Abstract
Emotional intelligence is an important factor contributing to social adaptation. The current study investigated how salivary testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) levels, cognitive control of emotional conflict processing were associated with children’s emotional intelligence (EI). Thirty-four 10- to 11-year-old children were enrolled and instructed to complete questionnaires on emotional intelligence as well as empirical tasks of emotional flanker and Stroop with event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Saliva collection took place on another day without ERP tasks. Results showed that lower T and C levels were associated with higher accuracy in emotional conflict tasks, as well as better emotional intelligence (managing self emotions). In the Stroop task, higher T/C ratios were associated with greater congruency effects of N2 latencies, and lower cortisol levels correlated with stronger slow potential activities (SP). For girls, the correlation between cortisol and emotional utilization was mediated by the SP amplitudes on fearful conflicts in the flanker task (95% CI: −8.64, −0.54, p < 0.050). In conclusion, the current study found the relationship between cortisol and an emotional intelligence ability, emotional utilization, might be mediated by brain activities during emotional conflict resolution processing (SP responses) in preadolescent girls. Future studies could further investigate testosterone-cortisol interaction and its relation with cognitive control of emotion as underlying mechanisms of emotional intelligence.
Highlights
The perception, processing, regulation, and utilization of emotional information is well-known as emotional intelligence (EI) (Nelis et al, 2009), which intrinsically includes self-control of emotions (Davis and Rachel, 2016)
There were no significant correlations between hormone ratios and EI, lower hormone levels were found to be related with better abilities of managing self emotions in preadolescent children
The study shows that testosterone correlates with conflict detection and managing self emotions, while cortisol correlates with conflict detection and resolution as well as managing self emotions
Summary
The perception, processing, regulation, and utilization of emotional information is well-known as emotional intelligence (EI) (Nelis et al, 2009), which intrinsically includes self-control of emotions (Davis and Rachel, 2016). Neural and Hormonal Mechanisms Underlying EI (Davis and Rachel, 2016). High testosterone was reported to down-regulate the interaction between cognitive and emotional systems and diminishes the impact of cognitive control (Schutter and Van Honk, 2004). Basal cortisol seems to correlate with cognitive control (Schutter and Van Honk, 2005). Few studies have took testosterone, cortisol and cognitive control processings as mechanisms underlying emotional intelligence, there were some studies concerning other hormones and emotional perception in the context of emotional intelligence (Cardoso et al, 2014; Koven and Max, 2014; Milivojevic et al, 2014; do Vale et al, 2015). In this study we concentrate on the correlations among the hormones testosterone and cortisol, the cognitive control of emotion and EI in children
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