Emotional intelligence (EI) is best developed through real-time, creative interactions with other people, in which genuine emotions can be examined and explored. Improvisation cultivates the skills, self-awareness, emotional competencies and adaptability that are so essential to success in these times of uncertainty and creative possibility. There are many natural points of connection between EI and the skills involved with improvisation, which are immediately useful in real-life situations.

1. Improv
and
Emotional
Intelligence:
BFFs
Lifestage, Inc
www.lifestage.org

2. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the expression
of a rich interplay of conscious feelings,
thought-action repertoires, and attitudes
“Emotional
Intelligence (EI) is the
ability to engage our
emotionality in
effective ways in
order to facilitate
positive outcomes in
our relationships.”
“Emotional Intelligence In The
Workplace: An Interview With Dr.
Michael Rock” www.canadaone.com

3. Emotional Intelligence
& Applied Improv: BFFS
Emotional Intelligence:
• Deals with the emotional
impact people have on
one another;
• Is a skill and mind set for
becoming aware of and
managing emotions;
• Is a skill and mind set for
navigating fear,
especially fear of
change;
•
Improvisation:
Occurs through
interaction and the
impact people have on
one another moment to
moment;
•
Grows out of emotional
expression and emotional
awareness;
•
Operates out of the basic
tenet “follow the fear”;
Change and uncertainty
are central to the process
•

4. A key to good
improvising is to be
emotionally
connected.
Improvisers have great
freedom to explore
limitless options. Yet
they must work
together to create
scenes and songs, and
to do so, they need to
be on the same page
with the other actors.
For this, they must rely
on their emotional
intelligence.
Paul Zuckerman and Linda Gelman,
“You Can’t Think And Act” Backstage,
June 3, 2010

5. “Emotions are a
signaling system”
“Emotional competence
requires being able to
pilot through the
emotional undercurrents
always at play rather
than being pulled under
by them.”
Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional
Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1998

6. Improvisation is training in
emotional competence
Research shows that
the give and take that
happens in the brain
when jazz musicians
improvise, for example,
is "grounded in the
same neural processes
at play in every one of
us when we engage in
spontaneous selfexpression, like a
conversation with a
friend.“
Annie Murphy Paul, “What the Jazz
Greats Knew About Creativity” TIME
http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/21/lear
ning-creativity-from-the-jazz-greats

7. Improv experiences promote
deep learning through active
engagement
Using improvisation in education, training or personal
growth settings will:
Stimulate emotions;
Attract attention;
Encourage meaning making;
Have immediate application to real-life situations;
Create lasting memories of lessons learned;
Willdorf, N. “Masters of improvisation,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 2000). 46 (37), p. A12.

8. Good improv grows out of
emotionally intelligent
interactions
Listen, connect and collaborate;
Make and keep agreements;
Act with generosity of spirit;
Maintain awareness of what others say and do;
Respond to what is happening rather than
imposing ideas;
• Collaboration and co-creation rather than control;
•
•
•
•
•
Patricia Ryan Madson, Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up, Random House, 2005

9. "More active,
concrete, experiential
methods, such as role
plays, group
discussions, and
simulations, usually
work better than
lecturing or assigned
reading for social and
emotional learning. The
Consortium For Research In Emotional
Intelligence in Organizations
In order to reprogram neural
circuits connecting emotions and
the thinking processes, people
need to actually engage in the
desired pattern of thought, feeling,
and action.

10. The exercises and
activities in improvisation
require people to interact
with others to achieve a
common objective usually to tell a good story.
The objective cannot be
met if people don't work
harmoniously together. In
order to reach this goal,
people develop the skills
and understanding of
what is required to work
effectively together and
how to enjoy it.
http://www.beyondanxiety.com/treatment/improv.php

11. The tensions of the creative
process are the materials of
emotional growth

12. Improv principle #1:
Take care of each other

13. Emotional Competence
grows through play
“We don’t become
socially competent by
authority figures telling us
how to behave-we gain
those skills by interacting
with our peers, learning
what’s acceptable and
what’s not acceptable.”
“The Serious Need For Play” Scientific
American Mind Special Collector’s Edition,
Winter 2014:

14. “One of the most remarkable of
all human skills is our ability to
flexibly adapt to nearly every
imaginable circumstance. This
ability arises in part from our
capacity to regulate emotions
that are engendered by the
situations we face.”
Kevin N. Ochsner & James J. Gross, “Thinking makes it so: A social cognitive neuroscience approach to
emotion regulation” K. Vohs & R. Baumeister (Eds.), The Handbook of Self-Regulation (2003) Erlbaum: NJ.

