By Tyler Reimschisel, MD
As you probably recall, we are devoting the articles in the Tips for High-Impact Teamwork series to emotional regulation within teams. I consider emotional regulation a component of emotional intelligence (EI). Therefore, in my last article, I reviewed the dimensions of emotional intelligence. Two of the dimensions—self-awareness and self-management—can be categorized under the “self” label. The other two dimensions—social awareness and relationship management or influence—can be grouped under the “social” label.
From my perspective, emotional regulation is a skill within the self-awareness and self-management dimensions. Therefore, before we explore the topic of emotional regulation, I want to discuss the dimension of self-awareness in a bit more detail. As you will see momentarily, what we have learned from research studies on self-awareness more generally can inform our understanding of emotional regulation and self-awareness more specifically.
Typically, EI assessments compare how a person rates themselves on the EI dimensions with how individuals who know the person well rate that person on the same EI dimensions. It probably won’t surprise you that some individuals score higher on self-awareness than others. We all know individuals who appear to lack self-awareness, and we know other individuals who seem to be very insightful about themselves, their strengths and how they are perceived by others.
What may surprise you is that individuals who score low on EI assessments are more likely to overestimate their EI skills compared to those who score higher on the same assessment (Sheldon, Dunning, and Ames, 2014). In general, we have a poor ability to self-assess without clear parameters and guidelines. However, compared to individuals with higher EI, individuals with low EI are particularly poor self-assessors. This means they lack self-awareness and self-management and are oblivious to their poor abilities in these dimensions. To make matters worse, individuals with low EI tend to discount the measurement tool, dismiss their scores as inaccurate or irrelevant, and resist self-improvement or coaching (Ibid, 2014). In other words, the individuals on our teams who need the most help with self-awareness and self-management are the least likely to realize it and the most opposed to investing the effort it takes to enhance their EI abilities.
This is an excellent example of a larger phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. These researchers have expanded our understanding of how poor humans are in self-assessment. They showed that those who are less knowledgeable or skillful tend to overestimate their abilities while those who are more knowledgeable or skillful tend to underestimate their abilities. I am sure we have all seen this for ourselves—the best and brightest among us don’t fully appreciate their excellence and those most lacking in knowledge or skills are blissfully confident in their ignorance. This may be the reason that Darwin noted, “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (quoted in Grant, 2021).
Individuals with low EI frequently make matters worse because they lack insight into their inabilities, likely due to how our brain processes information. In her excellent book Being Wrong, Schulz explains why we are frequently unaware of our misperceptions and errors of insight. The processes our brains use to perceive the world, including insight into our abilities or lack thereof, are entirely below our levels of conscious awareness. Our brains are constantly integrating input from our senses, information about our bodily processes, and stored data from previous experiences. However, our brains complete this work beneath our consciousness. She writes:
The mechanisms that form our perceptions operate almost entirely below the level of conscious awareness; ironically, we cannot sense how we sense…Because we can’t perceive these processes in action, and thereby take note of the places where error could enter the picture, we feel that we cannot be wrong. Or, more precisely, we cannot feel that we could be wrong. Our obliviousness to the act of interpretation leaves us insensitive – literally – to the possibility of error (Shultz, 58, emphasis added).
What’s the result of our insensitivity to the possibility of being wrong? She observes:
A whole lot of us [including you and me!] go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient (Ibid, 4).
I think this phenomenon applies just as well to how we assess ourselves as it does to the accuracy of our assessments of other people, our understanding of facts, and our viewpoints about issues related to teamwork. Those who have the lowest EI, meaning that they have particularly low self-awareness, are even more susceptible to being blind to their ignorance!
So how does this general knowledge about self-awareness apply specifically to self-awareness about our emotional state and ability to regulate our emotions? From my perspective, those who have the lowest ability to accurately describe their emotions and assess their ability to emotionally regulate are most likely to: overestimate their insight about their emotions, have unfounded confidence in their capacity to emotionally regulate and are most prone to getting visibly defensive or outright angry at you if dare to share a different perspective about their abilities.
I see this lack of insight and poor emotional regulation play out frequently in the team coaching that I provide. For example, during a recent coaching session, one member of the team who was higher on the power hierarchy responded defensively when another team member had the courage to share their frustrations. The first team member tried to dismiss the feedback because it was the first time that they had heard about the concern. Then in a tone that I interpreted as both condescending and angry, they said that in the future people should come to them directly with concerns so it could be addressed in real time. When we probed their perspective a bit more, they were completely oblivious to the presence of a power differential on the team and appeared unaware of how their emotional response during the meeting was impacting the other members of the team at that moment. I am not sure that they ever fully grasped that their blindness to the existence of a team hierarchy and their lack of emotional regulation during the meeting were examples of why individuals would not come to them directly to discuss their concerns.
As we continue this series, I would like to invite you to consider the possibility that you may not be quite as good at emotional awareness and emotional regulation as you think you are. I know I need to keep reminding myself about my lack of insight, too. Let’s try to create a bit of space in our minds for the possibility that we could improve in these areas. Into that space, I am hoping to bring research findings, conceptual frameworks, approaches and strategies that will help all of us improve our abilities to perceive, name and regulate our emotions.
References:
Eurich T. Insight: The Surprising Truth about How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think. Crown Publishing Group, 2017.
Grant A. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Penguin Random House, 2021: 33.
Schulz K. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Sheldon OJ, Dunning D, and Ames DR. ‘Emotionally unskilled, unaware, and uninterested in learning more: reactions to feedback about deficits in emotional intelligence.” Journal of Applied Psychology 2014;99:125-137.
In 2000, David Dunning and Justin Kruger won an Ig Noble Prize. Awarded by Nobel Laureates, the Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements so surprising that they make people laugh, then think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative—and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology.