Impacto de los programas ofrecidos por las escuelas de primera infancia en Arjona:

It is worth pointing out, that emotional intelligence can be learned and developed [1]. Meanwhile, the intellectual understanding of emotional intelligence is very important, but substantial; the de- velopment of it depends on sensory, non-verbal learning, and much practice. But what exactly might such skills be? Daniel Goleman introduced The Emotional Intelligence Competencies of High Achievers [1]. He gives this list:

• Self-awareness

7.2 How to Improve the Emotional Intelligence 147

Figure 7.2Emotional intelligence wheel

name on them. It is important to be aware of the relationship between thoughts and feelings that was behind that action, and knowing one’s internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions. Also, it is important to recognize our emotions and their effects, the way of reacting with our environment, and the affect of our emotion on our behavior.

• Managing emotions and Self-Regulation

Being able to change our emotions to a positive end is a key ability. We should practice controlling impulsive feelings and behaviors, dealing with our emotions in healthy ways; being reliable and responsible; learn to adapt to change our situations. It is important to realize what is behind feelings. Beliefs have a fundamental effect on the ability to act and on how things are done. For instance, it is important to find ways to deal with anger, fear, anxiety, and sadness

• Self-motivation

Self-motivation means how emotional dispositions can guide or facilitate reaching goals. Thus, when we have a goal, the control of emotions will assist greatly in achieving it. Thus, it

is important to learn how can we motivate ourselves in general. That includes endeavoring to improve or meet a standard of excellence, and persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

• Empathy

The ability to recognize feelings of others is important if we are intended to establish good relationships with them. Getting the measure of the situation and being able to act appropri- ately requires understanding the feelings of the others and being able to take their perspec- tive. It is important to be able to listen to others, sensing others’ feelings and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns.

• Social Skills

Developing quality relationships has a very positive effect on all involved. This includes the ability to listen openly and to send convincing messages, to negotiate and resolve dis- agreements, initiate or manage change, to work with others toward shared goals. A good understanding of emotions can help us to manage the emotions of others. Recognizing the value of the contribution of others and encouraging their participation can often do more good than giving orders or complaining.

According to Salovey and Mayer, there is a set of conceptual related mental processes involving emotional information [172]. The mental processes include;

1. Appraising and expressing emotion in one self and others.

2. Regulating emotion in one self and other and,

3. Using emotion in adaptive ways.

In the following sections we will explain these processes in detail and will show how we modeled these processes in our pedagogical module, with the explanation of the emotional intelligence

7.2 How to Improve the Emotional Intelligence 149

ontology.

Emotzional Intelligence

Apprisal and

Expression of Emotion Regulation of Emotion Utilization of Emotion

Self Other In Self In Other Redirected

Attention Motivation Creative Thinking Flexible Planning Versal Non- Versal Non-Versal Perception Empathy

Figure 7.3Conceptualization of emotional intelligence

7.2.1

Emotion Election

The first step towards improving emotional intelligence is preserving or electing emotion. Under- standing or recognizing emotions of other is related to perception factors that can occur by visual, auditory, and tactical. Intuitively, the lack of this data causes misunderstanding of a person’s emo- tional state. Understanding emotion and its intensity is also related to getting to know a person’s personality type. Note that we should differentiate between hot and cold emotions to justify the process of the election process. Hot emotions are that they influence behavior and that they are not under a complete selection control of the person as a result of the primary emotion. The primary e- motion defines what is felt first, as a first response to the situation. If we are threatened, we may feel fear. When we learn of a death, we may feel sad. They are unthinking, instinctive responses that we have. There are several ways to evaluate the emotional state, Lang [173] proposed analyzing emotions according to three systems involved in the expressions of emotions: Subjective or verbal information (i.e. reports about perceived emotions described by users), Behavioral (i.e. some are based on the detection of facial, speech paralinguistic parameters, postural expressions and biolog-

ical signs [174]), Psycho- physiological answers(such as heart rate, galvanic skin response -GSR-, and electroencephalographic response),the others are based on student interaction [175], or the use of the cognitive model of emotion [8]. Cold emotions describe a dispassionate cognitive process that may be appropriate for reasoning about emotion but dose not actually inform on the external behavior. The cold theory of emotion or cognitive model of emotion [8] allows us to reason about the emotional responses or the appraisal of the current emotion towards the incoming events as a result of the secondary emotion. Thus, secondary emotions appear after primary emotions. They may also come from more complex chains of thinking. The secondary emotions build on the pri- mary emotions and involve more thought and interpretation and they give a picture of the person’s mental processing of the primary emotion. The proposed model is inconsistent with the hot theory of emotion but not with the cold type of emotion.