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3 Takeaways From the Latest Emotional Intelligence Study

A new review paper shows the secrets to success of having a high EQ.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of the concept of “emotional intelligence,” or “EQ.” It took hold in the 1990s and has only continued to attract the attention of both everyday people and academic psychology. Claims about its contribution to success in life, announced even before its heyday, still remain somewhat controversial, however. In part, this is because the concept has become so blurry and all-encompassing that some of the original subtleties in its definition have since become long lost.
To understand whether EQ really matters for life success, it’s necessary to dig down deep into its original meaning and then take a clear-headed look at the available research. Fortunately, this is now possible due to the publication (in press) of a new major review article that does just that.
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
According to this new paper headed up by UCLouvain’s Thomas Pirsoul and colleagues (2023), this blurring of definitional lines is a major problem in evaluating EQ’s role in promoting life success. In their words, the “plethora of definitions and conceptualizations” can be categorized into two main areas: EQ as a trait-like quality or ability (personal resources approach) and EQ as a behavioral disposition that helps people feel better about their ability to navigate emotional situations (self-efficacy approach).
From the standpoint of EQ’s role in promoting life success, the Belgian authors narrowed their search through the vast literature to studies specifically focused on career. If EQ helps promote career success, it would do so by “developing awareness of one’s emotions” (p. 3). Defined as a general form of adaptive functioning, EQ allows people to “identify, understand, express, regulate, and use one’s own and others’ emotions” (p. 2).
Think now about people you would consider high in EQ. Perhaps you know someone at work, or who works with someone you’re close to, whom you regard as not just friendly but also sensitive, kind, and willing to listen. You trust this individual to show consideration to you but also to make good choices in their own life. They seem confident but not conceited, and you’ve seen them progress through their career in ways that you admire. Importantly, they are liked both by coworkers and supervisors, meaning that their progress up their career ladder seems that it should be easier for them than is true for most people.
EQ and Job Success
The route from high EQ to career ladder progression, as the UCLouvain authors propose, is charted through the intermediary step of adaptability. As you no doubt know from your own life experiences, being adaptable means that you can anticipate problems and then cope with them once they arise. If you are high in EQ, you can use your emotions to guide yourself through these difficulties.
High self-efficacy can build upon the strengths gained through career adaptability by helping individuals feel more confident about their ability to navigate work-related decisions. If you can, as high EQ implies, listen to your “gut,” you’ll feel that you have a more accurate career compass.
Self-efficacy can also contribute to an individual’s confidence in their so-called “entrepreneurial” skills. The belief that you can sell yourself, which is part of this skill, can help you be a more effective communicator of your own personal strengths. You might also be better able to read people, making you a better negotiator. Finally, you could be better able to launch new ventures based on EQ’s role in helping you manage the stress associated with striking out on your own.
The ability to manage stress becomes its own contributor to occupational success for those high in EQ. There are many situations in work settings, from job interviews to performance evaluations, in which people have to exert effort as they try to keep their stress down to manageable levels.
In evaluating the contribution of all of these factors to career success, the authors contrasted two theoretical models. In the trait or resource model, EQ alone would be enough to predict the objective favorable career-related outcome of salary and the subjective outcomes of feelings of job and career satisfaction. If career adaptability and self-efficacy serve as the intermediary influences on these outcomes, then this would support a model in which factors involving these two components are statistically better predictors than EQ is on its own.
After extracting data from more than 150 samples representing nearly 51,000 participants, Pirsoul and his collaborators concluded that the behavioral, rather than the trait or resource model, proved to have the strongest relationship to measures of objective and subjective career success. Supporting what they call the “career self-management model,” these findings show that people high in EQ do well because they are higher in self-efficacy. Supporting the “career construction model,” the findings also showed that people high in EQ do well because they can adapt to their circumstances, and they can also make better career decisions.
One set of findings also provided intriguing support for the notion that people high in EQ are lower in career turnover intentions, meaning that they are less likely to decide to quit their jobs or abandon their careers. Their greater self-understanding means that they choose a pathway that will be consistent with their needs and interests. Their better emotional self-regulation could also make them less likely to have problems with their coworkers and supervisors, going back to the idea that people high in EQ are just nice to have around.
Supporting the idea that EQ can continue to grow in adulthood, as is evident from prior research, the effect sizes for EQ and career outcomes were stronger for older samples included in the meta-analysis. It is possible that as people gain greater self-understanding, their EQ growth is reflected in these career adaptability and self-efficacy dimensions.
3 Ways to Get EQ to Work for You
These three takeaways from this study suggest that IQ is more than just a popular idea without academic merit:
1.People high in EQ do well in their careers, not just because they possess an overall higher level of knowledge about themselves but also because they know how to make good decisions and can approach work-related challenges with expectations that they can succeed. They also have greater internal self-awareness, allowing them to have a better idea of what they want out of their work lives. They can also negotiate with others more effectively, meaning that they are both better collaborators and also better strategists.
2.The UCLouvain study focused on work and, therefore, wouldn’t have direct applicability to relationships or other areas of adult life. However, given the importance of satisfaction with and success in one’s work role, it would make sense that the EQ findings would have favorable implications for well-being in general. There is extensive evidence throughout the career–family literature showing that satisfaction at work is related positively to satisfaction with one’s home life.
3.The final important conclusion of this study was the view that EQ isn’t a “thing” that you have or don’t have. Although high EQ may help improve an individual’s adaptability and self-efficacy, these latter two components of the Belgian model are behavioral in nature and, therefore, can be acquired.
To sum up, if you’re not naturally high in EQ, the Pirsoul et al. findings suggest that by using the skills that high-EQ individuals seem to have cultivated, you can find fulfilling outcomes in your most important life pursuits.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/fulfillment-at-any-age/202305/4-takeaways-from-the-latest-emotional-intelligence-study
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How to Talk About Mistakes in a Romantic Relationship

