Deficits In Emotional Intelligence Research Articles

A comparison of emotional and cognitive intelligences in people with and without temporal lobe epilepsy

Medial temporal lobe structures have been hypothesized to be important in emotional intelligence (EI) and social cognition. There is some evidence associating temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) with impairments in social cognition. This study aimed to establish whether TLE is also associated with deficits in EI. Sixteen patients with TLE and 14 controls without epilepsy matched for age and current intelligence quotient were compared on measures of EI, recognition of facial expressions of emotion, and distress. Results indicated that patients with TLE showed both impaired EI and impaired recognition of facial expressions. They also reported greater psychological distress, which correlated negatively with EI. It is suggested that some of the psychosocial problems experienced by patients with TLE can be conceptualized as the consequences of deficits in EI, possibly resulting from epilepsy-related disruption to medial temporal lobe functioning.

Psychopathy and trait emotional intelligence

Psychopathic individuals are infamous for their chronic and diverse failures of social adjustment despite their adequate intellectual abilities. Non-cognitive factors, in particular trait emotional intelligence (EI), offer one possible explanation for their lack of success. This study explored the association between psychopathy and EI, as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003) and Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS, Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995). Consistent with the Response Modulation (RM) model of psychopathy ( Newman & Lorenz, 2003), low-anxious psychopathic individuals had significantly lower scores on TMMS Repair and Attention compared to controls. Consistent with proposals by Patrick and Lang (1999) regarding PCL-R factors, these EI deficits related to different aspects of the psychopathy construct. Correlations revealed significant inverse associations between PCL-R factor 1 and Attention and PCL-R factor 2 and Repair. We propose that the multi-dimensional EI framework affords a complementary perspective on laboratory-based explanations of psychopathy.

Deficits in emotional intelligence underlying adolescent sex offending

The present study investigated whether a battery of tests designed to measure different levels of emotional intelligence could differentiate adolescent sex offenders from a non-offender control group. Fifteen male adolescent sex offenders ranging in age from 14 to 17 years were recruited through Health and Community Services (VIC, Australia) and 49 non-offender males, matched for age, completed the battery. The battery comprised the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS), Davis' Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-32), the Revised Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Openness to Feelings facet of the NEO PI-R. Discriminant analyses using all five tests showed that 89·9 per cent of the sample were correctly allocated their respective groups. Overall the sex offenders were higher on aggression and attention to feelings, less clear about their feelings and less capable to repair unpleasant moods and prolong positive ones. It was concluded that these findings could be the focus of treatment approaches for adolescent sex offenders.