32 (Moeller, Kwantes, 2015) Too Much of a Good Thing?

Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal

Conflict Behaviors

+ Emotional Intelligence (EI): The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to
discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.

 A prosocial construct associated with good interpersonal understanding and well-functioning

human interactions.
 Positive association to altruistic and helping behaviors toward colleagues
 Limited research on EI’s role in shaping interpersonal conflict and conflict management

+ Interpersonal Conflict: Discord among individuals due to perceived differences or disagreements

between their interests, aims, or needs.

 May reduce general health and well-being (E.g., Emotional exhaustion; distress; decreased
cardiovascular and immune functioning)
 May diminish relationship quality
 Although EI is highly conceptualized almost exclusively as a prosocial concept, it is plausible that
highly emotionally intelligent individuals may also use their skills in a self-serving manner
o May also be linked to emotional manipulation
o If individuals are inclined to be antisocial, EI is associated with an increase in deviant
interpersonal behaviors

+ HYPOTHESES OF STUDY:

+ Examine relationship between conflict management preferences and conflict management behaviors

 Hypothesis 1: Individuals preferences for managing conflict with (1a) manipulation, (1b)
undermining the other’s esteem, (1c) verbal force, and (1d) confrontational discussion will be
positively related to their actual use of manipulation, behaviors that undermine the other’s
esteem, verbal force, and confrontational discussions, respectively
o H1a Supported: Self-emotion appraisal moderated the relationship between the
preference for undermining the other’s esteem and the actual use of behaviors to
undermine the other person’s esteem
o H1c supported: Self-emotion appraisal moderated the relationship between preference
for confrontational discussion and actual confrontational discussion behaviors

+ Examining how emotional intelligence (EI) shapes this preference behavior relationship:

 Hypothesis 2: Self-emotion appraisal (SEA) will moderate (amplify) the relationship between
individuals’ ideal conflict management preference and actual conflict management behaviors for
(2a) undermining the other’s esteem, (2b) manipulation, (2c) confrontational discussion and (2d)
verbal force
o H2b and H2d Supported: Use of emotion moderated the relationship between the ideal
and actual conflict management tactics for both manipulation and verbal force
 Hypothesis 3: Use of emotion (UOE) will moderate (amplify) the relationship between
individuals’ ideal conflict management preference and actual conflict management behaviors for
 (3a) undermining the other’s esteem, (3b) manipulation, (3c) confrontational discussion, and
(3d) verbal force

+ Both others’ emotion appraisal (UOE) and regulation of emotion (ROE) appears more prosocial in
nature in that they emphasize and focus on the experiences of others as well as regulation one’s
emotional responses

 Hypothesis 4: Others’ emotion appraisal (OEA) will moderate (buffer) the relationship between
individuals’ ideal conflict management preference and actual conflict management behaviors for
(4a) undermining the other’s esteem, (4b) manipulation, (4c) confrontational discussion, and (4d)
verbal force
o Hypothesis 4a and 4b Supported: regulation of emotion was found to be a significant
moderator for the relationship between the following conflict preferences and
behaviors: undermining the other’s esteem and confrontational discussion
 Not the direction intended. Regulation of emotion increased, the strength of
association between the belief that confrontation is an ideal conflict
management tactic and the actual use of confrontation increased
 Hypothesis 5: Regulation of emotion (ROE) will moderate (buffer) the relationship between
individuals’ ideal conflict management preference and actual conflict management behaviors for
(5a) undermining the other’s esteem, (5b) manipulation, (5c) confrontational discussion, and
(5D) verbal force

+ Participants:

 109 “young adults (23 males and 86 females)

 Ages 18-55
 Canadian University students (course credit incentive)
 44% Caucasian; 11.9% English Canadian; 7.3% French Canadian; 6.4% West Asian; 5.5% East
Asian; 4.6% South Asian; 5.5% Southern European; 3.7% Western European; 3.7% African; 1.8%
Eastern European; 5.6% Other.

+Measure:

 Emotional Intelligence: Wong and Law’s Emotional Intelligence Scale (7-point Likert-scale: 1
(Strongly Disagree), 7 (Strongly Agree))
o Four dimensions: Self-emotional appraisal; Other’s emotion appraisal; use of emotion;
regulation of emotion
o 16 items per dimension
 Conflict Management: Participants asked to describe a conflict they had in the last year.
Followed by a Sternberg and Dobson’s conflict resolution measure (9-point Likert-scale: 1 (not
what I did), 9 (exactly what I did)) to gauge participants ideal conflict management preferences
and actual conflict management behaviors
+Limitations:

 Accuracy of participant’s memory in recalling specific events

 Outcome of recalled conflict event may have influenced their determination of what they
considered to be an optimum conflict management strategy

FINDINGS:

 Preferred conflict management styles will predict actual conflict behaviors even if those
behaviors are generally considered less desirable
 EI has no or small dampening effect on individual’s choice of specific behavior
o Contrary to previous findings in other studies
 If an individual believes that aggressive conflict management strategies are not appropriate,
high levels of EI will decrease the likelihood that such strategies will actually be used
 Importance of EI to not be used as unidimensional construct
 Participants of study showed they did not use EI as a way of opting for more
functional/appropriate strategies that take other’s feelings into account, but rather, as a way of
selecting a conflict management strategy that increased likeliness of getting their own way.
 Understanding both the good and bad aspects of EI