情商2：影响你一生的社交商（第3版）

玛伊娃的学校在纽约的一个贫民区。她13岁的时候才上六年级，因为留级，所以比同龄人晚了两年。玛伊娃的名声也不太好，因为她老是给大家制造麻烦。她们中学的老师都知道，她经常会像发疯了一样跑出教室，在走廊里来回游荡。

在帕梅拉（玛伊娃的新任英语老师）接手她们班级之前，其他老师就警告她说玛伊娃是个问题孩子。因此在第一节课上，帕梅拉在布置大家自己读一篇文章并且总结文章大意之后，就走到玛伊娃那里，想要帮助她完成作业。

一两分钟之后，帕梅拉就意识到了玛伊娃的问题所在：她的阅读水平仅仅停留在幼儿园水平。

“因此，学生们的行为问题经常都是因为无法达到老师对他们学习上的要求而引起的，”帕梅拉告诉我，“玛伊娃甚至无法理解单词的意思。我很震惊，真不知道就凭她的这种阅读能力是怎么升到六年级的。”

于是，帕梅拉为玛伊娃读了整篇文章，以帮助她完成作业。后来，帕梅拉还找到了一位专门负责辅导这类学生的特教老师。两位老师认为自己应该竭尽全力来帮助玛伊娃，否则她就只能退学了。特教老师答应每天辅导玛伊娃的阅读，从最初级的水平开始。

尽管如此，就像其他老师曾经警告的那样，玛伊娃还是出了问题。她在上课时随意说话，对同学态度粗鲁，而且还与同学打架，也就是说她会想尽一切办法来避免读书。如果这样还不能达到自己的目的，她就会大喊：“我不想学习！”然后跑出教室，在走廊里游荡。

尽管玛伊娃十分抵制，但是帕梅拉仍然坚持在课堂上给予她更多的帮助。当玛伊娃因为与同学闹矛盾而大发雷霆的时候，帕梅拉就会把她单独叫到走廊上，和她一起找出一个更好的解决方法。

帕梅拉一直在向玛伊娃表达自己对她的关心。“我们经常会在一起开玩笑，下课后也会待在一起。她吃完午饭后也会来找我。我还去见了她的妈妈。”

当玛伊娃的妈妈知道她无法阅读时和帕梅拉当初一样震惊。但是玛伊娃的妈妈还有其他7个孩子需要照顾，因此一直没有发现她的问题，就像其他老师也没有对此进行纠正一样。帕梅拉的劝说使玛伊娃的妈妈最终同意帮助女儿纠正自己的不良行为，给予她特别关注并且帮助她完成家庭作业。

玛伊娃第一学期（那时还是另外一位英语老师教她）的成绩单上，几乎所有的课程都不及格，其实她一直都是这样。但是在帕梅拉教了他们班4个月之后，她的成绩得到了极大提高。

在学期结束的时候，玛伊娃已经不再因为挫败感而在走廊里游荡了，即使受到挫折她也会留在教室里。更重要的是，她的成绩单上大部分课程都及格了，虽然基本都是刚刚及格。而且，她在几个月的时间内就完成了两年的阅读课程。

玛伊娃慢慢发现自己的阅读能力已经比班里的少数几位同学强了，其中包括刚刚从西非来的一个小男孩。于是她主动帮助他学习阅读的技巧。

帕梅拉和玛伊娃之间的这种特殊关系是提高孩子们学习能力的有力工具。大量研究都表明，如果学生感受到学校、老师、同学们的关爱，那么他们的学习成绩也会比较好。^[30]而且，他们抵制青春期问题的能力也会比较强，比如他们的犯罪率以及欺凌弱小和故意破坏的可能性都会比较低，而且出现焦虑与抑郁、吸毒、自杀、逃学和退学的情况也会比较少。

“感受到关爱”在这里的意思并不是指一种模糊的美好感觉，而是学生与同学、老师以及其他教职员工之间实实在在的情感联系。加强这种情感联系的有效方式之一就是在学生和成人之间建立相互协调的关系，就像帕梅拉和玛伊娃一样。帕梅拉已经成为玛伊娃的安全基地。

