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NATALIE KENELY
2. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, RESILIENCE
AND WELLBEING
ABSTRACT
Emotion is a key part of what makes us human. We are indeed “creatures saturated
by feelings” (Howe, 2008, p. 1). This chapter explores the relationship between
‘emotional intelligence’, ‘resilience’ and ‘wellbeing’ – three concepts that are
closely intertwined. This chapter describes the three concepts individually and then
looks at the link that exists between them. The literature provides ample evidence
that emotional intelligence is conducive to wellbeing (Bezzina, Falzon, & Muscat,
2015, p. 153). This chapter shows how emotional intelligence, most particularly the
abilities to recognize emotions and to regulate them in self and others, contributes to
resilience and provides the necessary tools that allow us to face adversity confidently
and with courage. Emotional intelligence contributes to our ability to appraise
situations in a constructive way, resulting in better outcomes and heightened
wellbeing.
Keywords: emotional intelligence, resilience, emotional regulation, coping, wellbeing
INTRODUCTION
The reason we weren’t executed was because I changed the way he felt about us.
These are the words of Chris Moon. Moon is a former British Army Officer and is
one of the few Westerners to have survived being taken prisoner in the 1980s by
Khmer Rouge guerrillas, one of the most brutal terror groups in history, in Cambodia.
He negotiated his release and that of his colleagues, thus escaping the threat of
execution. On his return to Cambodia some years later to film a documentary on the
Khmer Rouge, he met the Commander who had decided not to execute the prisoners.
The Commander confirmed that he had taken this decision because Moon had in fact
managed to change his feelings towards the prisoners.
Moon had in some way managed to regulate the immense fear he himself
admits to having felt in the circumstance, keeping himself calm in the face of
severe adversity. When asked by a journalist how he survived that time, he said, “I
controlled how I was thinking and how I behaved. It’s easy to start thinking there’s
no hope. You must focus and don’t give up. As we were held for longer I knew it
© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004394179_003
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was less likely we were going to get out, but you have to keep your head in the right
place”. In Moon’s testimony, I can see a distinctive illustration of an emotionally
intelligent person. Moon must have accurately read the emotional reactions of his
captors – their frenzy, excitement, and nervousness – and understood the danger
that those agitated reactions could pose for him. Being able to regulate his own
emotions created by this frightful situation he could calm himself down and
express that calmness in his behaviour. The power of emotional contagion probably
resulted in his captors calming down, becoming more reasonable and less frantic.
His emotion-regulation competence and clarity of thought that this brought with it
probably saved his life.
We may not find ourselves in life-threatening situations like Moon, yet we have
all found ourselves in situations that presented a threat to us – a threat to our safety,
our wellbeing, our relationships, our jobs – situations in which emotions ran high.
We may also look back on life experiences and realize that we have become more
resilient, stronger and more able to face what life brings with it because of the way
we coped with those particular experiences.
I consider the concepts that I have introduced through this story – ‘emotion’,
‘emotional intelligence’, ‘resilience’ and ‘wellbeing’ – as being intertwined. In this
chapter I will explore the relationship between them. I begin by exploring these
concepts separately.
A SHORT WORD ON THE NEUROSCIENCE OF EMOTION
According to Salzman and Fusi (2010), neuroscientists have until now “described
cognition and emotion as separable processes” (p. 173) – the brain’s amygdala
controlling emotion and the prefrontal cortex controlling cognition. However, they
propose that “these mental state parameters are inextricably linked and represented
in dynamic neural networks composed of interconnected prefrontal and limbic brain
structures” (Salzman & Fusi, 2010, p. 173).
In other words, emotion is inseparably intertwined with cognition. It has the
capacity to precede and cause particular lines of thought (Franks, 2006, p. 39). It
has also become central in brain studies. At the same time, thought processes and
cognition are capable of evoking and creating emotional states in return. While this
is not a subject that can be developed fully here, it is worth noting that neuroscience
frameworks have challenged traditional psychological views on the very nature of
emotion, as well as the sociological tradition that emotional brain processes are much
more typically unconscious than conscious (Franks, p. 38). As I will explain further
on, evidence is growing for the importance of emotion to rational decision-making.
Massey (2002) argues that “evolution has bequeathed us a cognitive structure with
two mentalities – one emotional and one rational” (p. 20). He explains how human
decisions and behaviours “cannot be modelled solely as a function of rationality”
(p. 20). He sums up his analysis in this way:
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Because of our evolutionary history and cognitive structure, it is generally the
case that unconscious emotional thoughts will precede and strongly influence
our rational decisions. Thus, our much-valued rationality is really more
tenuous than we humans would like to believe, and it probably plays a smaller
role in human affairs than prevailing theories of rational choice would have it.