15. Play has rules and
structure. Within them,
anything can happen
Improv is a training
ground for
developing situational
awareness and
responding effectively
to unexpected and
unpredictable
situations.

16. “Discomfort is a very
underrated feeling.“
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss
Emotional discomfort in a
situation does not require
emotional reactiveness;
Emotional intelligence is a
mind skill set that involves
the capacity to regulate
emotions and choose
how to express them;
Getting uncomfortable is
necessary for growth

17. “As we incorporate
the new stimuli and
information from the
improv activity, the
activity itself mutates
and recomposes in
unknown directions.
We trust our intuitive
instincts to take us
somewhere useful,
interesting and
challenging. We walk
the tightrope of our
own minds and
hearts." ," Joseph Keefe,
ImprovYourself: Business Spontaneity
at the Speed of Thought
.
“Improvisation is teaching
yourself new behavior, a new
way to work, a new way to exist.”

18. Managing the uncertainty and
tensions of change are core
competencies of both emotional
intelligence and improvisation
• Engaging in a creative process with other people;
• Trying new things based on mutual agreement;
• Reflecting on the experience to stabilize the
cognitive shifts that have taken place;

19. Improv and EI occur
within a framework of
social belonging
“If your sense of belonging and self-esteem have
been thwarted, you’ll try to reconnect. Excluded
people actually become more sensitive to potential
signs of connection, and they tailor their behavior
accordingly. They will pay more attention to social
cues, be more likable, more likely to conform to other
people and more likely to comply with other people’s
requests.” Kirsten Weir, “The Pain of Social Rejection” American Psychological Association,
April 2012, Vol. 43, No. 4
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection.aspx

20. Applied improvisation
is a social-emotional
experience:
• Collaboration with
other people in the
creation of
something entirely
new;
• Learning through
participation;
• Being a moving part
in something
greater than self;

21. New information linked with social, emotional
events is more likely to be received, stored and
applied.
Emotions can be
positive or negative,
but either way they are
powerful drivers of not
only interactions but
how the memory of the
interaction - and the
information - is stored.

22. Improv strengthens the capacity for
emotionally intelligent, adaptable,
novel responses to stressful situations
This tigress went
into a depression
and refused to eat
after her litter of
kittens died. These
piglets needed a
mother.

23. Improv is an
opportunity to
play with
emotions through
games and
scenes – and to
examine genuine
emotions that
arise through play

24. EI & Improv skill:
Situational awareness
Situational awareness is
the capacity to rapidly
grasp an existing
situation, let go of
assumptions and become
aware of preconceived
ideas we impose on it,
either unconsciously or
consciously.

25. EI & Improv:
Adapting without
abandoning self
The capacity to take
in the realities of a
situation - not
necessarily agree
with or approve, but
accept what is
occurring – and
respond creatively,
can be learned
through
improvisation.

26. Working at the top
of our intelligence: an improv
principle that parallels EI
Practice specificity;
Connect patterns;
Recognize themes;
Add your own unique wisdom into the mix,
weaving together the personal, political,
and universal for improv that expands ideas;
• Develop individual strengths by focusing on
co-creation;
•
•
•
•

27. “Good
feelings
spread
more
powerfully
than bad
ones.”
Sigal Barsade, “The Ripple Effect: Emotional
Contagion In Groups,” Working paper, Yale
School of Management, 1998; Sigal Barsade
and Donald E. Gibson, “Group Emotion: A
View From The Top and Bottom,” in D.
Gruenfeld et al (eds) Research on Managing
Groups and Teams (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press,
1998)

28. Lifestage Trainings:
Creative
Experiential
Evidence-Based
496 Smithtown Bypass
Suite 202
Smithtown, NY 11787
www.lifestage.org
Contact Jude Treder-Wolff,
LCSW, RMT, CGP at 631366-4265 or
bookings@lifestage.org