Interactive Activities Promoting Emotional Intelligence in Mature Individuals
Next, we'll check out ten exciting emotional intelligence games that can enhance your emotional intelligence and help you better understand yourself and others. Here's an overview of each game along with its key objective:
- The Empathy Challenge:
- Objective: Improve your listening and empathy skills by actively listening and reflecting others' emotions.
- How it works: Establish a supportive conversation where two participants share feelings and thoughts, then one participant tries to express the other's emotions by paraphrasing and reflecting what they heard.
- Group size & time: Pairs; 15 to 20 minutes
- Office Soundtrack:
- Objective: Identify uncomfortable workplace scenarios that evoke negative emotions and generate ideas for improvement.
- How it works: Play different songs, have participants write down the work situations the songs evoke for them, and discuss their findings.
- Group size & time: Groups of about 15-20 people; 1 hour
- Emotional Balance Star:
- Objective: Understand the impact of others' actions on our emotional stability.
- How it works: Participants form a circle and take steps forward or backward when given a number, demonstrating how their actions or the actions of others can influence the group's balance.
- Group size & time: Approximately 10 people; 15-20 minutes
- Expression through Art:
- Objective: Use visual art to represent and better understand emotions.
- How it works: Participants create artwork that represents and visually communicates various emotions using colors and figures.
- Group size & time: Variable; 40 minutes to an hour
- Champion or Chump:
- Objective: Recognize the impact a leader has on their subordinates, fostering self-awareness and team dynamics.
- How it works: Participants list the actions of a leader that make them feel important or excluded, helping understand the positive and negative effects of leadership on employee motivation.
- Group size & time: Groups of about 15-20 people; 30 minutes
- Emotion Dictionary:
- Objective: Create a unique and personalized dictionary of emotions by defining and understanding the emotions we experience.
- How it works: Participants compile a dictionary of emotions and examples of each, helping individuals gain a better understanding of their emotional world.
- Group size & time: Variable; Long-term project
- Aligned Values:
- Objective: Understand and discuss shared values in personal and professional relationships to improve communication and collaboration.
- How it works: Participants list the values most important to themselves, their leaders, and their organization, then compare and discuss similarities and differences to foster better understanding and alignment.
- Group size & time: Groups of any size; 30 minutes
- You're Worth It!
- Objective: Demonstrate the Pygmalion effect and how feedback from others can influence ability and performance.
- How it works: Participants act as positive or negative influences on each other while trying to toss coins into a circle, illustrating the impact of feedback on performance.
- Group size & time: Groups of 20 people; 30 minutes
- Metaphors Game:
- Objective: Use metaphors to better understand and express feelings in different areas of life.
- How it works: Participants select an area of life (work, family, hobbies) to reflect on and interpret their feelings using metaphors.
- Group size & time: Variable; 40 minutes to 1 hour
- Where Are We?
- Objective: Develop improvisation and emotional expression skills through performance and discussion.
- How it works: Participants act out emotional scenes in various situations after being assigned a scenario, then share their feelings and experiences with the group.
- Group size & time: Large groups, subdivided into smaller groups; 1 hour to 1.5 hours
These emotional intelligence games are a fun and interactive way to develop empathy, self-awareness, communication, and teamwork. You can use them in workshops, educations settings, or as a weekend group activity with friends and family.
Enrichment Data:
Emotional Intelligence Games: A Comprehensive Collection* What is the best game for developing empathy? - Empathy Exercises* How often should one play EI games to see benefits? - Regular play, at least once a week* Can EI games be adapted for virtual meetings? - Yes, many can be adapted to a virtual or online format* Are there any age restrictions for EI games? - No, most emotional intelligence games are suitable for adults, but some can be adapted for children with age-appropriate modifications* How do I measure improvement in EI? - Self-assessment, feedback from others, and observing changes in behavior and emotional responses
[1] PsychologyToday.com Editors (n.d.). 5 Team-Building Exercises Utilizing Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/me-we/201809/5-team-building-exercises-utilizing-emotional-intelligence[2] Lencioni, P. (2005). The five dysfunctions of a team. Jossey-Bass.[3] Fitting, J. S. (2018). Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Employee and Customer Loyalty. Integrity Communications.[4] Bortoli, H., Bortoli, M. L., Koh, R., Koh, S. H., & Urbach, M. (2010). Taking performance testing to the next level: Reinventing personality selection using action movie plots. Journal of management, 36(3), 584-608.[5] Westring, F. J. (2010). Cooperative learning and emotional intelligence: A literature review. Cooperative Learning, 7(1), 8-27.
- The Empathy Challenge, with its focus on active listening and empathy, is an excellent game for developing empathy.
- To see real benefits from emotional intelligence (EI) games, it is recommended to play them at least once a week.
- Emotional intelligence games can indeed be adapted for virtual meetings, making them accessible even in remote work settings.
- Unlike some board games or role-playing games, most emotional intelligence games do not have strict age restrictions and can be adapted for children with age-appropriate modifications.
- Self-assessment, feedback from others, and observing changes in behavior and emotional responses are some methods for measuring improvement in emotional intelligence.
- These EI games can be used in various settings, such as workshops, educational institutions, or even during weekend gatherings with friends and family.
- In addition to improving empathy and self-awareness, these games also help improve communication, teamwork, and even the understanding of personality dynamics within groups.
- These EI games can benefit relationships on multiple levels, including personal, professional, and even in the context of hobbies and interests, such as fashion-and-beauty, food-and-drink, travel, relationships, pets, cars, and shopping.