(Massey, 2002, p. 25)
Adolphs and Anderson (2018) argue for the view that emotions cause behaviour.
They also acknowledge however, that once an emotion has caused a behaviour, that
behaviour can itself trigger further emotional or mental states. Ledoux (2000) shows
how emotional states influence one’s attention and perception; and affect memory
and decision-making. In other words emotional arousal controls and directs brain
activity. It is the ability to properly manage this emotional arousal, making sense
of it and controlling the subsequent behaviour that emotional intelligence seeks
to conceptualise. Salzman and Fusi (2010) suggest that “both the functional and
the electrophysiological characteristics of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex
overlap and intimately depend on each other. Thus, the neural circuits mediating
cognitive, emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses may not truly be
separable and instead are inextricably linked” (p. 174).
We can therefore conclude the same way we started this section – that while
on the one hand, emotional processes can influence cognitive processes, on the
other hand cognitive processes can regulate or modify our emotions. This leads us
soundly into the discussion of emotional intelligence that in very lay terms has been
described as the ability to allow both emotion and cognition to inform and shape our
decision-making.
UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL INTELLLIGENCE
One thing we can agree on is that when dealing with people, we need to remember
that we “are not dealing with creatures of logic but creatures of emotion” (Carnegie,
1998, p. 13). Emotion is a key part of what makes us human. We are indeed “creatures
saturated by feelings” (Howe, 2008, p. 1). We are emotional beings just as much
as we are social beings, capable of experiencing strong feelings, and it is within
relationships that we experience and live most of these emotions. Therefore, the
more able we are to understand ourselves on a level of feeling, the more skilled we
can become in our social interactions.
Imagine this: you’ve been offered a well-paying job with ideal conditions, and
opportunities for growth. Yet something inside makes you feel apprehensive about
resigning from your current job. What would you do? You could ignore the feeling
and choose what appears to be the logical path, or go with your gut feeling and risk
losing a great opportunity. You might otherwise consider both the logical thoughts
going through your head, and the feelings about the job offer. With that information
in hand, you could then manage the apprehension itself and use it to make a decision
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that you would be serene about. Solving problems and making wise decisions using
both thoughts and feelings, or logic and intuition, is a part of what we refer to as
emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey & Mayer, 1990).
Salovey and Mayer (1990) first described Emotional Intelligence formally and
defined it as “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” (p. 189). Linking emotions and intelligence was relatively novel when first
introduced in a theoretical model in the 1990s (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Questions
people ask about emotional intelligence include: Is emotional intelligence something
you are born with? Is it something you either have or you don’t? Can emotional
intelligence be learnt? Can it be measured reliably and validly? What does emotional
intelligence mean in everyday life? How does emotional intelligence affect mental
health and wellbeing, relationships, performance? They are questions researchers
too, have been seeking to answer in these twenty-five years or so. And they are
questions I will attempt to answer through this chapter.
Conceptualising Emotional Intelligence
‘Emotion’ and ‘intelligence’ have since time immemorial been viewed as two
opposite constructs which do not go well together. Emotion has been seen as
something that derails individuals from achieving their goals. Yet, “the theory of
emotional intelligence suggested the opposite: emotions make cognitive processes
adaptive and individuals can think rationally about emotions” (Brackett, Rivers, &
Salovey, 2011, p. 89). As early as 1960, Mowrer maintained that emotions “do not at
all deserve being put in opposition with ‘intelligence’ … they are it seems, a higher
order of intelligence” (pp. 307–308). However, it was only until much later “that the
idea that there was such a thing as emotional intelligence” was beginning to crop
up in a variety of different fields including literary criticism and psychiatry (Howe,
2008, p. 11).
The 1980s saw the emergence of two important areas of psychological research.
The first area, cognition and affect, involved how cognitive and emotional processes
interact to enhance thinking (Brackett et al., 2011). Emotions like happiness and
anger seemed to influence strongly how people think, make decisions and perform.
The second was an evolution in models of intelligence itself. “Rather than viewing
intelligence strictly as how well one engaged in analytic tasks associated with
memory, reasoning, judgment, and abstract thought, theorists and investigators
began considering intelligence as a broader array of mental abilities” (Brackett et al.,
2011, p. 89).
The term ‘emotional intelligence’ was first coined in 1985 when Wayne Leon
Payne published his doctoral thesis A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional
Intelligence. In 1990, Salovey and Mayer, gave a conceptually clear idea of the
fact that people who could appreciate and understand the role of emotions in their
own and others’ psychological life seem to be socially very skilled. And their paper
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Emotional Intelligence set off an era of avid research and writing on the concept.
which was further popularized by Daniel Goleman in 1995 with his bestselling book
“Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter more than IQ”. Goleman described how
emotional intelligence could be “as powerful and at times more powerful than IQ” in
predicting success in life (Goleman, 1995, p. 34). He also described how researchers
were linking emotional intelligence to pro-social behaviour in young people.
Unfortunately, having been popularized in a rather non-scientific, augmented form
by Goleman, the concept of emotional intelligence has been criticised as a ‘fad’
based on unreasoned and unreasonable claims (Murphy, 2013, p. 353). And the
greatest criticism has been thrown at the claim that emotional intelligence is more
significant than IQ when predicting success in life.
The noughties, then, saw the study of emotional intelligence being approached
through two main models: the ability model and mixed models (Mayer, Caruso, &
Salovey, 2000). On the one hand, the ability model views emotional intelligence as
a standard intelligence that can be measured as a mental ability with performance
assessments that have a criterion of correctness (i.e., there are better and worse
answers, which are determined using complex scoring algorithms). On the other
hand, there are the mixed models. Cary Cherniss (2010) describes these as ones
that mix the ability conception with personality traits and competencies such as
optimism, self-esteem, and emotional self-efficacy. Proponents of this approach use
self-report instruments as opposed to performance assessments to measure emotional
intelligence (i.e. they are measures that ask people to judge and report how good
they are at perceiving others’ emotions accurately).
It is well known that self-report measures are problematic because respondents
can provide socially desirable responses rather than truthful ones, or respondents
may not actually know how good they are at emotion-based tasks. As they apply
to emotional intelligence, self-report measures are related weakly to performance
assessments and lack discriminant validity from existing measures of personality
(Brackett & Mayer, 2003). In fact, Van Rooy, Viswesvaran, and Pluta (2005),
carried out a meta-analysis of 13 studies that compared performance tests (like
the Mayer, Salovey & Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), 2002) and
self-report scales (like the Bar-On, 1997). They reported that performance tests
were relatively distinct from self-report measures (r = 0.14). Even when a self-
report measure is designed to map onto performance tests, correlations are very low
(Brackett & Geher, 2006). And as such, any self-report measures (including those
on emotional intelligence) are more susceptible to faking than performance tests.
This was also one of the main criticisms directed at the proponents of emotional
intelligence.
For these reasons the ability-based definition and performance-based measurement
of emotional intelligence are widely preferred when researching the concept. Murphy
(2013) asserts that at the scientific end, measures of EI ‘abilities’ are shown to be
closely related to general measures of ability (in other words, IQ), with the best
test said to be the MSCEIT version 2 (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso EI Test). I myself
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have taken a positivist epistemological stance by using the MSCEIT in my doctoral
research on Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership, in order to
measure the emotional intelligence of my research participants (Kenely, 2008). This
viewpoint is supported by researchers not associated with any of the established
measures of emotional intelligence (e.g., Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002). This
rather positivist epistemological stance towards measures and viewpoints has served
to temper some of the earlier wilder assertions about emotional intelligence. In fact
“we are now in possession of a more measured understanding of the undoubted
importance of emotional intelligence in human affairs” (Howe, 2008, p. 11).
Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso (2008), in an article responding to major criticisms
of emotional intelligence as a construct, have argued that there exists a “valid
and conceptually important new variable for investigators and practitioners”
(p. 512). They argue that the acceptance of the construct is threatened less by its
critics, perhaps, than by those who are so enthusiastic about it as to apply the term
indiscriminately to a variety of traditional personality variables (Daus & Ashkanasy,
2005; Murphy & Sideman, 2006).
Emotional Intelligence Models
In 2004, Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso building on Mayer and Salovey (1997) devised
a general working definition of emotional intelligence based on the four discrete
mental abilities or ‘branches’ that comprise emotional intelligence:
the capacity to reason about emotions and of emotions to enhance thinking. It
includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate
emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional
knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional
and intellectual growth. (Mayer et al., 2004, p. 197)
This is now known as the four-branch model of emotional intelligence, and
comprises of a number of abilities that build hierarchically (Schneider, Lyons, &
Khazon, 2013). Perceiving emotions includes the ability to accurately identify and
express emotions. This in turn, helps to discriminate between hospitable and hostile
situations. The ability to generate and use emotions to enhance thinking includes
adjusting emotion to redirect cognitive, rational processes, obtain new perspectives,
and improve problem solving or creativity. Emotional understanding includes the
ability to understand emotional information, the manner in which emotions combine,
their causes and consequences. Emotional management includes the ability to be
open to feelings and regulate them to enable growth, even when under pressure.
