We’ve been offering the ability to read behaviour in others and recognizing it in ourselves for years. This includes body language, tone, non-verbal communication, subtext, etc. This has always been an implicit part of our Actor training. However, the need has arisen to offer Emotional Intelligence to non-Actors, to people in business, sales, for interpersonal effectiveness in relationships, both business and Personal. So we thought it was about time we dedicated a page and a course called Emotional Intelligence.
As part of the work we do in our fundamentals class with Actors, Emotional Intelligence is a huge aspect of every Actor’s arsenal. But what is Emotional Intelligence? There are several books on the subject, which you can read, but they can get clinically intensive. An explanation which we found is clear and not too clinical for those of us who are not Psychologists was offered in an ebook, an extract of which is quoted below. The following is a description from PositivePsychology.com which we have pasted:
The ability to accurately perceive and understand the emotions of the people around us is
a core component of emotional intelligence (Davies, Stankov & Roberts, 1998). Accurately
“reading” other people’s emotions plays a key role in social interaction (Kilts, Egan, Gideon,
Ely, & Hoffman, 2003) as it facilitates appropriate responding and bonding (Isaacowitz et
al., 2007). There are three different ways to “read” other people’s emotions.
First, one can try to decipher facial expressions. Past research has provided strong evidence
for the universal facial expressions of seven emotions – anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy,
sadness, and surprise. For instance, a study by Friesen (1972) found that the same facial
expressions of emotions were produced spontaneously by members of very different
cultures in reaction to emotion-eliciting films.
Second, one can attempt to “read” body language. There is evidence to suggest that
numerous emotions, including pride, shame, anger, fear, and disgust (e.g., de Gelder &
van den Stock, 2011; Keltner, 1995; Tracy, Robins, & Schriber, 2009) can be accurately
deciphered from nonverbal bodily displays (see Witkower & Tracy, 2018 for a review).
Third, it is possible to decode emotions by observing speech. People use hundreds, if
not thousands, of semantic terms to express a wide variety of emotional states (Russell,
1991; Sabini & Silver, 2005). Aside from the verbal information in speech, emotions are
also expressed by the non-verbal qualities of speech, such as pitch, loudness and rate of
speech (for reviews see Scherer 1977, 1981). In this tool, participants practice reading
other people’s emotions by exploring each of these three ways of decoding emotions.
Hopefully the connection between communicating as Actors on Stage or Screen, emotions to an audience, whether through text or subtext is becoming clear as an integral part of an Actor’s toolkit. But where else would one find a ‘practical’ course that develops one’s Emotional Intelligence than through the work we do in our school? Probably there are not many places that offer quite what we do in the way that we do it.
While our Fundamentals class caters to both Actors and Non-Actors as the Foundation of the Meisner Technique which leads to further (more advanced) Acting courses we offer, this class is offered to non-Actors. It has a slightly different focus, and Actors are of course welcome to join this class too.
The folks at PositivePsychology.com go on to say:
1: Facial expressions
The face is a dynamic canvas on which people display their emotional states, and from which they decode the emotional states of others. For instance, a person who is surprised may raise his eyebrows, open his eyes wide, and drop his jaw. When a single emotion emerges and the individual does not attempt to modify or conceal it, facial expressions typically last between 0.5 to 4 seconds and involve the entire face. The ability to correctly perceive and understand other people’s emotions through facial expressions is associated with better personal and social effectiveness, and as such is a key aspect of optimal human functioning.
2: Bodily expressions
There is evidence to suggest that numerous emotions, including pride, shame, anger, fear, and disgust can be accurately deciphered from nonverbal bodily displays. Pride, for instance, is typically signaled by an expanded chest, upward head tilt, and arms akimbo—either spread out from the body with hands on hips or raised above the head with hands in fists. Bodily expressions of emotions are universal, generalizing across race and disparate cultures, being reliably recognized by young children, and being spontaneously displayed by the blind.
3: Speech
People use hundreds, if not thousands, of terms to express emotional states. In some cases, the words
that are used point directly to the emotion one is experiencing. For instance, the experience of fear may be expressed by saying “I am afraid”. In other cases, figurative expressions are used, so that rather than literally naming the emotional state one is in, one relies on metaphors or analogies to express his or her subjective experience. In the English language, there are hundreds of linguistic expressions commonly used to talk about emotions. For example, “trembling like a leaf”, “feeling trapped” and “hitting rock bottom”. Obviously, in order to accurately decode emotion from language, one must know the meaning of the words or expressions used to communicate an emotion. Obviously, deciphering emotions in a non-native language is harder than doing so in one’s own language. In addition to the verbal information in speech, emotions are also expressed by the non-verbal qualities of speech, such as pitch, volume, and rate of speech.
These three characteristics of emotional expression (facial, bodily and verbal) operate together rather than in isolation. For instance, focusing only on words to decode the emotion of another person is unlikely to be accurate, given nonverbal cues modify, augment, illustrate, accentuate, and contradict the words they accompany. The integration of facial and bodily expressions is required to capture the full essence of an emotion.
To book onto this course you can send an enquiry via the form below: