Emotionally Intelligent People Use More High-Engagement and Less Low-Engagement Processes to Regulate Others' Emotions

Embracing the Emotion in Emotional Intelligence Measurement: Insights from Emotion Theory and Research

Emotional intelligence (EI) has gained significant popularity as a scientific construct over the past three decades, yet its conceptualization and measurement still face limitations. Applied EI research often overlooks its components, treating it as a global characteristic, and there are few widely used performance-based tests for assessing ability EI. The present paper proposes avenues for advancing ability EI measurement by connecting the main EI components to models and theories from the emotion science literature and related fields. For emotion understanding and emotion recognition, we discuss the implications of basic emotion theory, dimensional models, and appraisal models of emotion for creating stimuli, scenarios, and response options. For the regulation and management of one's own and others' emotions, we discuss how the process model of emotion regulation and its extensions to interpersonal processes can inform the creation of situational judgment items. In addition, we emphasize the importance of incorporating context, cross-cultural variability, and attentional and motivational factors into future models and measures of ability EI. We hope this article will foster exchange among scholars in the fields of ability EI, basic emotion science, social cognition, and emotion regulation, leading to an enhanced understanding of the individual differences in successful emotional functioning and communication.

Building a healthy lifestyle: the role of emotional intelligence among Italian university students

Given the numerous evidence demonstrating the influence of emotions in engaging risky behaviors, it seems inevitable to consider new approaches that promote healthy lifestyles. This study examines the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and unhealthy lifestyles among undergraduate university students in Southern Italy, since a correlation between EI and harmful health behaviors has been postulated. The present cross-sectional study was conducted among over 18-year-old university students using an online, anonymous, self-administered questionnaire. Socio-demographic characteristics, tobacco use, nicotine dependence, alcohol consumption, and skipping breakfast were investigated. Nearly a third of the sample were current smokers (30.9%). Problematic drinking was shown in 9.9% of the students. Almost one-fourth (23.1%) reported breakfast skipping ≥ 3 days a week. Emotional clarity and total EI scores were significantly lower in current smokers with moderate/high nicotine dependence. Problematic drinking revealed lower emotional clarity and total EI scores. Breakfast skippers showed lower emotional attention and total EI scores. The interconnectedness of unhealthy behaviors and the potential for one behavior to lead to or predict another were  also shown. The study findings provide useful insights to develop evidence-based strategies to empower the young adults to choose a health-promoting lifestyle. The figures suggest that emotional learning interventions could support this goal.

With Great Sensitivity Comes Great Management: How Emotional Hypersensitivity Can Be the Superpower of Emotional Intelligence

With the goal of furthering the understanding and investigation of emotional intelligence (EI), the present paper aims to address some of the characteristics that make EI a useful skill and, ultimately, a predictor of important life outcomes. Recently, the construct of hypersensitivity has been presented as one such necessary function, suggesting that high-EI individuals are more sensitive to emotions and emotional information than low-EI individuals. In this contribution, we aim to shift the perception of hypersensitivity, which is mostly seen with a negative connotation in the literature, to the perspective that hypersensitivity has the capacity to result in both negative and positive outcomes. We advance this possibility by discussing the characteristics that distinguish hypersensitive individuals who are also emotionally intelligent from those who are not. Based on an emotion information processing approach, we posit that emotional intelligence stems from the ability to manage one's level of hypersensitivity: high-EI individuals are those who are better able to use hypersensitivity as an adaptive rather than a disabling feature. Ultimately, we propose that hypersensitivity can represent a sort of "superpower" that, when paired with regulatory processes that balance this hypersensitivity, characterizes the functioning of high-EI individuals and accounts for the positive outcomes reported in the literature.