Vocabulary

Ability model: An approach that views EI as a standard intelligence that utilizes a distinct set of mental abilities that (1) are intercorrelated, (2) relate to other extant intelligences, and (3) develop with age and experience (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).
Accommodation: Changing one's beliefs about the world and how it works in light of new experience.
Affect: An emotional process; includes moods, subjective feelings, and discrete emotions.
Affect: Feelings that can be described in terms of two dimensions, the dimensions of arousal and valence (Figure 2). For example, high arousal positive states refer to excitement, elation, and enthusiasm. Low arousal positive states refer to calm, peacefulness, and relaxation. Whereas “actual affect” refers to the states that people actually feel, “ideal affect” refers to the states that people ideally want to feel.
Amygdala: Two almond-shaped structures located in the medial temporal lobes of the brain.
Appraisal structure: The set of appraisals that bring about an emotion.
Appraisal theories: Evaluations that relate what is happening in the environment to people’s values, goals, and beliefs. Appraisal theories of emotion contend that emotions are caused by patterns of appraisals, such as whether an event furthers or hinders a goal and whether an event can be coped with.
Awe: An emotion associated with profound, moving experiences. Awe comes about when people encounter an event that is vast (far from normal experience) but that can be accommodated in existing knowledge.
Balancing between goals: Shifting between a focal goal and other goals or temptations by putting less effort into the focal goal—usually with the intention of coming back to the focal goal at a later point in time.
Chills: A feeling of goosebumps, usually on the arms, scalp, and neck, that is often experienced during moments of awe.
Collective efficacy: The shared beliefs among members of a group about the group’s ability to effectively perform the tasks needed to attain a valued goal.
Commitment: The sense that a goal is both valuable and attainable
Confusion: An emotion associated with conflicting and contrary information, such as when people appraise an event as unfamiliar and as hard to understand. Confusion motivates people to work through the perplexing information and thus fosters deeper learning.
Conscious goal activation: When a person is fully aware of contextual influences and resulting goal-directed behavior.
Coping potential: People's beliefs about their ability to handle challenges.
Cultural display rules: These are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of emotional expressions according to social circumstances. Cultural display rules can work in a number of different ways. For example, they can require individuals to express emotions “as is” (i.e., as they feel them), to exaggerate their expressions to show more than what is actually felt, to tone down their expressions to show less than what is actually felt, to conceal their feelings by expressing something else, or to show nothing at all.
Culture: Shared, socially transmitted ideas (e.g., values, beliefs, attitudes) that are reflected in and reinforced by institutions, products, and rituals.
Deliberative phase: The first of the two basic stages of self-regulation in which individuals decide which of many potential goals to pursue at a given point in time.
Drive state: Affective experiences that motivate organisms to fulfill goals that are generally beneficial to their survival and reproduction.
Ego-depletion: The exhaustion of physiological and/or psychological resources following the completion of effortful self-control tasks, which subsequently leads to reduction in the capacity to exert more self-control.
Emotion: An experiential, physiological, and behavioral response to a personally meaningful stimulus.
Emotion coherence: The degree to which emotional responses (subjective experience, behavior, physiology, etc.) converge with one another.
Emotion fluctuation: The degree to which emotions vary or change in intensity over time.
Emotional intelligence: 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 thinking and actions. (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). EI includes four specific abilities: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions.
Emotions: Changes in subjective experience, physiological responding, and behavior in response to a meaningful event. Emotions tend to occur on the order of seconds (in contract to moods which may last for days).
Extrinsic motivation: Motivation stemming from the benefits associated with achieving a goal such as obtaining a monetary reward.
Facial expressions: Part of the expressive component of emotions, facial expressions of emotion communicate inner feelings to others.
Feelings: A general term used to describe a wide range of states that include emotions, moods, traits and that typically involve changes in subjective experience, physiological responding, and behavior in response to a meaningful event. Emotions typically occur on the order of seconds, whereas moods may last for days, and traits are tendencies to respond a certain way across various situations.
Four-Branch Model: An ability model developed by Drs. Peter Salovey and John Mayer that includes four main components of EI, arranged in hierarchical order, beginning with basic psychological processes and advancing to integrative psychological processes. The branches are (1) perception of emotion, (2) use of emotion to facilitate thinking, (3) understanding emotion, and (4) management of emotion.
Functionalist theories of emotion: Theories of emotion that emphasize the adaptive role of an emotion in handling common problems throughout evolutionary history.
Goal: The cognitive representation of a desired state (outcome).
Highlighting a goal: Prioritizing a focal goal over other goals or temptations by putting more effort into the focal goal.
Homeostasis: The tendency of an organism to maintain a stable state across all the different physiological systems in the body.
Homeostatic set point: An ideal level that the system being regulated must be monitored and compared to.
Hypothalamus: A portion of the brain involved in a variety of functions, including the secretion of various hormones and the regulation of hunger and sexual arousal.
Hypothalamus: A brain structure located below the thalamus and above the brain stem.
Imaginal performances: When imagining yourself doing well increases self-efficacy.
Impasse-driven learning: An approach to instruction that motivates active learning by having learners work through perplexing barriers.
Implemental phase: The second of the two basic stages of self-regulation in which individuals plan specific actions related to their selected goal.
Independent self: A model or view of the self as distinct from others and as stable across different situations. The goal of the independent self is to express and assert the self, and to influence others. This model of self is prevalent in many individualistic, Western contexts (e.g., the United States, Australia, Western Europe).
Interdependent self: A model or view of the self as connected to others and as changing in response to different situations. The goal of the interdependent self is to suppress personal preferences and desires, and to adjust to others. This model of self is prevalent in many collectivistic, East Asian contexts (e.g., China, Japan, Korea).
Interest: An emotion associated with curiosity and intrigue, interest motivates engaging with new things and learning more about them. It is one of the earliest emotions to develop and a resource for intrinsically motivated learning across the life span.
Interpersonal: This refers to the relationship or interaction between two or more individuals in a group. Thus, the interpersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of one’s emotion on others, or to the relationship between oneself and others.
Intrapersonal: This refers to what occurs within oneself. Thus, the intrapersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of emotion to individuals that occur physically inside their bodies and psychologically inside their minds.
Intrinsic motivation: Motivation stemming from the benefits associated with the process of pursuing a goal such as having a fulfilling experience.
Intrinsically motivated learning: Learning that is “for its own sake”—such as learning motivated by curiosity and wonder—instead of learning to gain rewards or social approval.
Knowledge emotions: A family of emotions associated with learning, reflecting, and exploring. These emotions come about when unexpected and unfamiliar events happen in the environment. Broadly speaking, they motivate people to explore unfamiliar things, which builds knowledge and expertise over the long run.
Lordosis: A physical sexual posture in females that serves as an invitation to mate.
Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT): A 141-item performance assessment of EI that measures the four emotion abilities (as defined by the four-branch model of EI) with a total of eight tasks.
Mixed and Trait Models: Approaches that view EI as a combination of self-perceived emotion skills, personality traits, and attitudes.
Motivation: The psychological driving force that enables action in the course of goal pursuit.
Neuroscience: The study of the nervous system.
Nonconscious goal activation: When activation occurs outside a person’s awareness, such that the person is unaware of the reasons behind her goal-directed thoughts and behaviors.
Nucleus accumbens: A region of the basal forebrain located in front of the preoptic region.
Openness to experience: One of the five major factors of personality, this trait is associated with higher curiosity, creativity, emotional breadth, and open-mindedness. People high in openness to experience are more likely to experience interest and awe.
Orbital frontal cortex: A region of the frontal lobes of the brain above the eye sockets.
Performance assessment: A method of measurement associated with ability models of EI that evaluate the test taker’s ability to solve emotion-related problems.
Performance experiences: When past successes or failures lead to changes in self-efficacy.
Periaqueductal gray: The gray matter in the midbrain near the cerebral aqueduct.
Preoptic area: A region in the anterior hypothalamus involved in generating and regulating male sexual behavior.
Preoptic region: A part of the anterior hypothalamus.
Prevention focus: One of two self-regulatory orientations emphasizing safety, responsibility, and security needs, and viewing goals as “oughts.” This self-regulatory focus seeks to avoid losses (the presence of negatives) and approach non-losses (the absence of negatives).
Progress: The perception of reducing the discrepancy between one’s current state and one’s desired state in goal pursuit.
Promotion focus: One of two self-regulatory orientations emphasizing hopes, accomplishments, and advancement needs, and viewing goals as “ideals.” This self-regulatory focus seeks to approach gains (the presence of positives) and avoid non-gains (the absence of positives).
Reward value: A neuropsychological measure of an outcome’s affective importance to an organism.
Satiation: The state of being full to satisfaction and no longer desiring to take on more.
Self-control: The capacity to control impulses, emotions, desires, and actions in order to resist a temptation and adhere to a valued goal.
Self-efficacy: The belief that you are able to effectively perform the tasks needed to attain a valued goal.
Self-regulation: The complex process through which people control their thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Self-regulation: The processes through which individuals alter their emotions, desires, and actions in the course of pursuing a goal.
Self-report assessment: A method of measurement associated with mixed and trait models of EI, which evaluates the test taker’s perceived emotion-related skills, distinct personality traits, and other characteristics.
Self-report measure: A type of questionnaire in which participants answer questions whose answers correspond to numerical values that can be added to create an overall index of some construct.
Social and cultural: Society refers to a system of relationships between individuals and groups of individuals; culture refers to the meaning and information afforded to that system that is transmitted across generations. Thus, the social and cultural functions of emotion refer to the effects that emotions have on the functioning and maintenance of societies and cultures.
Social and emotional learning (SEL): The real-world application of EI in an educational setting and/or classroom that involves curricula that teach the process of integrating thinking, feeling, and behaving in order to become aware of the self and of others, make responsible decisions, and manage one’s own behaviors and those of others (Elias et al., 1997)
Social constructivism: Social constructivism proposes that knowledge is first created and learned within a social context and is then adopted by individuals.
Social referencing: This refers to the process whereby individuals look for information from others to clarify a situation, and then use that information to act. Thus, individuals will often use the emotional expressions of others as a source of information to make decisions about their own behavior.
Stria terminalis: A band of fibers that runs along the top surface of the thalamus.
Surprise: An emotion rooted in expectancy violation that orients people toward the unexpected event.
Task-specific measures of self-efficacy: Measures that ask about self-efficacy beliefs for a particular task (e.g., athletic self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy).
Thalamus: A structure in the midline of the brain located between the midbrain and the cerebral cortex.
Trait curiosity: Stable individual-differences in how easily and how often people become curious.
Universalism: Universalism proposes that there are single objective standards, independent of culture, in basic domains such as learning, reasoning, and emotion that are a part of all human experience.
Verbal persuasion: When trusted people (friends, family, experts) influence your self-efficacy for better or worse by either encouraging or discouraging you about your ability to succeed.
Vicarious performances: When seeing other people succeed or fail leads to changes in self-efficacy.
Visual cortex: The part of the brain that processes visual information, located in the back of the brain.
Well-being: The experience of mental and physical health and the absence of disorder.