The case for emotional intelligence in organizational research

Since its popularization by Goleman (1995), the concept of emotional intelligence has been the subject of ongoing controversy, so it is understandable that the model we proposed, which includes emotional intelligence as a moderator variable, would attract its share of criticism.

Is emotional intelligence training for leaders justified?

In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study of subordinate perceptions of leaders. The study represents a preliminary test of a model based on Affective Events Theory, which posits that leaders who are seen to be effective shape the affective events that determine employees' attitudes and behaviours in the workplace. Within this framework, we argue that effective leaders ameliorate employees' hassles by providing frequent, small emotional uplifts. The resulting positive affective states are then proposed to lead to more positive employee attitudes and behaviours, and more positive regard for the leader. Importantly, leaders who demonstrate these ameliorating behaviours are likely to require high levels of emotional intelligence, defined in terms of the ability to recognise, understand, and manage emotions in self and others. To investigate this model, we conducted interviews and focus groups with 10 leaders and 24 employees. Results confirmed that these processes do indeed exist in the workplace. In particular, leaders who were seen by employees to provide continuous small emotional uplifts were consistently held to be the most effective. Study participants were especially affected by negative events (or hassles). Leaders who failed to deal with hassles or, worse still, were the source of hassles, were consistently seen to be less effective. We conclude with a discussion of implications for practicing managers, and suggest that our exploratory findings provide justification for emotional intelligence training as a means to improve leader perceptions and effectiveness. [Abstract from author]

Towards Emotional Interaction: Using Movies to Automatically Learn Users' Emotional States

The HCI community is actively seeking novel methodologies to gain insight into the user’s experience during interaction with both the application and the content. We propose an emotional recognition engine capable of automatically recognizing a set of human emotional states using psychophysiological measures of the autonomous nervous system, including galvanic skin response, respiration, and heart rate. A novel pattern recognition system, based on discriminant analysis and support vector machine classifiers is trained using movies’ scenes selected to induce emotions ranging from the positive to the negative valence dimension, including happiness, anger, disgust, sadness, and fear. In this paper we introduce an emotion recognition system and evaluate its accuracy by presenting the results of an experiment conducted with three physiologic sensors.

Accessing movies based on emotional impact

Emotions play a central role in our daily lives, influencing the way we think and act, our health and sense of well-being, and films are by excellence the form of art that exploits our affective, perceptual and intellectual activity, holding the potential for a significant impact. Video is becoming a dominant and pervasive medium, and online video a growing entertainment activity on the web and iTV, mainly due to technological developments and the trends for media convergence. In addition, the improvement of new techniques for gathering emotional information about videos, both through content analysis or user implicit feedback through user physiological signals complemented in manual labeling from users, is revealing new ways for exploring emotional information in videos, films or TV series, and brings out new perspectives to enrich and personalize video access. In this work, we reflect on the power that emotions have in our lives, on the emotional impact of movies, and on how to address this emotional dimension in the way we classify and access movies, by exploring and evaluating the design of iFelt in its different ways to classify, access, browse and visualize movies based on their emotional impac

Metodological issues in measuring the detection of emotional disorders by primary care physicians: a review of the literature

A series of studies in the field of Epidemiological Psychiatry have been performed over the last two decades, and these have focused on the ability of primary care physicians to detect emotional disorders in the patients that attend their practices. The scientific methodology utilized in these studies is the subject of this review, which contains a discussion concerning: a) interviewer awareness bias; b) accuracy of the instruments and c) medical and psychological concepts involved in defining minor emotional disorders. Suggestions for change in the methodology are made in each of the sections of the review.

The social adjustment of patients with schizophrenia: implications to the mental health policy in Brazil

A sample (n=124) of schizophrenic patients from a defined catchment area of the city os S.Paulo, Brazil, who had been consecutively admitted to hospital, was assessed for psychopathological status and social adjustment levels. Sociodemographic, socio-economic and occupational characteristics were recorded: almost 30% of the subjects had no occupation and received no social benefit, more than two-thirds had a monthly per capita income of US$ 100.00 or less. Sixty-five percent presented with Schneiderian firstrank symptoms. Nearly half the sample showed poor or very poor social adjustment in the month prior to admission. The most affected areas of social functioning were participation in the household activities, work and social withdrawal. The current mental health policy of promoting extra-mural care as an alternative to the previous hospital-based model will then mean the investment in a network of new community-based services, that give effective treatment and support to patients and their families. The need of further research into the current picture of mental disorders in the country is stressed.

