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Questions & Answers

Emma Parfitt — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:34:00 +0000

This month my task is to clarify my research questions and methods in greater detail. Today I mind mapped all the ideas I had and formed some questions as follows:

Overall research question: Does traditional storytelling have an effect on adolescent emotional aptitude (that is emotional ability)

This then breaks down into a set of sub-questions:

1/ How can we measure if the emotional aptitude of adolescents changes or remains the same in response to storytelling?

2/ What processes may be occurring between the storyteller and the listener that work with or against emotional aptitude? How can these be used in a creative piece?

3/ How can storytelling be compared to reading and writing?

4/ Does storytelling have an effect on social relationships at the individual, group and community level?

Creative piece: As a creative experiment I will refer to the adolescents’ thoughts from this research to inspire short stories with themes of emotional aptitude, blending reality and the fantastical.

The neurologist Oliver Sacks will be at Warwick University as a visiting professor. I hope to talk to him about some of the questions I have. As after reading about some brain processes in EI (Daniel Goleman) the neocortex seems to play an important part in the process of emotional ability.

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The Intertwined Brain

Emma Parfitt — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:34:00 +0000

‘what we are born with is what worked best for the last 50,000 human generations’

(Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, p5)

In Emotional Intelligence Goleman discusses what happens when ‘passions overwhelm reason.’ Our reactions to the world around us have evolved over time. These ‘automatic reactions’ are extremely important in dangerous situations. Reactions that don’t always make logical sense, such as the two parents that gave up their lives to rescue their daughter in a train crash; but it could be argued biological and emotional sense. They saved her to protect their genes, as Dawkins might say, and the way this decision was reached was through love.

Goleman called emotions ‘impulses to act’, determined by biological and cultural acts: unconsciously when you feel tenderness or love towards a person the body undergoes a relaxation response ‘a general state of calm and contentment’; and how we display this emotion is also determined by our culture. In this way humans have two minds the rational and emotional, the head and the heart, the intertwined brain which forms our mental state.

There is an advantage to the brain working in this way. Emotions, or intuitions, can take over where thinking could cost us our lives. The amygdala is important when it comes to Emotional Intelligence. It measures new experiences against previous ones looking for a match. There is one on both sides of the brain. In a crisis these amygdalas trigger the secretion of hormones for the fight-or-flight response. These can take over from the rational mind. How? Well, the work of LeDoux has demonstrated the existence of branching brain function. When a sensory signal is passed from the eye or the ear to the Thalamus it then splits in two directions.

1/ A signal travels to the amygdala

2/ The other to the neocortex.

This allows the amygdala to respond before the slow neocortex (the thinking part). Therefore in an emergency we act before we think. But DON’T PANNIC we also have an ‘emotional manager’ to control these impulses. The prefrontal cortex.

Basically this splitting of the brain processes is one of the reasons why ‘emotion is so important in decision making.’ Our emotions remind us of previous situations where things have or haven’t worked and support informed choices.

Goleman concludes from this, ‘It is not just IQ but emotionalintelligence’ that has a role to play. As humans we all have weaknesses and strengths. Personality and emotional characteristics other than IQ such as persistence and empathy can help a person live a fulfilling career or life. There is more to life than money, and not everyone is suited to academic pursuits or high financial positions or wants to be. It is time that our schools supported pupils in life skills, not just grades. Some already are. If we teach young people to focus on their strengths with kindness towards others weaknesses, including their own, perhaps it will allow us to break from the cycles of academia and education that are stifling and repressing those unable to speak up for themselves.

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Laura Perls

Emma Parfitt — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Living at the Boundary book review and thoughts.

‘It is a false question whether to repress or not to repress aggression. Since aggression is an indispensable ingredient of human makeup, we have to use it, to develop it into a valuable instrument for the management of our lives.’ (Laura Perls, Living at the Boundary, p43)

Substituing emotion

Although the quote above focuses on aggression another emotion could be substituted in its place. Our current frame of mind works on the forces of motivation behind our actions (suppressed or not). Perls’ chapter on ‘How to Educate Children for Peace’ raises some interesting ideas. I don’t agree with all of them.

For example, Perls discusses how the suppression of aggression could lead to intellectual inhibition with negative effects on critical thinking. She argues that by supressing children we are teaching them to surrender their insight and will to others. Her arguement is centered on extreme situations. I believe that there is a danger of suppression in an environment where home, school, society all act towards controlling a person’s identity.

Thankfully, there are other environmental factors to take into account that have an influencing effect on the mind: access to books, teachers, friends, family members, and the wider society. These all affect our mind and emotional intelligence as well as personality traits and IQ. Being exposed to different influences teaches us what is expected. Yet our mind is our own: we don’t have to agree with the status quo.

A driving force

However I think that controlling environments do have an emotional impact. Perls knows, as a psychologist, that emotion is part of human instinct, and how we relate to the world. Suppression could lead to the expression of emotion in explosive ways such as extreme violent behaviour, like rape. This can happen where the emotion is unable to be transformed because skills are not in place to know how to do so.

Often seen as negative, Perls points out that aggression can provide us with the impetus to get things done. It is a driving force in order to tackle problems and find solutions. It may even be used in ‘resistance against aggression’ by using its power to ‘build a strong conscience, as a means of directing these energies’ (41).

Encouragement

Perls’ words support encouraging the recognition, and support, of emotions in children and adolescents. An important life stage is when we come to realise that we have a choice when it comes to dealing with our feelings. Taking a step back is one of the reasons why Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and meditation work for so many people. If we did this through storytelling with children and adolescents, helping them recognise and transform their emotions, things really could begin to change. They are already. And it isn’t too late to begin the transformation as adults either.

Transformation through story

We learn to connect to and explore emotions through story. Tanith Lee in Red as Blood talks of love in its many misunderstood forms. For example ‘Beauty’, in Lee’s retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ it is set in the future. The beasts are aliens from another planet. She writes of finding love, ‘Of the thing one has always yearned for. To be known, accepted, and so to be at peace. No longer unique, or shut in, or shut out, or alone’ (166). Lee covers many complex emotions, the yearning to be loved, and the understanding that it is when we find someone to love us as we are that we find peace.

This is in great contrast to Disney’s version of love. I love the magic and the music of fantasy animation while being wary that they spoon feed us into believing that one is only complete with another person. And it is usually an impossibly perfect specimen of the opposite sex. Sure, the sex drive is built towards the seeking of others for reproduction, but this is not the be all and end all for many people. For some it is the altruistic bonds we form that count, as culture and biology work hand in hand to create the individuals we become.

Folk tales, carry different messages. Folk tales usually allowing the ‘hero’ to recognise in his or her quest that happiness comes from within and love is found along the way by accident. Once we’ve found in ourselves what makes us content then this can be shared with another person. There are many different roads in life. Let’s hope for the wisdom and compassion to choose a good one.

Check out this narrative!

A Friendship of Thistles

A_Friendship_of_Thistles_3

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Emotional Intelligence

Emma Parfitt — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 14:25:00 +0000

Emotional Intelligence is a word banded around a lot these days. My interest in the subject came through stories, and how we connect stories that we hear to our own emotional response.

‘We may ask what is truth in the face of centuries of retelling? The answer lies with experience: as long as a tale is told, it has meaning (truth), will evoke response and can be understood.’

(Alida Gersie and Nancy King. Storymaking in Education and Therapy, p.29)

My research

I’ve had to change methods a few times this week as NVivo is not as user friendly, or flexible, as I’d hoped. Coding is complicated. And have you ever noticed how highly complicated emotions are? I have become emersed in lines of text, gone in the wrong direction, realised things weren’t working, and reined myself in to ask: What am I looking for exactly? How can I make this project more specific and manageable? I’ve also been reading up on emotional intelligence (EI).

A definition of emotional intelligence (EI)

EI has been defined by D. Goleman as ‘Being able to motivate one-self and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope’ (Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ, 1996).

It’s a pretty high order in today’s technology bombarded world when we have to shut things off in order to concentrate on the task in hand.

I believe that EI is crucial to why traditional storytelling is relevant today. The benefits of group storytelling are rooted at a cultural and community level; something many feel we are struggling to maintain in the face of current global pressures and technologies.

Experiments with story or real-world situations?

Neil Frude came up with an experimental concept to focus on one emotion and set up different test groups. This has great potential. It is always great to talk to someone passionate about the same field of study. I considered his idea very carefully before deciding that I wish to focus on testing in real world situations for now: largely because a mixed-method approach may reveal unexpected patterns and themes which can be further explored at a later stage.

Neil Frude and Steve Killick are interested in how stories can be used to help children ‘develop cognitively and emotionally.’ Exposing a child to ‘a threatening storyline’ whilst in the present of a parent or caregiver ‘challenges the child’s sense of security’ and yet allows them to get ‘reassurance’ strengthening their bond with the adult (Family Storytelling and the Attachment Relationship, Psychodynamic Practice 17.4, 2011, pp.441–455).

Much work has been done on attachment theory. If early attachments to a caregiver affect the way we relate to others, then activities such as reading to our children become essential to create a society that we can be proud to live in.

Mixed models

How EI can be tested is still up for discussion. The area is a relatively new one. Bracket et al. did a comparison of methods such as MSCEIT and Bar-On. The first assesses the ability to manage emotions while Bar-On is more of a mixed model, relying on self-reports of competency, emotional ability and personality traits (Relating Emotional Abilities to Social Functioning, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91.4, 2006, p.780).

There is much work to be done on the best way to measure EI. Though we can simplify tests to deconstruct the processes involved it is when we reconstruct, and form more complex models, that we get a more complete picture of the emotional and mental skills comprising an individual.

Future directions

One of the future directions Brackett et al. suggests we focus on include the processes involved in interpersonal relationships and social situations: this ties into my hypothesis that storytelling will cause change over time in the emotional intelligence of adolescents. I am trying to discover what changes are taking place and the processes underlying them. I am trying to find meaning in the stories that allow communication between our inner and outer worlds.

Read my book about my final research here!

If you are looking for a book to read about sisterhood and the resilience of friendship check this out:

‘Infallibly, she knew a golden rope had been placed in her hands. She had only, with patience and wisdom, to draw it in.’

(Tanith Lee, The Golden Rope in Red As Blood).

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