Emotions have allowed human beings to adapt to the environment and ensure the survival of our species throughout evolution. All our emotions contain a message and move us to action. Knowing them and being able to manage them is not a simple task, at least in some circumstances, but it contributes very significantly to psychological well-being.
Being aware of our own emotions and the emotions of others is the first step to being able to manage them. Think about how many times you have stopped to think about your emotions, located them in the form of bodily sensations and thought about the message they want to convey to you.
In this Psychology-Online article we tell you What is emotional awareness: characteristics and examples.
What is emotional awareness
Emotional awareness refers to knowledge and recognition of one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. After seeing the definition of emotional awareness, let’s talk about the levels.
In 1987, Lane and Schwartz developed a theoretical model that includes five levels of emotional awareness whose complexity increases as we level up. The same authors also participate in the development of an evaluation instrument called “Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale” (Lane, RD, Quinlan, DM, Schwartz, GE, Walker, PA and Zeitlin, SB, 1990) in which they describe 20 scenes posing situations that affect two people to later ask how both people would feel. Next, we briefly explain what these consist of. five levels of emotional awareness.
- Level 1. Body sensations: This first level is limited to the physical sensations that cause the emotion: “I have a knot in my stomach,” “I don’t feel well,” etc.
- Level 2. Tendency to action: at the second level the person is already preparing the action, but without yet having identified the emotion as such. For example, “I don’t feel well and I want to leave here.”
- Level 3: Unique emotion: This third level is where the emotion is identified as such “I am afraid”, “I am surprised”, etc.
- Level 4. Mix of emotions: at this level our emotion mixes with the other person’s emotion. “If they give the best worker award to me and not to my colleague, I will feel happy and he will feel sad.”
- Level 5. Combination: This last level would represent the combination of mixtures of emotions. For example: “If they give the best worker award to me and not to my colleague, I will feel happy and he will feel sad. Even so, I will also feel worried about him and he will surely feel proud of me.”
Characteristics of emotional awareness
Why is emotional awareness so important? What benefits does it bring us? Emotional self-awareness implies, following:
- Know what emotions we feel and why we feel them.
- Know what links They have our feelings, thoughts, words and actions.
- Become aware of how our feelings influence our performance.
- Have a basic knowledge of our values and objectives.
Examples of emotional awareness
In our daily lives we can find many examples related to the recognition of our emotions. In some cases, this recognition is simple and in others it may take us more to become aware of them. Let’s look at some examples of emotional awareness:
- Imagine that you have to make a public presentation. Before this moment you will notice a lot of nerves, that is, you have some anxiety. It won’t even be difficult for you to identify in which parts of the body you are feeling this anxiety: “I’m afraid of doing it wrong, I have a lump in my throat”, “I’m worried that I won’t be able to explain myself well, my mouth is dry”, etc. Knowing this is an example of emotional self-awareness.
- Think now about the pandemic situation we are experiencing: what emotions are you experiencing? Perhaps in this example emotional recognition is more complicated, since we are feeling many emotions at the same time: anger, sadness, frustration… Separating and identifying them will be a more complicated task, which will have an impact on their management and is also an example of emotional self-awareness.
- Emotional awareness also encompasses recognition of the emotional states of others. Think, for example, of the healthcare workers we see interviewed on television: What emotions are they feeling when they talk about the collapse in the ICUs? Is it the same emotion that appears when patients are discharged? What type of emotions do you identify in both cases?
- Finally, on a more everyday level, we can be aware of how does a friend feel when we have made a comment that may have offended you. He may feel anger and we may feel shame for our action.
Activities to work on emotional awareness
To work on emotional awareness, you can do some activities of various types. Below, we offer you some guidelines and activities to work on emotional awareness:
1. Psychoeducation
At a more theoretical level we can document and read about emotions and emotional functioning, know what types of emotions exist, etc. This will allow us to perform other more practical exercises to become aware of our emotions.
2. Observation
Observation is a way of collecting information about ourselves and our environment. Practice observation to become aware of the emotions of others and use self-observation to become aware of your own. Think about where and how you feel them: “I feel heartburn,” “my pulse is racing,” etc. Pay attention to the bodily sensations you feel, your thoughts, your reactions and pay attention to non-verbal language to interpret and be aware of the emotions of others.
3. Labeling emotions
Name the emotions you feel and those you think others feel. Also try to connect the emotion with the causes that cause it: in some cases it will be easier (“I’m nervous because I have to speak in public” and in other cases it will be more complicated “I’m nervous and I don’t really know why”). Here you will find one.
4. Situations
Another emotional self-awareness exercise is the following: consider some situations such as failing an exam, announcing a pregnancy, your best friend getting married, the death of a family member, etc. And think about the emotions that people usually feel in those situations. On the contrary, make a list of emotions and pose situations that provoke them.
5. Face Chart
This task can be helpful when working on emotions with children. We can offer them a sheet of paper with a series of painted circles and ask them to paint a happy face on the first one, a sad face on the second one, and an angry face on the third one. In this way they will think and become aware of what expressions we use when we experience each emotion.
In this article about , you will find more activities to work on emotional awareness.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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References
- Lane, RD, Quinlan, DM, Schwartz, GE, Walker, PA, & Zeitlin, SB (1990). The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale: A Cognitive-Developmental Measure of Emotion. Journal of Personality Assessment, 55(1 and 2), 124-134.
- Goleman, D. (1998). The practice of emotional intelligence. Barcelona: Kairos.
Bibliography
- Iriarte Redín, C., Alonso-Gancedo, N. and Sobrino, A. (2006). Relationships between emotional and moral development to be taken into account in the educational field: proposal for an intervention program. Electronic Journal of Psychoeducational Research, 4.1 (8), 177-212