Trait emotional intelligence in sports: A protective role against stress through heart rate variability?

Development of a Chinese Emotional Intelligence Inventory and Its Association with Physical Activity

“…Sizzi, Deaner,, & Hirschhorn (2003) indicated that an athlete must recognize one's emotions, as well as teammates' and opponents' emotions, in order to perform well in team sports. Moreover, Laborde, Brull, Weber, & Anders (2011) confirmed the link between EI and stress coping in athletes, Laborde, Brull, Weber, & Anders (2011) found that high trait EI athletes (handball players) experienced a lower increase of stress compared to their low trait EI counterparts, indicating trait EI may help athletes cope better with stress. In comparing the emotional intelligence, body image and disordered eating attitudes in combat sport athletes and non-athletes, Costarelli, & Stamou (2009) found the athletes having high emotional intelligence had higher emotional intelligence than non-athletes.…”

“…If EI might lead to changes in healthy behavior, hypothesizing a connection between EI and exercise behavior seems rational. However, emotional intelligence (EI) has received scant attention from researchers in the sport or exercise domain to date (Laborde, Brull, Weber, & Anders, 2011;Lu, Li, Hsu, & Williams, 2010), yet some researchers agreed that emotions are key to exercise and sport performance (Biddle, 2000;Laborde, Brull, Weber, & Anders, 2011;Vallerand & Blanchard, 2000). Vallerand & Blanchard (2000) suggested that emotional processes typically play an adaptive role in sport and exercise settings, high levels of emotional experience may facilitate participation in sport and exercise activities from both an intra-and an interpersonal perspective.…”

Emotional intelligence as a moderator of stressor–mental health relations in adolescence: Evidence for specificity

“…Moreover, current literature is equivocal; there is evidence to suggest that when faced with experimentally-induced (i.e. acute) stress, TEI promotes resistance by attenuating both psychological and physiological reactivity (Laborde, Brüll, Weber, & Anders, 2011;Mikolajczak et al, 2007) though the role of TEI in modifying chronic stress is less conclusive. Whilst Ciarrochi et al, (2002) found that adults with high levels of perceived competency in 'managing others' emotions' experienced less suicidal ideation when faced with daily hassles, TEI failed to modify the effects of hassles on physical health and psychological wellbeing (Day, Therrien, & Carroll, 2005).…”

Trait Emotional Intelligence as Mediator Between Psychological Control and Behaviour Problems

“…Multiple studies have demonstrated that this construct is involved in many important life domains, including medicine (e.g., Costa et al 2014b;Smith et al 2012), stress (e.g., Laborde et al 2011), mental health (Martins et al 2010;Petrides et al 2011), neuropsychology (Mikolajczak and Luminet 2007), leadership and entrepreneurialism (Ahmetoglu et al 2011;Zampetakis et al 2009). A growing number of studies have revealed mediating, moderating, and incremental trait EI effects over various relevant variables including general health, socio-emotional outcomes, and life satisfaction (e.g., Johnson et al 2009;Mavroveli et al 2009;Petrides et al 2007a, b;Saklofske et al 2003).…”