Three Recent Studies on Emotional Intelligence (EI)

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Three recent studies (2009 and later) on emotional intelligence give an insight to the following questions:

A) How do general intelligence and emotional intelligence impact college students' academic and social abilities?

B) Do subjects with schizophrenia show impaired emotional intelligence compared to a control group? If so, in which emotional intelligence areas do they show the most impairment?

C) Can emotional intelligence be taught? If so, does that information get retained over time?

First, Song et al. (2010), studied the impact of general mental ability (GMA) and emotional intelligence (EI) on college students' academic and social performance. While GMA and EI both had an influence on academic performance, GMA was found to be a stronger predictor of academic performance than EI. However, only EI, not GMA, was related to the quality of social interactions with peers.

Subjects with schizophrenia were compared to a control group on a measure of EI, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Subjects with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than controls on the total MSCEIT score. They also performed significantly worse than controls on three out of four MSCEIT subtests: Identifying, Understanding, and Managing Emotions. In addition, there was a significant increase in negative and disorganized symptoms in schizophrenic subjects with lower MSCEIT scores. Lower MSCEIT scores were also significantly correlated with more difficulties in community functioning (Kee, et al. 2009).

In a study by Nelis et al. (2009), study participants were divided into two groups. One group received an EI training of four group sessions of 2-1/2 hours each. The other group did not receive any training. After the treatment was completed, the training group showed a significant increase in emotion identification and emotion management compared to the control group. Six months later, the training group still had the same improvement on emotion identification and emotion management. The control group showed no change.

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References:

Kee, et al. (2009). Emotional intelligence in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research 107(1):61-68.

Nelis, et al. (2009). Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible? Personality and Individual Differences 47(1):36-41.

Song, et al. (2010). The differential effects of general mental ability and emotional intelligence on academic performance and social interactions. Intelligence 38(1):137-143.