Be aware, make it clear, and take the Lead: emotion regulation difficulties and emotional intelligence as moderators of cognitive reappraisal

Abstract

Two research traditions explain the way we deal with emotional situations: emotional intelligence (EI) and emotion regulation (ER). EI refers to the individual differences in the knowledge, identification, and regulation of emotions. ER describes processes in which emotions are experienced, expressed, and altered. Our study examined the EI-ER link and their moderating role on affective responses. We used self-report questionnaires and a cognitive reappraisal (CR) task, in which subjective affective responses were registered. We found that higher levels of ER difficulties correlated with lower EI. Gender had an overall impact on affective changes, indicating a more unpleasant and more arousing affective state for women compared with men. Regarding the moderating role of EI and ER difficulties, the ability to utilize emotions (Utilization) decreased the valence into a more unpleasant direction, similar to the effect of the inability to identify and differentiate emotions (Clarity). A weak control over emotions (Impulse), however, increased the valence into a more pleasant direction. The lack of attention to emotional signals (Awareness) marginally decreased the initial intensity (i.e., lower level of arousal). We demonstrated that EI and ER have distinctive routes and a different influence on the affective outcome defined by valence and arousal ratings: (1) EI has an impact through the utilization of emotions mainly on the valence dimension; and (2) individual differences in ER have a moderating effect on both valence and arousal dimensions. This study provided evidence on how individual differences contribute to a successful ER process when using a CR strategy.

Emotional Intelligence Not Only Can Make Us Feel Negative, but Can Provide Cognitive Resources to Regulate It Effectively: An fMRI Study

“…The negative correlations between the valence ratings of pictures with negative captions and EI Total score, as well as with the utilization of emotion component of EI, support previous behavioral findings showing that a high level of EI contributes to the evaluation of the valence of the emotional stimulus and to experience more unpleasant feelings (Peña-Sarrionandia et al, 2015;Bodrogi et al, 2020).…”

“…The Cognitive Emotion Regulation (CER) task was identical with Bodrogi et al (2020). Social-emotional scenarios were selected from a standard affective stimulus database (Lang et al, 2005;Deak et al, 2010) and two different captions, a negative and a neutral were added to each picture based on results of previous pilot studies.…”

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Relationships between Empathy and Implicit Theories of Emotions (in Chinese and Russians)

“…Emotional regulation refers to processes that involve experiencing emotions, expressing emotions, and the capability of changing them [29]. Emotional regulation deficits are associated with low emotional intelligence [30]; empathy is also typically lower in those individuals who score highly on the Dark Triad measures [30] and higher in those individuals with prosocial personalities [31]. This is consistent with the idea that observing others' pain furthers empathic concern and motivates prosocial action [32,33].…”

Emotional processes, leadership, gender and workplace affect in interdisciplinary teams

“…While EI has been integrated into the process model of emotion regulation, there is a gap in the literature on how the different EI components relate to emotion regulation resulting in either an adaptive or maladaptive functioning (Bodrogi et al, 2020). As suggested by Bodrogi et al (2020), emotion regulation skills and EI have distinctive routes and different impact on the affective outcome (Bodrogi et al, 2020). Furthermore, Kafetsios et al (2013), through two multilevel studies, proposed the combined study of the concepts Emotion Regulation and Emotional Intelligence.…”