Brain & Social Insurance

Since Emotional Intelligence is such an important part of success—and since it is so often misunderstood—“Social Insurance” may be another practical way to understand this. Research by John Gottman and colleagues at the University of Washington (in an attempt to gain more understanding about relationships and how they function) found that brains apparently keep an informal count of behaviors and categorize them as positive or negative. Think of this as a positive-negative emotional bank account that resides in each brain. And it isn’t just tit-for-tat, either. It’s more than keeping an equal score of positive versus negative behaviors. Social insurance indicates that you need to keep a balance of at least four or five positive behaviors to every negative behavior in order to maintain good relationships. More tomorrow.