I just read an interesting article by Andrew Giambrone over at The Atlantic entitled ‘People Skills’ Have a Dark Side — And We’re Just Now Understanding It. Giambrone talks about how common business wisdom holds that good employees should have high EI or emotional intelligence (a concept popularized by Daniel Goleman back in the mid-1990s). According to this wisdom, potential employees with high EI are better able to engage in such things as reflective listening, intuiting needs, being mindful, and being empathetic. Does that list sound familiar? It should. This is the same list that is often used to describe persons who are securely attached. But there’s a catch, one that Giambrone talks about in his article.
Researchers are finding that there is a dark side to Emotional Intelligence (see Giambrone’s article for references). Apparently people with a moderate amount of EI are often easily duped. As Giambrone points out, reading emotions (which is one characteristic of having EI) is not the same as knowing what’s truly going on inside a person’s mind. A person could be creating an emotional milieu along with colorful mental images for the sole purpose of being deceptive. Good actors are paid handsomely for such well developed skills (which they use for the good of entertainment). Apparently people with moderate EI often fall for these elaborate rouses because they take emotions—weather genuine or faked—at face value.
And which people are good at creating elaborate rouses? Giambrone tells us that it is people with very high EI. Turns out that narcissists have very good EI. The problem is, they use their “people skills” for bad, not good. And this goes along with research by Peter Fonagy and his colleagues: people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are incredibly adept at reading other people’s minds. Unfortunately people with BPD tend to use their mindfulness abilities to manipulate the mind’s of others (especially the mind’s of therapists attempting to help them).
So, people with moderate Emotional Intelligence may open themselves up to being duped. (1) And people with abundant EI may use their “people skills” to create elaborate rouses designed to deceive and manipulate others. All of this points out that there is no substitute for what is commonly called “streets smarts.” If you will recall my early posts on the subject, “smoke in a room” research tends to suggest that people who are insecurely attached are able to spot and react to danger more quickly than securely attached people. It may just be that insecurely attached people are endowed with a form of natural street smarts. They just don’t take people at face value. Maybe insecurely attached people are able to consider both mental and real world realities and ask the question: “Do both worlds make sense and square one with the other?” Sad to say but while growing up many insecurely attached people experienced scenarios such as the following: a parent who would say they loved their child but then would be chronically late picking him or her up from school. If insecurely attached people sense any dissonance or discord between the two worlds—mental world versus real world—their instincts (born from insecure attachment) may tell them “run” (or in the case of the business world, don’t hire). For an interesting example, consider the following article: Why I Regretted Hiring the ‘Perfect’ Employee.
Notes:
(1) The developmental psychologist Erik Erikson (who Bowlby communicated with regularly) suggested that we need what he called basic trust in order to properly navigate social waters. According to Erikson, too much trust and we become gullible. Too little trust and we become chronically distrustful. So, trust is a lot like the porridge in the fairytale story Goldilocks and the Three Bears: If trust is too hot (e.g., too bountiful) then it leads to being gullible; too cold (e.g., too little) then it leads to misanthropy.
Believe it or not, our political system is built on two versions of trust: too little (conservatives) and too much (liberals). As cognitive scientist turned political commentator George Lakoff tells us, the two parties in our political system are based on differing tolerances of the idea of freeloading: taking goods and services (i.e., welfare and free medical clinics) with no intention of paying for them at some later point in time. Conservatives loath freeloaders and have no tolerance for them. Conservatives view liberals as being dupes for knowingly allowing freeloaders to ripoff the system. Liberals have a high tolerance for freeloading and view conservatives as being heartless and cold for knowingly not providing help to others in need. Liberals view freeloading as the cost of doing business in a warm and nurturing society. Conservatives view freeloading as the royal road toward being a deadbeat and a drain on society. Liberals view handouts as “handups”: the small help a person may need to get their feet back on the ground.
Neither model is right or wrong, they just are. But they are at odds with one another. On occasion, the two models do overlap. As an example, both liberals and conservatives condemn the practice of selling what used to be known as food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)) for pennies on the dollar so that such aid could then be used to purchase non-essentials such as alcohol and cigarettes. The liberal model has its limits and will not tolerate egregious freeloading. All this to say that people with low trust levels tend to be drawn to the conservative end of the political spectrum; and those with abundant trust to the liberal end.
The key is to not gravitate toward one end or the other of the political spectrum, but to have discernment when it comes to trust. How do you gain discernment with respect to trust? Putting broken record back on the phonograph: Executive Function. Trust Discernment, if you will, might be behind state’s attempts (both red and blue) to limit what SNAP assistance can be used for: not for junk food (Oregon), not for steak or energy drinks (Missouri), and not at “movie theaters, nail salons, pools and spas, liquor stores, jewelry stores, casinos or racing facilities, tattoo and piercing parlors, cruise ships, and other locations” (Kansas via the ThinkProgress.org web site). I guess like with public assistance, trust needs to be just right for it to work properly. Interestingly, Lakoff points to preliminary brain research that suggests that the brains of liberals and conservatives are structurally different. These brain differences may explain why people with distanced attachment are drawn toward conservatism while people with enmeshed attachment are drawn toward liberalism. Maybe some securely attached people have enough Trust Discernment (or Erikson’s basic trust) to not trust politicians of any stripe.
