Managing emotions - an ability of emotional intelligence.

• Author(s): Correia, Ana Almeida ; Veiga-Branco, Augusta
• Date: 2011
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/6919
• Origin: Biblioteca Digital do IPB
• Subject(s): Managing emotions; Emotional fitness; Errors of thought
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

This study focuses on the concept Managing Emotions from Emotional Intelligence (I.E.), (Mayer-Salovey, 1990, 1997, Goleman, 1995), also identified as Emotional Regulation (Bisquerra, 2000), to obtain recognition and practical use of this concept, through the use of Emotional Fitness charts (Bimbela-Pedrola, 2008), to develop these abilities and manage emotions in contexts of practical life. Objective: To train preschool teachers, as well as primary and lower secondary school teachers to confront negative emotions by using selfregulatory strategies (identifying errors of thought and changing negative emotions/thoughts to positive thoughts/emotions). Method: A transversal, descriptive and qualitative study, using "grounded theory" methodology, with semi-structured interviews conducted to a purposive sample of 60 subjects: 7 preschool teachers and 53 primary and lower secondary school teachers, aged 22 to 59, from January to March 2011. To operationalise the Emotions Management concept the proposed work consisted of two activities: firstly, to identify the nine most common errors of thought (Bimbela-Pedrola, 2008), namely: Mental filter, Labelling, Overgeneralisation, Overreacting, Catastrophism, Mind reading, Error of control in excess, Error of control by default, Use of "should"; secondly, the completion of an Emotional Fitness chart where they had to identify: 1. The precise stressful situation; 2. First emotions; 3. First thoughts; 4. Errors of Thought; 5. New thoughts; 6. New emotions. Conclusions: The most frequently mentioned causes of negative emotion were: traffic on the road, bad student behaviour and rudeness of parents. The errors indicated as the most frequent were: Overgeneralisation (Using the words "always, all, never, no, never, impossible"), Labelling (Putting labels. e.g.: He is lazy.) and Overreacting (Using excessive adjectives e.g. : This is unacceptable!).