered that our bodies also contain a chemical system for transmitting messages. This system is based on chemicals called peptides, which have receptors in every cell of our bodies. These highly sensitive information substances are thought to be the chemical substrates of emotion, triggering impression memories throughout our lives. Our brains are linked to all our body systems--the gut, the heart, the head, the neck, and so on. These sensations are important signals and if we learn to read them, they will help us make decisions and initiate action.
Do you ever experience that situation where you know you should change your behavior and you know how to do it but never put it into practice? Let's say you want to be more fit, therefore, you need to go to the gym and have a regular practice. Let's say you are a bit of a procrastinator and you know what you need to do to stop that behavior but you do nothing. Or, the example of the Junior Software Engineer whose career is stymied because he is staunchly introverted, and totally absorbed in the technical aspects of his job. Through cognitive learning, he might come to understand that it would be better for him to consult other people more, make connections, and build relationships. But just knowing he should do these things would not enable him to do them. The ability to do these things depends on emotional competence, which requires emotional learning as well as cognitive learning. Neuroscience helped us to understand that knowing something operates in the neocortex and doing something operates in the limbic region of the brain, also known as the emotional brain. And the limbic system learns by experiment, by doing--it's a hands-on brain. Thus, in order to turn intentions into habits, an individual needs to put them into practice through rehearsal and physical experience.
Neuroscience contradicted the early models of human behavior psychology that described the human behavior in terms of a stimulus and response. Neuroscience showed that between stimulus and response our brain has some layers of filters and we will learn some of them now:
