Word: smartly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...York Times science writer with a gift for making even the chewiest scientific theories digestible to lay readers, has brought together a decade's worth of behavioral research into how the mind processes feelings. His goal, he announces on the cover, is to redefine what it means to be smart. His thesis: when it comes to predicting people's success, brainpower as measured by IQ and standardized achievement tests may actually matter less than the qualities of mind once thought of as "character" before the word began to sound quaint...
When Damasio worked with patients in whom the connection between emotional brain and neocortex had been severed because of damage to the brain, he discovered how central that hidden pathway is to how we live our lives. People who had lost that linkage were just as smart and quick to reason, but their lives often fell apart nonetheless. They could not make decisions because they didn't know how they felt about their choices. They couldn't react to warnings or anger in other people. If they made a mistake, like a bad investment, they felt no regret or shame...
...there is a cornerstone to emotional intelligence on which most other emotional skills depend, it is a sense of self-awareness, of being smart about what we feel. A person whose day starts badly at home may be grouchy all day at work without quite knowing why. Once an emotional response comes into awareness--or, physiologically, is processed through the neocortex--the chances of handling it appropriately improve. Scientists refer to "metamood," the ability to pull back and recognize that "what I'm feeling is anger," or sorrow, or shame...
...Washington does about fellow superstars Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise, "They haven't made any movies that I wanted to make. I haven't felt like I've missed anything." Yet he sees himself not as a standard-bearer but simply as an actor trying to make smart choices and do good work. "I don't do films based on what I think people need," he says. "And I don't consider myself a role model...
...very rich environment to grow up in," says Leigh G. Hafrey '73, co-master of Mather House, who is raising Nathaniel, 9, and Benjamin, 4, with house Master Sandra A. Naddaff '75. "You've got all these smart, accomplished people who are almost always very generous with their time and their attention...