In an extensive review of the literature on Emotional Intelligence, Dulewicz and
Higgs (2000) identified the core common elements in the overall construct. These
are: self-awareness, emotional resilience, motivation, interpersonal sensitivity,
influence, intuitiveness, conscientiousness and integrity.
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Emotional intelligence involves an individual’s ability to be aware of their
own emotional reactions in differing situations and their abilities to manage their
responses accordingly (Mayer et al., 1997). This awareness coupled with an ability
to control or manage one’s emotions, allows individuals to make more appropriate
decisions with confidence. On the other hand, not handling emotions well can harm
our health, wreak havoc with our confidence and render us ineffective or dangerous.
UNDERSTANDING WELLBEING
Wellbeing is a complex and multidimensional construct that concerns optimal
experience and functioning. There is, as yet no unanimous definition of wellbeing,
and different researchers speak of physical, economic, social, emotional, and
psychological wellbeing (Diener, 2000). However, there is general agreement that
at minimum, wellbeing includes the manifestation of positive emotions and moods
(for example, contentment and happiness), the absence of negative emotions (for
example, depression and anxiety), satisfaction with life, fulfillment and positive
functioning (Frey & Stutzer, 2002). In simple terms, wellbeing can be described as
judging life positively and feeling good (Diener, Suh, & Oishi, 1997).
Di Fabio and Kenny (2016) describe wellbeing as a construct of long-standing
interest in the field of psychology, and as such it deserves additional attention for its
primary prevention potential for fostering health and wellbeing. They maintain that
while psychologists recognise the importance of systemic change to remedy modern-
day social and economic problems, they are also interested in identifying individual
factors that foster wellbeing and can serve as assets that protect individuals from
psychological harm and ultimately foster wellbeing.
Hedonic and Eudaimonic Perspectives of Wellbeing
Current research on wellbeing reflects two general perspectives, a distinction first
made by Aristotle. The hedonic approach focuses on happiness and defines wellbeing
or happiness as being fundamentally about maximising pleasure and avoiding or
minimizing pain (Ryan & Deci, 2001). The eudaimonic approach, on the other hand,
focuses on meaning in life and self-realization, and the extent to which a person fully
integrates this into his or her life (Burrus et al., 2012, p. 154).
Burros et al. (2012) explain that hedonic wellbeing has typically been studied
in the Subjective Well-Being tradition – an expansive term encompassing both a
cognitive component (people’s satisfaction with their lives in general, as well their
satisfaction with specific domains of life, e.g., work, family life); and an affective
component (the frequency with which people experience positive and negative
emotions). People with high subjective wellbeing tend to report high satisfaction
with life in general and also experience frequent positive and infrequent negative
affect.
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Conversely, eudaimonic wellbeing has been studied using several approaches,
the most prominent of these being the Psychological Well-Being approach, which
states that wellbeing includes six dimensions of functioning: self-acceptance,
positive relations with others, environmental mastery, autonomy, purpose in life,
and personal growth.
More recently, Seligman (2011) introduced a new understanding of wellbeing or
‘flourishing’”, and described it as having five important pillars or elements: positive
emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. He describes
them as the permanent building blocks for a life of profound fulfilment. In this
definition, we can see how both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing are
brought together in one integrated approach.
A short word on social wellbeing is also called for. A number of studies cite a
rich and fulfilling social life and a network of close social support with family and
friends as being strongly correlated with subjective wellbeing (Diener & Seligman,
2002). We cannot deny that healthy social networks and a sense of belonging or
social connectedness contribute towards a person’s wellbeing. In fact, social
wellbeing is often described as the extent to which a person feels a sense of belonging
and social inclusion in a particular group or community. Social wellbeing is the basis
for social equality, social capital, and social trust. It is the antidote to racism, stigma,
violence and crime. It depends largely on the quality of government, the quality
of services and provision of support for those in need, and the fair distribution of
resources. However it also depends in part on the sum of individual mental wellbeing,
and on the quality of interpersonal relationships in a group, community or society,
including respect for others and their needs, compassion and empathy, and authentic
interaction.
