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THE BIRTH OF A BEAUTIFUL HOME
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The second area appears every bit as basic as the first. This is the capacity of the emotions to enter into and guide the cognitive system and promote thinking. For example, cognitive scientists pointed out that emotions prioritize thinking. In other words, something we respond to emotionally is something that grabs our attention. Having a good system of emotional input, therefore, should help direct thinking towards matters that are truly important. As a second example, a number of researchers have suggested that emotions are important for certain kinds of creativity to emerge. For example, both mood swings and positive moods have been implicated in the capacity to carry out creative thought.
Emotions convey information. Happiness usually indicates a desire to join with other people; anger indicates a desire to attack or harm others; fear indicates a desire to escape, and so forth. Each emotion conveys its own pattern of possible messages and actions associated with those messages. A message of anger, for example, may mean that the individual feels he has been treated unfairly. The anger, in turn, might be associated with specific sets of possible actions: peacemaking, attacking, retribution and revenge-seeking, or withdrawal to seek calmness. Understanding emotional messages and the actions associated with them is one important aspect of this skill.
Once a person can identify such messages and potential actions, the capacity to reason with these emotional messages and actions becomes important as well. Fully understanding emotions, in other words, involves the comprehension of the meaning of emotions, coupled with the capacity to reason with these meanings. This aspect is central to emotionally intelligent skills.
Finally, emotions can often be managed. A person needs to understand emotions to convey information. To the extent
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