让我们考察一下这对像玛伊娃这样的问题学生意味着什么吧。在对全美范围内抽样得出的910名一年级学生进行的研究中，接受过培训的观察员们评估了他们的老师，并且观察了教学风格对于差等生学习的影响。^[31]研究发现，老师们的以下行为可以促进他们的学习。

关心孩子们的需求、情绪、兴趣和能力，能够让孩子成为交流中的主角。

用愉快的对话营造一种欢快的课堂气氛，使课堂中充满欢乐与兴奋的情绪。

关怀学生，肯定他们的成绩。

课堂管理合理，设立清晰而又可变通的计划与目标，使学生可以实行自我管理。

最坏的情况就是老师以“我和它”的态度来对待学生，不管学生的意愿而把自己的教学计划强加给他们，或者对他们冷漠疏远。这样的老师经常会对学生发火，而且还会采取惩罚性措施来维持课堂秩序。

那些本身表现优异的学生不管遇到什么样的老师都能够继续取得好成绩。但是那些表现不稳定的学生如果遇到冷漠或者控制欲强的老师，学习成绩就会大幅下降，即使老师严格遵守教学大纲也没有用。这项研究还发现，如果这些表现不稳定的学生遇到一位热心、关心他们需求的老师，那么他们的成绩就会大幅提升，他们的表现就可以像其他孩子一样优异。

老师的关爱不仅对一年级的孩子非常重要，对于高年级的学生也是如此。研究发现，得到老师关爱的六年级学生的成绩不仅在本学期会提高，而且在下一个学期也会如此。^[32]好的老师就像好的父母一样。通过为学生提供一个安全基地，老师营造了一种可以使学生大脑发挥最大效力的氛围。而且这个安全基地还会成为一个安全避风港，学生可以从中汲取力量，去自由探索，自主学习。

在学生们学会如何更好地控制自己的焦虑和注意力之后，这个安全基地就内化在了他们的神经系统之中，这可以增强他们达到最佳学习状态的能力。事实上，现在已经有一些“社交或情感学习”项目来帮助人们达到这一目的。最好的方法就是配合各个年龄段孩子们学校中的课程，来培养他们的自我意识等技巧，并且帮助他们控制不良情绪，学会同理心，从而顺利地与他人进行交流。一项对100多种类似项目的分析表明，通过这种培训，学生们不仅能掌握控制自己情绪和与人交流的技巧，他们的学习也变得更加有效，事实上他们的平均成绩要比没有接受过这种培训的同等水平学生高出12%。^[33]

这些项目在学生感受到老师的关爱时效力最高。不管学校是否提供这种培训项目，只要老师为他们营造一个关爱、关注的氛围，学生们的学习成绩就会提高，他们的学习热情也会高涨。^[34]哪怕学生在学校中只遇到一位关心自己的师长，他们的生活也会因此而不同。^[35]

