Citation

Davis SK. Scand. J. Psychol. 2018; 59(3): 328-339.

Affiliation

University of Worcester, Worcester, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Scandinavian Psychological Associations, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sjop.12439

PMID

29569275

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) can buffer potentially harmful effects of situational and chronic stressors to safeguard psychological wellbeing (e.g., Mikolajczak, Petrides, Coumans & Luminet, ), yet understanding how and when EI operates to promote adaptation remains a research priority. We explored whether EI (both trait and ability) modulated early attentional processing of threat-related emotion under conditions of stress. Using a dot probe paradigm, eye movement (fixation to emotive facial stimuli, relative to neutral) and manual reaction time data were collected from 161 adults aged 18-57 years (mean age = 25.24; SD = 8.81) exposed to either a stressful (failure task) or non-stressful (control) situation. Whilst emotion management ability and trait wellbeing corresponded to avoidance of negative emotion (angry and sad respectively), high trait sociability and emotionality related to a bias for negative emotions. With most effects not restricted to stressful conditions, it is unclear whether EI underscores 'adaptive' processing, which carries implications for school-based social and emotional learning programs.

© 2018 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Emotional intelligence; attentional bias; eye movement; stress; threat