Emotionally intelligent people reappraise rather than suppress their emotions

Abstract

It has long been thought that emotional intelligence (EI) involves skillful emotion regulation, but surprisingly little is known about the precise links between EI and emotion regulation. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the relation between EI—operationalised as an ability—and the use of two common emotion regulation strategies—cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Seven hundred and twelve participants from a community sample in Spain were assessed on ability EI (using the MSCEIT) and emotion regulation (using the ERQ). Findings revealed that EI ability was positively associated with cognitive reappraisal and negatively associated with expressive suppression. These relationships were moderated by gender and age. The strength of the association between EI and cognitive reappraisal increased with age for men, while this strength decreased with age for women. Conversely, the strength of the association between EI and suppression decreased with age for men, but increased with age for women. These findings confirm the expectation that EI is associated with greater use of generally adaptive forms of emotion regulation (reappraisal), and lesser use of generally maladaptive forms of emotion regulation (suppression), although effect sizes were quite modest. Observed differences in the strength of associations between EI and emotion regulation may be the result of gender differences in the development of emotional skills along with cultural changes in emotional education and social norms.

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

“…Compared with former studies that have shown EI is associated with more adaptive forms of ER such as reappraisal (e.g., Cabello et al, 2013;Megías-Robles et al, 2019;Schutte et al, 2009;Smieja et al, 2011), we demonstrated links between the components of EI and different ER difficulties. As expected (H1), we found that strong skills in emotion recognition and deep knowledge about the generation and course of emotion contribute to fewer ER difficulties.…”

“…Compared with previous works (e.g., Bucich & MacCann, 2019;Cabello et al, 2013;Megías-Robles et al, 2019), the novel contribution of the present study is that we provide an explanation of how EI and ER difficulties use different routes (i.e., affective dimensions) and have their specific influence on the affective outcome: EI moderates changes in the affective dimension of valence through the intra-and interpersonal utilization of emotions, while individual differences in ER have a broader impact on both valence and arousal dimensions through emotional clarity, awareness, and impulse. We identified specific ways in which individual differences modify a successful ER process when using a CR strategy.…”

“…The ability to successfully regulate emotions is a significant component of EI. Several studies have found a positive correlation between EI and cognitive reappraisal (CR) but a negative correlation between EI and suppression (Megías-Robles et al, 2019;Schutte, Manes, & Malouff, 2009;Smieja, Mrozowicz, & Kobylinska, 2011). Similarly, a higher level of EI was associated with a more frequent use of reappraisal and less frequent use of suppression (Cabello, Salguero, Fernández-Berrocal, & Gross, 2013).…”

“…The current study is the first to demonstrate the moderating role of EI and ER difficulties on changes in affective responses (i.e., valence and arousal) during a CR task. Besides the frequently used self-report measures (e.g., Cabello et al, 2013;Megías-Robles et al, 2019;Schutte et al, 2009) and some experimental studies (Bucich & MacCann, 2019;Zysberg & Raz, 2019), our research provides a unique experimental design using a CR task. Compared with the examination of Zysberg and Raz (2019), who asked participants to self-induce emotional arousal then relax, we created a more direct, guided, and predetermined emotional context in which reappraisal takes place.…”

The protective role of emotional intelligence in smoking relapse during a 12-month follow-up smoking cessation intervention

“…One of the reasons why relapses are more likely to occur during stressful situations is because smokers feel that cigarettes help to relieve stress (at least for a short period of time) and, thus, they use this mechanism for coping with stress [17][18][19]. This form of regulation becomes particularly evident when the individual has difficulty in adequately managing his or her emotions through psychological strategies such as expressive suppression or cognitive reappraisal [20,21].…”