1.3 Cultural Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence (chapter)

Chapter: Cultural Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence Part 1 Cultural Intelligence

Cultural intelligence is the ability to interact effectively with people who are culturally different (Early and Ang, 2003). It is made up of the ability to produce adequate behaviour in a new cultural environment, and the ability to adapt to the intercultural interaction context.

Cultural intelligence is regarded as a multidimensional set of four abilities that includes metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioural dimensions. Metacognition, cognition, and motivation are perceived as mental capabilities and involve mental reasoning, whereas observable activities are described as behavioural capabilities of individuals (Sternberg and Detterman, 1986).

Metacognitive cultural intelligence refers to an individual’s level of conscious awareness during intercultural interactions. Individuals with heightened metacognitive cultural intelligence consciously examine their own cultural statements, meditate during interactions, and adjust their cultural knowledge when dealing with culturally diverse others.

Metacognitive cultural intelligence supports active reasoning about people and situations in different cultural settings; it precipitates active challenges to rigorous dependence on culturally-bound thinking and judgements; it urges individuals to adapt and modify their strategies so that they are more culturally efficient and more likely to achieve coveted outcomes in intercultural encounters.

Cognitive cultural intelligence reflects the knowledge of norms, practices, and conventions in different cultures. This dimension of cultural intelligence refers to an individual’s level of knowledge of the cultural environment. Cultural knowledge includes knowledge of oneself as embedded in the cultural context of the environment. This dimension indicates knowledge of cultural universals as well as knowledge of cultural differences. It is regarded as being a critical component, since knowledge of culture influences individuals’ thoughts and behaviours. Understanding an individual’s culture and the components of culture allows individuals to better appreciate the systems that create specific patterns of social interaction within a culture.

Motivational cultural intelligence reflects the capability to direct attention and energy toward learning about and functioning in situations characterised by cultural differences. The motivational dimension of cultural intelligence triggers effort and energy directed toward success in unusual cultural environment.

Behavioural cultural intelligence reflects the capability to demonstrate suitable verbal and non-verbal actions when interacting with individuals from different cultures. It refers to the extent to which an individual acts effectively, both verbally and non-verbally, in intercultural encounters. The behavioural dimension of cultural intelligence is a vital component because verbal and non-verbal behaviours are the most prominent features of social interactions.

Cultural intelligence anticipates cultural adaptation, i.e. sociocultural and psychological adaptation. Sociocultural adaptation refers to the extent of socialising with individuals from diverse cultures. Psychological adaptation refers to an individual’s mental well-being when immersed in a different culture. Individuals with higher motivational and behavioural cultural intelligence have better general, work, and interactional alteration, as well as enhanced mental well-being in intercultural contexts.

Cultural intelligence exists on a continuum that develops over time. The development of cultural intelligence is not conceived as a linear process. It can only be achieved through repetitive empirical learning. This developmental process requires an underlying level of knowledge, the acquisition of new knowledge and alternative perspectives through mindfulness, and the accommodation and assimilation of this knowledge into behavioural ability. The acquisition of cultural intelligence includes comprehension from social interactions. Such social learning is a very efficacious tool for altering the experiences of individuals into knowledge and skills. Social learning includes attention to the situation, continued possession of the knowledge gained from the situation, reproduction of the behavioural skills monitored, and eventually receiving feedback or reinforcement about the effectiveness of the adjusted behaviour.

Part 2 Emotional Intelligence Peter Salovey and John Mayer (1990) coined the term emotional intelligence and described it as a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s own thinking and action.

Peter Salovey and John Mayer (1997) further elaborated that emotional intelligence involves areas such as identifying emotions: the ability to recognise how you and those around you are feeling; using emotions: the ability to generate emotion, and then reason with this emotion; understanding emotions: the ability to understand complex emotions and emotional chains, how emotions transition from one stage to another; managing emotions: the ability which allows you to manage emotions in yourself and in others.

Daniel Goleman (1998) defines emotional intelligence as the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.

Reuven Bar-On (1997) describes emotional intelligence as one’s ability to deal with daily environment challenges and helps predict one’s success in life, including professional and personal pursuits. He coined the term EQ, emotional quotient, in 1985 to assess emotional intelligence.