Family expectation, social adjustment and gender differences in a sample of schizophrenic patients

A case series to study factors related to family expectation regarding schizophrenic patients was conducted in an out-patient setting in the city of S. Paulo, Brazil. Patients diagnosed as presenting schizophrenia by the ICD 9th Edition and having had the disease for more than four years were included in the study. Family Expectation was measured by the difference between the Katz Adjustment Scale (R2 and R3) scores based on the relative's expectation and the socially expected activities of the patient (Discrepancy Score), and social adjustment was given by the DSM-III-R Global Assessment Scale (GAS) . Outcome assessments were made independently, and 44 patients comprised the sample (25 males and 19 females). The Discrepancy mean score was twice as high for males as for females (p < 0.02), and there was an inverse relationship between the discrepancy score and social adjustment (r =-0.46, p < 0.001). Moreover, sex and social adjustment exerted independent effects on the discrepancy score when age, age at onset and number of psychiatric admissions were controlled by means of a multiple regression technique. There was an interaction between sex and social adjustment, the inverse relationship between social adjustment and discrepancy score being more pronounced for males. These findings are discussed in the light of the potential association between the family environment, gender and social adjustment of schizophrenic patients, and the need for further research, i.e. ethnographic accounts of interactions between patient and relatives sharing households particularly in less developed countries.

Criação de valor, gestão de risco e as medidas de performance ajustadas ao risco: aplicação do RAROC - Risk Adjustment Return on Capital - ao grupo crédito agrícola

Mestrado em Contabilidade e Gestão das Instituições Financeiras

BASS 4: a software system for ergonomic design and evaluation of working hours

OBJECTIVE: To extend an existing computer programme for the evaluation and design of shift schedules (BASS 3) by integrating workload as well as economic aspects. METHODS: The redesigned prototype BASS 4 includes a new module with a suitable and easily applicable screening method (EBA) for the assessment of the intensity of physical, emotional and cognitive workload components and their temporal patterns. Specified criterion functions based on these ratings allow for an adjustment of shift and rest duration according to the intensity of physical and mental workload. Furthermore, with regard to interactive effects both workload and temporal conditions, e.g. time of day, are taken into account. In a second new module, important economic aspects and criteria have been implemented. Different ergonomic solutions for scheduling problems can now also be evaluated with regard to their economic costs. RESULTS: The new version of the computer programme (BASS 4) can now simultaneously take into account numerous ergonomic, legal, agreed and economic criteria for the design and evaluation of working hours. CONCLUSIONS: BASS 4 can now be used as an instrument for the design and the evaluation of working hours with regard to legal, ergonomic and economic aspects at the shop floor as well as in administrative (e.g. health and safety inspection) and research problems.

ABS4GD: a multi-agent system that simulates group decision processes considering emotional and argumentative aspects

Emotion although being an important factor in our every day life it is many times forgotten in the development of systems to be used by persons. In this work we present an architecture for a ubiquitous group decision support system able to support persons in group decision processes. The system considers the emotional factors of the intervenient participants, as well as the argumentation between them. Particular attention will be taken to one of components of this system: the multi-agent simulator, modeling the human participants, considering emotional characteristics, and allowing the exchanges of hypothetic arguments among the participants.

LAID - a smart decision room with ambient intelligence for group decision making and argumentation support considering emotional aspects

Decision Making is one of the most important activities of the human being. Nowadays decisions imply to consider many different points of view, so decisions are commonly taken by formal or informal groups of persons. Groups exchange ideas or engage in a process of argumentation and counter-argumentation, negotiate, cooperate, collaborate or even discuss techniques and/or methodologies for problem solving. Group Decision Making is a social activity in which the discussion and results consider a combination of rational and emotional aspects. In this paper we will present a Smart Decision Room, LAID (Laboratory of Ambient Intelligence for Decision Making). In LAID environment it is provided the support to meeting room participants in the argumentation and decision making processes, combining rational and emotional aspects.

An emotional and context-aware model for adapting RSS news to users and groups

The exhibition of information does not always attend to the preferences and characteristics of the users, nor the context that involves the user. With the aim of overcoming this gap, we propose an emotional context-aware model for adapting information contents to users and groups. The proposed model is based on OCC and Big Five models to handle emotion and personality respectively. The idea is to adapt the representation of the information in order to maximize the positive emotional valences and minimize the negatives. To evaluate the proposed model it was developed a prototype for adapting RSS news to users and group of users.