Incorporating Emotional Intelligence into the Preparation and ...

course well, and up-front, we believe that conflict, fear, and stress can be reduced while educational valueis enhanced. In this paper we begin by outlining the basics of the emotional intelligence construct, andthen proceed to discuss who benefits from EI competency building and how EI competencies can bedeveloped in the travel course process. Additionally, in the Appendix, we present specific classroomtraining notes for trip leaders, often professors and administrators without formal knowledge ofinterpersonal skills training. We also direct these ideas to travel course students to provide an overview ofbasic concepts and to serve as an in-class discussion catalyst. Finally, program administrators may findthe material valuable as they designate trip leaders, and as they build and update international programofferings.Emotional Intelligence: A Brief ReviewSimply stated, emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, regulate, and control one’s emotions tomost effectively interact with others (Goleman, 1995, 1998). This concept is predicated on theunderstanding that emotions (i.e., feelings) are the driving force of motivation. A poor understandingand/or control of one’s feelings may result in undesirable interactions with others and the blocking ofvaluable inputs that cannot be fully attended to when emotions are heightened (for an extensive review ofthe literature on this subject please see Bar-On & Parker, 2000; Cherniss & Goleman, 2001a).The phrase "emotional intelligence" was first introduced by Salovey and Mayer (1990) to identify aconstellation of intra- and interpersonal competencies. The EI construct was popularized by DanielGoleman’s best-selling book of the same name (Goleman, 1995). Subsequent research has demonstratedboth the reliability and validity of the EI construct (e.g., Caruso, Mayer, & Salovey, 2002; Saklofske,Austin, & Minski, 2003). Studies have found support for the incremental value of EI over traditionalpersonality and skills based assessments in the ability to predict increased effectiveness in the workplace(Jacobs, 2001, McClelland, 1998). Lam and Kirby (2003) found evidence to suggest EI “uniquelyexplained individual cognitive-based performance over and beyond the level attributable to generalintelligence” (p. 133). Shutte et al. (2001, 2002) have carefully demonstrated that higher emotionalintelligence is related to higher self-esteem, empathy, self-motivation, and cooperativeness. Numerousother studies have explored one facet or another of the EI construct in the past five years (see e.g.,Cherniss & Goleman, 2001a).While the specific numbers and definitions of the EI competencies themselves has been muchdiscussed (Boyatzis, Goleman & Rhee, 2000; Bar-On, 2001; Stein & Book, 2000), all fundamentallyagree that the EI construct can be broken into a number of competencies that share a related set of skills(Gowing, 2001). Based on the suggestions of many scholars that each EI competency is demonstrated bythe effective use of specific skills (Goleman, 1998, 2001; Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee 2002) we haveselected and defined the competencies and associated specific skills we believe to be relevant to theinternational travel course experience. We choose these based on Goleman’s work (1998) which wefound to be the simplest scheme for organizing our material. The competencies and their associated skillsare presented in Table 1. In the discussion that follows we use examples from international travel courseexperience to illustrate each competence.Emotional Intelligence Competency Building for International Travel Course Participants 3