Yale and Lady Gaga host teens to talk about emotions

The Yale Emotional Intelligence Center and the Born This Way Foundation, created by Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta, hosted teens from across the country to discuss the importance of emotions in school and life at the Emotion Revolution daylong summit at the Yale School of Management on Oct. 24.
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Lady Gaga with President Peter Salovey, right, and Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, at the Emotion Revolution summit held at the Yale School of Management.

The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and the Born This Way Foundation, created by Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta, hosted teens from across the country to discuss the importance of emotions in school and life at the Emotion Revolution daylong summit at the Yale School of Management on Oct. 24.

Lady Gaga joined 200 high school students, top policy makers, and academic officials, including Yale President Peter Salovey, a pioneer in the study of emotional intelligence, to discuss ways to recognize and channel emotions for positive outcomes. 

At the summit, Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, unveiled the results of an online survey of 22,000 high school students. The survey explored how young people currently feel and how they want to feel in school, and the possible reasons for these emotions. The preliminary findings reveal that the most common words these students used to describe their emotions at school were “tired,” “stressed,” and “bored.”

“We need to close the gap between what students are currently are feeling and how they want to be feeling,” Brackett said. “We need to give young people and the adults who are teaching and raising them the tools and resources they need to create schools and families where emotions matter! We need an Emotion Revolution.”

The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, co-founded by Brackett, is home to the original scientific theory of emotional intelligence. The center conducts research on emotions and the role of emotional intelligence in important life outcomes. The center also develops innovative approaches to teaching emotional intelligence in school systems and other organizations, and studies the influence of emotional intelligence training on student, teacher, and leader effectiveness. RULER, the center’s signature approach to teaching emotional intelligence, has been adopted by hundreds of public and private schools across the United States, including, most recently large districts such as Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Seattle.

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Media Contact

Bill Hathaway: william.hathaway@yale.edu, 203-432-1322