Comment: Bad News for the Securely Attached—Being Duped
I just read an interesting article by Andrew Giambrone over at The Atlantic entitled ‘People Skills’ Have a Dark Side — And We’re Just Now Understanding It. Giambrone talks about how common business wisdom holds that good employees should have high EI or emotional intelligence (a concept popularized by Daniel Goleman back in the mid-1990s). According to this wisdom, potential employees with high EI are better able to engage in such things as reflective listening, intuiting needs, being mindful, and being empathetic. Does that list sound familiar? It should. This is the same list that is often used to describe persons who are securely attached. But there’s a catch, one that Giambrone talks about in his article.
Researchers are finding that there is a dark side to Emotional Intelligence (see Giambrone’s article for references). Apparently people with a moderate amount of EI are often easily duped. As Giambrone points out, reading emotions (which is one characteristic of having EI) is not the same as knowing what’s truly going on inside a person’s mind. A person could be creating an emotional milieu along with colorful mental images for the sole purpose of being deceptive. Good actors are paid handsomely for such well developed skills (which they use for the good of entertainment). Apparently people with moderate EI often fall for these elaborate rouses because they take emotions—weather genuine or faked—at face value.
And which people are good at creating elaborate rouses? Giambrone tells us that it is people with very high EI. Turns out that narcissists have very good EI. The problem is, they use their “people skills” for bad, not good. And this goes along with research by Peter Fonagy and his colleagues: people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are incredibly adept at reading other people’s minds. Unfortunately people with BPD tend to use their mindfulness abilities to manipulate the mind’s of others (especially the mind’s of therapists attempting to help them).
So, people with moderate Emotional Intelligence may open themselves up to being duped. (1) And people with abundant EI may use their “people skills” to create elaborate rouses designed to deceive and manipulate others. All of this points out that there is no substitute for what is commonly called “streets smarts.” If you will recall my early posts on the subject, “smoke in a room” research tends to suggest that people who are insecurely attached are able to spot and react to danger more quickly than securely attached people. It may just be that insecurely attached people are endowed with a form of natural street smarts. They just don’t take people at face value. Maybe insecurely attached people are able to consider both mental and real world realities and ask the question: “Do both worlds make sense and square one with the other?” Sad to say but while growing up many insecurely attached people experienced scenarios such as the following: a parent who would say they loved their child but then would be chronically late picking him or her up from school. If insecurely attached people sense any dissonance or discord between the two worlds—mental world versus real world—their instincts (born from insecure attachment) may tell them “run” (or in the case of the business world, don’t hire). For an interesting example, consider the following article: Why I Regretted Hiring the ‘Perfect’ Employee.
Notes:
(1) The developmental psychologist Erik Erikson (who Bowlby communicated with regularly) suggested that we need what he called basic trust in order to properly navigate social waters. According to Erikson, too much trust and we become gullible. Too little trust and we become chronically distrustful. So, trust is a lot like the porridge in the fairytale story Goldilocks and the Three Bears: If trust is too hot (e.g., too bountiful) then it leads to being gullible; too cold (e.g., too little) then it leads to misanthropy.
Believe it or not, our political system is built on two versions of trust: too little (conservatives) and too much (liberals). As cognitive scientist turned political commentator George Lakoff tells us, the two parties in our political system are based on differing tolerances of the idea of freeloading: taking goods and services (i.e., welfare and free medical clinics) with no intention of paying for them at some later point in time. Conservatives loath freeloaders and have no tolerance for them. Conservatives view liberals as being dupes for knowingly allowing freeloaders to ripoff the system. Liberals have a high tolerance for freeloading and view conservatives as being heartless and cold for knowingly not providing help to others in need. Liberals view freeloading as the cost of doing business in a warm and nurturing society. Conservatives view freeloading as the royal road toward being a deadbeat and a drain on society. Liberals view handouts as “handups”: the small help a person may need to get their feet back on the ground.
Neither model is right or wrong, they just are. But they are at odds with one another. On occasion, the two models do overlap. As an example, both liberals and conservatives condemn the practice of selling what used to be known as food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)) for pennies on the dollar so that such aid could then be used to purchase non-essentials such as alcohol and cigarettes. The liberal model has its limits and will not tolerate egregious freeloading. All this to say that people with low trust levels tend to be drawn to the conservative end of the political spectrum; and those with abundant trust to the liberal end.
The key is to not gravitate toward one end or the other of the political spectrum, but to have discernment when it comes to trust. How do you gain discernment with respect to trust? Putting broken record back on the phonograph: Executive Function. Trust Discernment, if you will, might be behind state’s attempts (both red and blue) to limit what SNAP assistance can be used for: not for junk food (Oregon), not for steak or energy drinks (Missouri), and not at “movie theaters, nail salons, pools and spas, liquor stores, jewelry stores, casinos or racing facilities, tattoo and piercing parlors, cruise ships, and other locations” (Kansas via the ThinkProgress.org web site). I guess like with public assistance, trust needs to be just right for it to work properly. Interestingly, Lakoff points to preliminary brain research that suggests that the brains of liberals and conservatives are structurally different. These brain differences may explain why people with distanced attachment are drawn toward conservatism while people with enmeshed attachment are drawn toward liberalism. Maybe some securely attached people have enough Trust Discernment (or Erikson’s basic trust) to not trust politicians of any stripe.