UNDERSTANDING RESILIENCE
Resilience is another complex and multi-faceted construct (Grant & Kinman,
2014). We may say that resilience is a person’s ability to recover from adversity,
react appropriately, or bounce back when life presents challenges. Resilience to
certain events has been likened to elasticity in metals (Lazarus, 1993). Howe (2008)
describes it as “people’s ability to deal with stress, pressure and the demands made
of them” (p. 106). He emphasises however that resilience is not “just a matter of
some naturally given inner strength or the possession of a robust temperament”
(p. 107). Resilience depends on how well people “perceive, appraise, approach and
tackle stresses and challenges” (p. 107).
Buckner, Mezzacappa and Beardslee (2003) found that good emotional regulation
(one of the key components of emotional intelligence) contributes to resilience as
well as to sound mental health. Thus, resilience may be viewed as one very important
factor of wellbeing. In fact, Kinman and Grant (2011) highlighted the importance
of inter- and intra-individual emotional competencies in promoting resilience and
enhancing wellbeing (p. 261).
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This takes us back to Chris Moon and his incredible story of survival. His story
did not end with his release from captivity in Cambodia. In 1995, while volunteering
with an organisation (Halo Trust), clearing landmines in Africa, he was blown up in
a supposedly safe area of a minefield, losing an arm and a leg. He survived initially
by treating himself and arrived in a South African hospital, fourteen hours later,
having lost so much blood that doctors were astonished he was still alive. Back
home, he recovered three or four times faster than was expected and after intensive
rehabilitation, within a year after leaving hospital he ran the London Marathon,
raising funds to help disabled people. He also went on to successfully complete a
Masters degree. Moon taught himself to run and is believed to be the world’s first
amputee ultra-distance runner.
When interviewed about this episode in his life, Moon speaks about surviving
by “maintaining the ability to reason” and resisting what he calls the “death
mechanism” – where giving up was at that moment, the most attractive option. His
ability to regulate his fear and distress, his decision to remain in control, once again
undoubtedly contributed to his survival after the accident. His ability to bounce back
and to react after this horrendous experience is testimony to the power of emotional
intelligence and its contribution to resilience. Shneider et al.’s (2013) study, in fact
demonstrated that aspects of emotional intelligence confer benefits during the stress
process by promoting resilient psychological and physiological responses (p. 5).
Moon goes on to say that he “worked on making a choice, focusing on what I had
rather than what I had lost. It required a great deal of mental discipline”.
LINKING THE THREE CONCEPTS
A growing number of studies have provided evidence for the positive relationship
between emotional intelligence and indices of wellbeing such as greater life
satisfaction, higher self-esteem, higher self-acceptance, positive affect, positive
social interaction, and better health (Koydemir & Schutz, 2012).
Saarni (2000) too believes that “important consequences of emotional intelligence
are a sense of subjective wellbeing and adaptive resilience in the face of future stressful
circumstances” (p. 78). Howe (2008) also sustains that emotional intelligence has
“close links with the ‘coping and stress’ literature (and) suggests resilience” (p. 22).
Schneider et al. (2013) found that emotional intelligence conferred stress resilience
(p. 4).
Thus, the thread that connects emotional intelligence, resilience and wellbeing is
certainly there. In fact, Bezzina, Falzon, and Muscat (2015) confirm that the literature
“provides ample evidence that emotional intelligence is conducive to wellbeing”
(p. 153). They go on to refer to major authors like Austin, Saklofske, and Egan (2005)
who found that emotional intelligence is positively associated with life satisfaction
and social network size and quality, thus contributing to our social wellbeing too.
Emotional intelligence, most particularly the abilities to recognize emotions and
to regulate them in self and others, contributes unquestionably to resilience and
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provides the necessary tools that allow us to face adversity confidently and with
courage. Emotional intelligence contributes to our ability to appraise situations in a
constructive way, resulting in better outcomes and heightened wellbeing.
Several new assessments have been developed in recent years, to explore the
link between emotional intelligence and wellbeing, often with reasonable validity
evidence. Burrus et al. (2012) used one such measure – the Situational Judgment
Test of Emotion Management STEM (MacCann & Roberts, 2008) – to study this
phenomenon. The STEM is an ability-based, rather than self-report, situational
judgment test measure of Emotional Intelligence. It is moderately correlated with
intelligence, independent from personality, and predicts outcomes such as alexithymia
(difficulty identifying and describing emotions), depression, stress, and anxiety
(MacCann & Roberts, 2008). This study provides direct support for the hypothesis
that emotional intelligence is related to wellbeing. Burrus et al. (2012) found
evidence that the key component of emotional intelligence, emotion management,
was related to both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Specifically, those with high
emotion management tended to have higher psychological wellbeing, and like people
who reported high subjective wellbeing (referred to earlier) frequently experienced
positive affect, and infrequently experienced negative affect. This reinforces the link
between emotional intelligence and wellbeing.
