Department of Management, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Emotion. 2016 Sep;16(6):815-25. doi: 10.1037/emo0000134. Epub 2016 Apr 11.
While emotional intelligence (EI) is recognized as a resource in social interactions, we hypothesized a positive association with stress in socially evaluative contexts. In particular, we expected emotion recognition, the core component of EI, to inflict stress on individuals in negatively valenced interactions. We expected this association to be stronger for status-driven individuals, that is, for individuals scoring high on basal testosterone. In a laboratory experiment, N = 166 male participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993). As expected, EI measured by the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT V2.0; Mayer et al., 2003) predicted higher cortisol reactivity, including slower recovery from stress. The effect was moderated by basal testosterone, such that the association was positive when basal testosterone was high but not when it was low. On the component level of EI, the interaction was replicated for negative emotion recognition. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that EI is associated with higher activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in contexts where social status is at stake, particularly for those individuals who are more status-driven. Thus, the effects of EI are not unequivocally positive: While EI may positively affect the course of social interactions, it also inflicts stress on the emotionally intelligent individuals themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record
虽然情绪智力 (EI) 在社交互动中被认为是一种资源，但我们假设它与社交评价情境中的压力呈正相关。特别是，我们预计情绪识别，即 EI 的核心组成部分，会在具有负面评价的互动中给个体带来压力。我们预计这种关联在以地位为导向的个体中更为强烈，即那些基础睾丸素水平较高的个体。在一项实验室实验中，N=166 名男性参与者接受了特里尔社会压力测试 (Kirschbaum、Pirke 和 Hellhammer，1993)。正如预期的那样，由 Mayer-Salovey-Caruso 情绪智力测试 (MSCEIT V2.0；Mayer 等人，2003) 测量的 EI 预测了更高的皮质醇反应性，包括应激后恢复较慢。这种效应受到基础睾丸素的调节，因此当基础睾丸素水平较高时，这种关联是正的，而当基础睾丸素水平较低时则不是。在 EI 的组成部分水平上，这种交互作用在识别负性情绪方面得到了复制。这些发现支持了这样一种假设，即 EI 与下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴在社会地位受到威胁的情况下的更高活动相关，特别是对于那些更以地位为导向的个体。因此，EI 的影响并非完全是积极的：虽然 EI 可能会对社交互动的进程产生积极影响，但它也会给情商高的个体本身带来压力。