所以，每一个玛伊娃都需要一个帕梅拉。

1. Amy Arnsten, “The Biology of Being Frazzled,” Science 280 (1998), pp. 1711–13.
2. That suggests the wisdom of Nature’s design in extreme situations—at least for people who havewell-honed expertise to rely on. The problem arises when that same response gets triggered when thereis no threat to life—just the symbolic perils of modern life. For the most part in those situations weneed to call on the brain’s executive center, not our primal habits. To work at our best we need the lowroad to support the high—not to command it.
3. On stress intensity and impairment, see J. T. Noteboom et al., “Activation of the Arousal Responseand Impairment of Performance Increase with Anxiety and Stressor Intensity,” Journal of AppliedPhysiology 91 (2001), pp. 2039–101.
4. Though that dysfunction holds for the brain’s temporarily crippled executive centers, the brain stillmakes a hedged bet that can work well. Consider studies of people under extreme stress in settings likefire houses, combat units, and basketball teams. Under dire pressure, the most seasoned leaders did bestby relying on habits and expertise formed over years. A fire captain, for instance, could direct hisfiremen amid the chaotic uncertainty and terror of a blaze by trusting intuitions forged in a long historyof similar situations. While old-timers instinctively know what to do in such high-intensity moments,for a novice the best theory can fail. See Fred Fiedler, “The Curious Role of Cognitive Resources inLeadership,” in Ronald E. Riggio et al., eds., Multiple Intelligences and Leadership (Mahwah, N.J.:Erlbaum, 2002).
5. On brain correlates of sadness and joy, see Antonio R. Damasio et al., “Subcortical and CorticalBrain Activity During the Feeling of Self-generated Emotions,” Nature Neuroscience 3 (2002), pp.1049–56.
6. Sam Intrator, How Teaching Can Inspire Real Learning in the Classroom (New Haven, Conn.: YaleUniversity Press, 2003).
7. Positive moods, for example, can make people more realistic; when people who are feeling goodhave an important goal that they want to achieve, they will seek out potentially useful information evenwhen it might be negative and upsetting. See, for example, L. G. Aspinwall, “Rethinking the Role ofPositive Affect in Selfregulation,” Motivation and Emotion 22 (1998), pp. 1–32. On the other hand, anelevated mood is not necessarily best for every task: being too giddy bodes poorly for detail work likechecking a contract. Indeed, negative moods can sometimes make our perceptions more realistic ratherthan overly rosy. At the right time, it pays to get serious. For a further review, see Neal M. Ashkanasy,“Emotions in Organizations: A Multi-level Perspective,” in Neal Ashkanasy et al., eds., Emotions in theWorkplace: Research, Theory, and Practice (Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 2000).
8. On radiologists’ diagnoses, see C. A. Estrada et al., “Positive Affect Facilitates Integration ofInformation and Decreases Anchoring in Reasoning Among Physicians,” Organizational Behavior andHuman Decision Processes 72 (1997), pp. 117–35.
9. The more difficulty we have performing a given task, the more diffuse and unfocused the pattern ofactive sites will be in our brain. A diffusely activated brain occurs, for instance, when we are bored anddaydreaming, or when we are highly anxious. The brain activation pattern during peak cognitiveefficiency looks highly specific to the task at hand. Brain imaging taken while the person is performinga task well shows that the brain has mobilized the sites most pertinent to that activity, and not othersthat are irrelevant (and so represent an extraneous action or distraction). Cognitive efficiency demandsthat the specific tools of the brain contribute to the task at hand in a well-orchestrated manner.
10. Anxiety erodes cognitive efficiency. For example, students with math anxiety have less capacity intheir working memory when they tackle a math problem. Their anxiety occupies the attentional spacethey need for math, impairing their ability to solve math problems or grasp new concepts. See MarkAshcroft and Elizabeth Kirk, “The Relationship Among Working Memory, Math Anxiety, andPerformance,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 130, no. 2 (2001), pp. 224–27.
11. That argument, in terms of the “X-system” and the “C-system” (roughly the low and high roads,respectively), is made by Matthew Lieberman et al., “A Pain by Any Other Name (Rejection,Exclusion, Ostracism) Still Hurts the Same: The Role of Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Socialand Physical Pain,” in J. Cacioppo et al., eds., Social Neuroscience: People Thinking About ThinkingPeople (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
12. On cortisol and the inverted U, see Heather C. Abercrombie et al., “Cortisol Variation in HumansAffects Memory for Emotionally Laden and Neutral Information,” Behavioral Neuroscience 117(2003), pp. 505–16.
13. Moderate stress enhances focused attention. See Eran Chajut and Daniel Algom, “SelectiveAttention Improves Under Stress: Implications for Theories of Social Cognition,” Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 85 (2003), pp. 231–48.
14. On anxiety and working memory, see Mark Ashcroft and Elizabeth Kirk, “The RelationshipAmong Working Memory, Math Anxiety, and Performance,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 130(2001), pp. 224–27.