Dalip Singh (2003) defines emotional intelligence as the ability of an individual to appropriately and successfully respond to a vast variety of emotional stimuli being elicited from the inner self and immediate environment. Emotional intelligence constitutes three psychological dimensions: emotional sensitivity, emotional maturity, and emotional competency, all of which motivate an individual to recognise truthfully, interpret honestly, and handle tactfully the dynamics of human behaviour.

Travis Bradbury and Jean Greaves’ Emotional Intelligence 2.0 deliver a step-by-step programme for increasing your EI. They claim that 90% of top performers are high in EQ, and EQ is twice as important as IQ in getting where you want to go in life. They define EI as

the ability to identify, consider and control emotions in oneself and to recognise them in others, brought on by a combination of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

Justin Bariso’s compelling book EQ Applied: The Real-World Guide to Emotional Intelligence (2016) combines scientific research with high-profile practical examples and engaging personal stories. Bariso offers up numerous, up-to-date, real world strategies on how to bets utilise EQ in familiar day-to-day situations, and in the heat of the moment.

Working with Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman’s Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998) defines emotional competence as a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work. Goleman’s Emotional Competence Framework divides emotional intelligence into personal and social competences. Personal competencies determine how individuals manage themselves, and social competences determine how they handle relationships.

There are three areas of personal competences in emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation.

1.

Self-awareness (or knowing one’s internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions) encompasses three elements: • Emotional awareness is the ability to recognise one’s own emotions, and their effects.

• Accurate self-assessment is the ability to understand one’s own and others’ emotions. It requires a good understanding of one’s personal strengths, weaknesses, inner resources, and most importantly one’s limits.

• Self-confidence defines a strong sense of one’s own self-worth and capabilities.

Self-confidence is vital for job performance.

2.

Self-regulation (or managing one’s internal states, impulses, and resources) is made up of five elements:

• Self-control is recognising and controlling one’s emotions appropriately. This means not making rash decisions or over-reacting to a situation but remaining calm and rational. It leads to making balanced decisions based on what is really important, and not just how one feels at the time. Self-control usually manifests itself as the absence of visible emotion.

• Trustworthiness is one’s ability to maintain his or her integrity, which means ensuring that what one does is consistent with his or her personal values.

• Conscientiousness is taking responsibility for one’s own personal performance and making sure that it matches up to his or her ability and his or her values.

• Adaptability is the ability to respond flexibly to change.

• Innovation is being open to novel ideas and approaches.

3.

Self-motivation (or the force that drives you to do things) includes four elements: • Achievement drive is striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence.

• Commitment is aligning with the goals of a group or organisation.

• Initiative is readiness to act on opportunities.

• Optimism is persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

There are two areas of social or interpersonal competences in emotional intelligence: empathy and social skills.

1.

Empathy (or awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns) is made up of five elements: • Understanding others is sensing others’ feelings and perspectives and taking an active interest in their concerns.

• Developing others means acting in their needs and concerns and helping them to develop to their full potential.

• Service orientation means putting the needs of customers first and looking for ways to improve their satisfaction and loyalty.

• Leveraging diversity means being able to create and develop opportunities for different kinds of people and tailoring the way one interacts with others to fit their needs and feelings.

• Political awareness means sensing and responding to a group’s emotional undercurrents and power relationships.

2.

Social skills (or adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others) includes eight elements: • Persuasion and influence means wielding effective tactics for persuasion.

• Communication is the ability to listen to others and convey your own thoughts and feelings.

• Conflict management is the art of managing and resolving conflict.

• Leadership is the ability to articulate a vision and enthuse others with it.

• Change catalyst means initiating and managing change.

• Building bonds means nurturing instrumental relationships.

• Collaboration and cooperation mean working with others towards a shared goal.

• Team capabilities mean creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

References

Earley, C. P., Ang, S. (2003). Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions across Cultures.

Stanford, California, Stanford University Press.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York, Basic Books, Perseus Books Group.

Goleman, D. (1999). Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York, Bantam Books.

Hooper, A., Potter, J. (2011). Intelligent Leadership. London, Random House Business Books.

Howell, J. P. (2012). Snapshots of Great Leadership. New York, Routledge.

Livermore, D. (2010). Leading with Cultural Intelligence. New York, American Management Association.

Contact Details: Ildiko Nemethova University of Economics in Bratislava Faculty of Applied Languages Dolnozemská cesta 1 852 35