In a review of existing literature pertaining to emotional intelligence, health, and
wellbeing, Zeidner, Matthew, and Roberts (2012) suggest that emotional intelligence
influences subjective wellbeing by fostering adaptive methods of coping with social
challenges, social stress and interpersonal conflicts; promoting the development of
supportive social networks; decreasing negative and increasing positive emotions;
and enhancing emotional regulation. Emotional intelligence is also conceptually
related to the psychological wellbeing focus on personal growth and self-actualisation
(Zeidner et al., 2012). Skills in interpersonal (social) and intrapersonal (emotional
awareness and internal self-regulation) emotional intelligence should contribute
to positive relationships with others and the capacity for mastery over one’s
environment that allow for personal growth, a sense of meaning in life, and self-
actualisation. Sanchez-Alvarez, Extremera, and Fernandez-Berrocal (2016) show
that these conceptualisations of the pathways between emotional intelligence and
wellbeing are supported by studies documenting relationships between emotional
intelligence and social support, and between emotional intelligence and coping
efficiency, stress reduction and emotional regulation.
Emotional intelligence has gained attention as a focus of research and intervention
for its promise as a set of skills that can be taught to enhance coping resources
and promote wellbeing (Sanchez-Alvarez et al., 2016). The connection between
emotional intelligence and a range of positive outcomes across the academic, social,
psychological and career domains among adolescents has been well documented
too (Di Fabio & Kenny, 2016). Research has also found emotional intelligence to
be associated with a variety of individual and social resources, such as resilience,
positive self-evaluation, and social support (DiFabio & Kenny, 2012).
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“A truly healthy individual has neither thought alone, nor emotion alone, but a
functional integration among his or her major psychological processes” (Mayer et al.,
2008, p. 513). Indeed, emotions are functional when the information they provide
is attended to, interpreted accurately, integrated into thinking and behaviour, and
managed effectively (Brackett et al., 2011, p. 98). Bezzina et al. (2015) assert that
“emotions are a central component of human reactions and human nature” (p. 164),
and their impact on relationships and wellbeing is proven.
Burrus et al. (2012) argue that individuals who possess the skills I have been
describing here, may be better able to handle the stress of everyday life, to foster a
greater number of meaningful close relationships, and to be more socially competent
in general (p. 153). Consequently, they continue, individuals with high emotional
intelligence also may be more likely to experience elevated wellbeing, or “optimal
psychological functioning and experience” (Ryan & Deci, 2001, p. 142).
CONCLUSION
The link between emotional intelligence and wellbeing emerges very clearly on
two levels – mental health and social functioning. Bracket et al. (2011) assert that
the skills associated with emotional intelligence, should “help individuals to deal
effectively with unpleasant emotions and to promote pleasant emotions in order
to promote both personal growth and wellbeing” (p. 95). They also propose that
emotional intelligence “promotes positive social functioning by helping individuals
to detect others’ emotion states, adopt others’ perspectives, enhance communication,
and regulate behaviour” (p. 96). They reiterate that people with higher MSCEIT
scores “tend to be more socially competent, to have better quality relationships,
and to be viewed as more interpersonally sensitive than those with lower MSCEIT
scores” (p. 96).
This chapter has sought to answer a number of questions about emotional
intelligence and its link to resilience and wellbeing. Although research in this field
needs to continue, what we have learned thus far is promising: emotional intelligence
can be measured objectively, it predicts important life outcomes, and impacts
relationships. It appears that the skills that comprise the construct can be learned
(Brackett et al., 2011, p. 99), and it contributes to mental health and wellbeing.
I would like to make one final reference to Chris Moon and his testimony. He
highlights in one statement the incredible mental discipline, resilience and emotional
competence he has: “For me the challenge was not to think like a victim … perhaps
for all of us in life the challenge is how we think … to not give up, to not be ground
down by the incredibly oppressive situation we would be in”.
REFERENCES
Adolphs, R., & Anderson, D. J. (2018), The neuroscience of emotion – A new synthesis. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
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