The more socially intelligent you are, the happier and more robust and more enjoyable your relationships will be.

There is a newly coined word in the English language for the moment when the person we're with whips out their BlackBerry or answers that cell phone, and all of a sudden we don't exist. The word is 'pizzled': it's a combination of puzzled and pissed off.

The amygdala in the emotional center sees and hears everything that occurs to us instantaneously and is the trigger point for the fight or flight response.

Like secondhand smoke, the leakage of emotions can make a bystander an innocent casualty of someone else's toxic state.

Positive work environments outperform negative work environments.

Feelings are self-justifying, with a set of perceptions and "proofs" all their own.

Evolutionary theory holds that our ability to sense when we should be suspicious has been every bit as essential for human survival as our capacity for trust and cooperation.