Reality Testing and Emotional Intelligence

What is Reality Testing?

Reality testing is the ability to objectively assess and evaluate one's thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and beliefs in relation to the external world. It's about distinguishing between what is real and what might be distorted by our subjective experiences or emotions. This process helps individuals maintain a clear and accurate understanding of the world around them.

Why is Reality Testing an Important Element of Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to perceive, understand, and effectively manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It involves being aware of emotions, recognising their impact, and using that awareness to guide thinking and behaviour.

Reality testing is a crucial component of emotional intelligence because it helps individuals navigate their emotions and interactions with a clear understanding of reality, leading to more balanced and emotionally intelligent responses.

Reality testing supports a number of key components of emotional intelligence:

• Reality testing is essential for self-awareness, which is a fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence. By assessing whether your emotions are grounded in reality or are influenced by biases, assumptions, or distorted thinking, you can better understand the true source of your emotions.
• Emotional expression involves managing your emotional responses to different situations. Effective reality testing allows you to determine if your emotional reactions are proportional and appropriate to the situation at hand. This helps you regulate your emotions more effectively and respond in a balanced manner.
• Empathy, another key component of emotional intelligence, requires understanding and sharing the emotions of others. Being skilled in reality testing enables you to separate your own emotions from those of others, allowing you to accurately perceive and respond to their feelings.
• Accurate reality testing also helps in avoiding misunderstandings and conflicts in relationships. By recognising when your emotions might be clouding your judgment, you can approach interpersonal interactions with a clearer perspective, enhancing effective communication and collaboration.
• When making decisions, it's important to assess the situation objectively and consider the potential biases or emotional influences that might be affecting your judgment. Reality testing allows you to make more rational and informed choices.

Reality Testing and Internal Self-talk

Something that can undermine our ability to use our reality testing is our internal self-talk. Internal self-talk, a form of mental chatter, can significantly influence one's ability to accurately assess and interpret the happenings within a work meeting. Unfortunately, this inner monologue can turn into a silent saboteur, negatively impacting our objectivity and ability to perceive situations clearly.

Example

I remember a conversation with a friend who described how he would berate himself internally after contributing his thoughts or ideas in a meeting. The time he would spend analysing what he said, how it might have been received and the impact, detracted from him being able to actively participate in the meeting.

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He also discovered that his perceptions of how his contributions were received were often inaccurate. When he asked trusted colleagues for their feedback after the meeting, he found they were more likely to mention that they sometimes felt that he wasn’t always present.

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Negative self-talk can erode our self-confidence and heighten anxiety, making it challenging to contribute effectively in a work meeting. Thoughts like, "I'm not good enough," or "My ideas aren't valuable," can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, inhibiting us from sharing our thoughts openly. This lack of active participation hinders our ability to accurately assess what is happening in the meeting, as our limited engagement skews our perception of the discussions and decisions being made.

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Intriguingly, our internal self-talk can also influence our interpretation of non-verbal cues and body language. A negative self-talk loop may cause us to misinterpret neutral gestures as signs of disinterest or disagreement. This misinterpretation can escalate tension or misunderstandings within the meeting, clouding our ability to accurately grasp the dynamics and intent of our colleagues' behaviours.

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My friend expressed that this had certainly been his experience. Once he started to manage his internal self-talk, he was able to be more objective, stay present in the moment, and contribute more fully during meetings. This had the added positive impact of reducing his negative perceptions of himself.

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Reality Testing and Values

Our Reality Testing can get hijacked when our values button gets pushed. For example, if you value respect and treating people fairly, and are in a situation where you feel another person is being disrespectful, the resulting reaction from you will impact your ability to accurately assess what is happening around you.

When our personal values are impacted it changes the perception we have of others and the situation. The weighting we give to what the other person says is likely to diminish and we evaluate their behaviour through a different lens.

Other values that can get pushed are such things as integrity or even ‘challenge’. For example, if you are someone who values having a challenging work environment and you discover that one of your workmates only does what is required and at a steady pace, you might describe them as being unmotivated or uncommitted. Once again, your perception of them will change how you evaluate their behaviour. It could be that they prefer a steady-paced environment so they can be sure to do things extremely well, rather than being challenged or pushed out of their comfort zone where they find they make mistakes.

Having personal values that are different is not the issue, it is the impact that it has on how we subsequently evaluate someone’s motivations, intentions or behaviour. Our reality testing may not be as good as we think it is as we have allowed a personal bias to impact our perceptions. I am sure we can all think of a time that this has occurred.

Developing Your Reality Testing

Developing reality-testing skills requires practice and a commitment to self-awareness.

Here are some steps you can take to enhance your ability to objectively assess and interpret situations, emotions, and thoughts:

Pause Before Reacting

Practice taking a pause before reacting emotionally. This can give you the time to assess the situation and decide on a more measured response.

List Your Assumptions and Then Question Them

Recognise that your perceptions and interpretations may be influenced by biases, preconceived notions, or personal experiences. Challenge your assumptions and ask yourself if there could be an alternative explanation or perspective. If appropriate, check in with other people for their views to add to your own. This is particularly potent when you converse with people with different backgrounds, beliefs and opinions.

Consider the Evidence

What data, information or evidence do you have available to analyse? Look for facts and logical reasoning to support your ideas or conclusions. Make sure to verify the accuracy and reliability of the information you receive. Be critical of sources, fact-check claims and consult multiple sources before forming an opinion.

Use Your Emotional Self-Awareness to Reflect

Reflect on whether heightened emotions could be getting in the way of you accurately assessing a situation or a person’s intentions? Are you using your emotions for action rather than as information? It is important that we recognise when our emotions might have us in full flight across the dance floor rather than taking a breath on the balcony.

Draw on Tools like Perceptual Positions to Provide Perspective.

Click here to access an interactive overview of Perceptual Positions. ‘Third Position’ in the Perceptual Positions model is one of Reality Testing. It is the fly on the wall, or security camera that is watching the interaction or situation from a distance. Emotions are removed and you can more accurately assess what is transpiring and what might be needed in the moment.

Remember that improving reality testing skills is an ongoing journey. It requires continuous self-reflection, a willingness to learn, and a commitment to developing a more objective and balanced perspective on the world around you.

How Neural Networks can help you develop your reality testing

Since 2000, Neural Networks has been helping individuals and organisations build their emotional intelligence skills. As one of Australia’s leading professional development providers, we deliver innovative learning development programs in emotional intelligence,  leadership, sales, customer service and culture change.