Learning how to manage feelings and relationships with others. This includes ways to also recognize emotions and to maintain positive relationships in developing sympathy and empathy. It involves the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes that learners need to create positive relationships, build resilience, handle challenging situations, make appropriate decisions and care for others. Commonly it focuses on skills such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making. Recent advances in neuroscience have shed new light on the role of non-cognitive processes in human reasoning and consciousness, revolutionizing thinking concerning the role of feeling and intuition in solving novel problems. While the traditional view may have been that feelings interfere with an individual’s ability to solve problems, this old adage failed to point out that in the absence of feeling an individual is unlikely to solve the problem at all.
(
Adapted from: Seel 2012).
See also ‘
Emotional intelligence’.