15. See, for example, Mario Mikulincer et al., “Attachment, Caregiving and Altruism: BoostingAttachment Security Increases Compassion and Helping,” Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (2005), pp. 817–39.
16. Mihalyi Csikszentmilhalyi and Reed Larson, Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in theTeenage Years (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
17. On managers in bad moods, see J. M. George and A. P. Brief, “Motivational Agendas in theWorkplace,” Research in Organizational Behaviour 18 (1996), pp. 75–109.
18. In describing the relationship between mood and performance in terms of the inverted U, I amoversimplifying a bit. Every major emotion has its distinctive influence on how we think. Our moodssway our judgments; when we are in a sour mood, we more readily dislike what we see; in contrast, weare more forgiving or appreciative while we are upbeat. See Neal M. Ashkanasy, “Emotions inOrganizations: A Multi-level Perspective,” in Neal Ashkanasy et al., eds., Emotions in the Workplace:Research, Theory, and Practice (Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 2000). While good moods havegreat benefits, negative emotions can be useful in specific situations. “Bad” moods can enhance certainkinds of performance, such as attending to detail in a search for errors or making finer distinctionsamong choices. This mood-task fit has been mapped in more detail in the work of John Mayer at theUniversity of New Hampshire. For a review of how moods affect performance, see David Caruso et al.,The Emotionally Intelligent Manager (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2004). Neuroscientists have startedto map the specific ways different emotional states might boost various intellectual abilities. In the mildmood range at least, moods can facilitate specific tasks—and on a limited range of specific tasks,negative moods help at times and positive moods sometimes hurt. For instance, anxiety (at least at thelevels instilled by watching a clip of a horror film) seems to augment tasks largely processed by theright prefrontal cortex, such as face recognition. Enjoyment (induced by watching a comedy) enhancesleft-hemisphere tasks such as verbal performance. See Jeremy R. Gray et al., “Integration of Emotionand Cognition in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences199(2002), pp. 4115–20.
19. On social stress and working memory impairment, see Bernet Elizuya and Karin Rochlofs,“Cortisol-Induced Impairments of Working Memory Requires Acute Sympathetic Activation,”Behavioral Neuroscience 119 (2005), pp. 98–103.
20. Destroying the hippocampus ends the ability to learn; neurological patients with damage there liveevery moment as though the last has not occurred. Some conditions— notably trauma and chronicdepression—shrink the hippocampus by killing off cells. As patients recover from these disorders, theirhippocampus gradually grows back.
21. On cortisol and the inverted U, see Abercrombie et al., “Cortisol Variation in Humans.”
22. R. Alpert and R. N. Haber, “Anxiety in Academic Achievement Situations,” Journal of Abnormaland Social Psychology 61 (1960), pp. 207–15.
23. Sian Beilock and Thomas Carr, “When High-powered People Fail: Working Memory and‘Choking Under Pressure’ in Math,” Psychological Science 16 (2005), pp. 101–5.
24. Jeanne Nakamura, “Optimal Experience and the Uses of Talent,” in Mihalyi and IsabellaCsikzentmihalyi, eds., Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
25. Oddly, the combination of good news delivered with a gloomy expression was perceived evenmore negatively than bad news delivered with a tone of gloom. On the effects of a positive facialexpression in managers, see Michael T. Newcombe and Neal M. Ashkanasy, “The Code of Affect andAffective Congruence in Perceptions of Leaders: An Experimental Study,” Leadership Quarterly 13(2002), pp. 601–4.
26. Thomas Sy et al., “The Contagious Leader: Impact of the Leader’s Mood on the Mood of GroupMembers, Group Affective Tone, and Group Processes,” Journal of Applied Psychology 90 (2005), pp.295–305.
27. Neal Ashkanasy et al., “Managing Emotions in a Changing Workplace,” in Ashkanasy et al.,Emotions in the Workplace.
28. James Harter, Gallup Organization, unpublished report, December 2004.
29. The poll is cited in Amy Zipkin, “The Wisdom of Thoughtfulness,” New York Times, May 31,2000, p. C5.
30. Students tend to feel more a part of things at school the more their teachers are supportive andcaring, and the more good friends and favorite extracurricular involvements they have there. See thespecial edition of the Journal of School Health 74, No. 7, September 2004.
31. For the study of teaching style and student achievement, see Bridget Hamre and Robert Pianta,Child Development 76 (2005), pp. 949–67.
32. K. Wentzel, “Are Effective Teachers Like Good Parents? Teaching Styles and Student Adjustmentin Early Adolescence,” Child Development 73 (2002), pp. 287–301.
33. Joseph Durlak and Roger Weisberg, “A Major Meta-Analysis of Positive Youth DevelopmentPrograms,” presentation at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association,Washington, D.C., August 2005.
34. On the educational benefits of a caring environment, see, for example, K. F. Osterman, “Students’Needs for Belonging in the School Community,” Review of Educational Research 70 (2000), pp. 323–67.
35. See, for example, the special issue of the Journal of School Health (September 2004) on schoolconnectedness.