How well do you know how you’ll react to situations? Could you control your emotions in situations that you know would send you over the edge? Would you describe yourself as a good judge of other’s emotions? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you might have a high EQ, or emotional quotient. An EQ is a measurement of Emotional Intelligence. Take a quick assessment of your personal EQ here.
Discussions regarding emotional intelligence are occurring in more and more classrooms around the country. Educators and academic administrators recognize the numerous benefits of improved emotional intelligence. As this concept proliferates our public education system and becomes a mainstay in grade school curriculum, I start to wonder how much it will affect marketers’ ability to exploit our emotions.
Behavioral economist, George Loewenstein is just one of several researchers who have helped us understand that emotions have a huge affect on your purchasing decisions. Marketers know this and are fervently at work trying to best position their products and advertisements to capitalize on our emotional vulnerability. Just watch a couple episodes of Mad Men on Netflix.
Some research suggests that a higher emotional quotient improves purchase decisions. This makes sense on the surface. Emotional intelligence varies widely amongst the American population. Most people probably overestimate their own ability to perceive, control, or evaluate emotions. Therefore, the select few in our society who have high EQs are probably among the rational decision-making elite. The rest of us are shamefully susceptible to the emotional ploys that marketers make on our subconsciouses.
With that considered, you would think that businesses would want to prevent emotional intelligence from being taught in schools at such a young age. More emotionally intelligent consumers would likely make it more difficult to sell impulse tubs of Ben & Jerry’s and the like. However, I think that the closer our school systems’ curriculums get to standardizing emotional intelligence, the quicker American society will become emotionally captive consumers.
Think of the recent increase in technology exposure and education. My 2 year old nephew already understands how to manipulate touch screen devices and other electronics. By the time he is an active consumer, he will be a prime target for the slew of technological advances that await us in the future. As technological knowledge became easily available through increased exposure and proliferation throughout American society, our economy reaped the benefits (debatable, I suppose) of a correlated spike in technological consumer goods.
In a similar fashion, I think future generations will be even more vulnerable to emotional marketing campaigns than we are today. The ability to educate on emotional intelligence assumes the teacher obtains a certain amount of knowledge on the subject. In other words, if mainstream America increases its baseline emotional intelligence by a certain amount, imagine how much more experts on the subject will know and be able to use for their benefit?
Admittedly, I’m being a little pessimistic, but imagine it for a second. Do you think it could happen? Could you withstand the emotional onslaught? Feel free to comment and share below!