Is Dignity an EQ Element?
In an article written for USA Today on July 21st by Jonathan Shorman, “Canadian researchers found that terminally ill patients reported higher quality of life and a greater will to live after participating in “dignity therapy.” This prompted our own research into dignity and whether or not it could be considered an EQ element. Here is what we learned.
According to “Free Dictionary by Fairflex,” dignity is defined as “the quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect.” Well that certainly seemed aligned with the principles espoused by EQ field leaders Daniel Goleman and Reuven Bar-On. I could not find any reference to dignity after searching the latter’s web site but I did write to ask for his insight. Then I checked both of Daniel Goleman’s books in my library. Neither Emotional Intelligence nor Working With Emotional Intelligence had dignity as an index reference, but I am confident that the word was used in his work.
After a little more snooping I discovered a study done by Rebecca Olympia Millan, Ed.D from Texas A & M University. From their website: “The current study examined the emotional intelligence skills of nursing students at a college in South Texas. Emotional intelligence is the amalgamation of skills and abilities whereby an individual chiefly is able to accurately know one’s self, feel valuable, and behave responsibly as a person of worth and dignity.”
As the original USA Today article indicated, “lead researcher Harvey Chochinov of the University of Manitoba says that on every single measure of well-being, dignity therapy outperformed control groups who received standard end-of-life care.”
So I began a little foray into what “well-being” was all about. What I discovered was that it had a lot to do with how we feel about happiness. Happiness with non-material aspects of our lives such as where we live, our family and friends, our work satisfaction, our health, our life expectancy, our ability to educate our families, our ability to enjoy leisure time, and even the environment we live in. Strikingly, economic well-being, which focuses on material goods, our wealth, and our assets, is not as strong as the non-material items.
Coming full circle, from where we started, this dignity therapy research made a lot of sense. The study, which can be found in The Lancet Oncology online (7/7/11), detailed the line of questioning that the researchers used. The patients were asked about “their lives, feelings, memories, and their hopes and dreams for their families.” Then a transcript is made from the recordings of these conversations and it is presented to the patients to share with their families and friends.
What were the results from this work? “In an early trial using dignity therapy, 68% of patients reported an increased sense of purpose and 67% an increased sense of meaning after participating in the therapy. The study involved 441 patients, and ages ranged from 18 into the 90′s; average age was 65.”
In my humble judgment, dignity is an EQ element. And if it works for these patients at this stage of their lives then it certainly will work with the rest of us today. Remembering to ask empathic questions when communicating with others may very well make those whom we are leading have a sense of well-being. And well-being is a driver of dignity!!
September, 2011