Talking about errors can make a difference in how a couple feels.

When I teach my class on the psychology of close relationships, at some point I get around to talking about the “not so bright and shining” moments that partners have. You know, those moments when someone inevitably takes a wrong turn and does something that’s likely to feel upsetting to their partner. To be clear, even though not all misdeeds are inevitable, it’s a certainty that, generally speaking, an offense of some type or another will happen because we’re all human and everyone makes mistakes.
For instance, perhaps you promised to do your partner a favor and then lost sight of it. Maybe you’re regretting those inconsiderate words you uttered a couple of days ago. Or your partner might have been really opening up to you in a vulnerable way, but you closed up and weren’t listening. No matter whether we’re talking about a mistake that’s more significant or a smaller misstep, stumbles are going to happen in a couple's journey together and, as long as that couple chooses to remain together, it’s healthy and important to be able to repair hurts in an effective way.
This brings us to the question of how couples might be able to fruitfully repair interpersonal wounds. In a recently published study, a team of researchers examined this question as they created a new questionnaire with the idea of “co-rumination” in mind. Co-rumination is “the extended and or recurring discussion of issues in social relationships.” They drew upon past psychological research suggesting that how an individual person thinks about difficult experiences is linked with that person feeling better or worse. More specifically, they referred to two concepts that have been linked to the idea of rumination: Reflection and brooding. Reflection involves thinking about the problem to try and work it out, whereas brooding involves repeating the same types of thoughts about what’s wrong and how upset a person feels, and magnifying the problem.
As you can probably guess, the former is useful and gets you somewhere, and the latter can be harmful, even though it can seem compelling. Although these elements of rumination have been applied to relationships (that is, co-reflection and co-brooding being two sides of co-rumination), the research team pointed out that these ideas haven’t really been used to understand how romantic partners might talk in the wake of a misstep and whether co-reflection and co-brooding may be connected to how the conversation goes.
First, they created and studied a measure of co-rumination and found that it mapped onto three forms of communication: Co-reflection, co-brooding, and co-avoidance. Co-reflection involved trying to reach a shared understanding and address an issue, whereas co-brooding involved focusing on one’s own views and feelings and not making headway on an issue. Co-avoidance involved staying away from the issue altogether. Then, the research team looked at how these three elements were connected with how partners feel after discussions about relationship mistakes. Co-reflection was the only style that was linked with better experiences for partners, such as more dedication to the relationship, more goodwill, and a person’s ability to truly take responsibility and forgive themselves. For co-brooding and co-avoidance, these styles were connected to experiences such as less goodwill, more vindictiveness, less dedication, and less of a capacity to really take responsibility and pardon oneself.
Certainly, no study is perfect. The team correctly highlighted the need for more research with more diverse groups of people. Also, the investigators were right to state that their research doesn’t make it possible to say that co-reflection, co-brooding, or co-avoidance causes a particular outcome, and other studies should clarify the link between how partners talk about relationship errors and what emerges from their conversations. All the same, given that co-reflecting is connected with more beneficial experiences for partners, it’s probably not a bad idea to try it the next time you and your partner are addressing a stumble and hurt feelings.

What could this look like? Based on the team’s research and their questionnaire, here are some possible ideas:
1.Try to really acknowledge, accept, and support how your partner feels (for example, hurt, hopeful, scared, angry, sad, confused).
2.Try to set aside your own position for a moment. Instead, try to really listen to your partner and see if you can understand where they’re coming from.
3.Try to be open and receptive to your partner in the conversation.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/your-future-self/202304/how-to-talk-about-mistakes-in-a-romantic-relationship
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The Troubling Truth About Drinking in Moderation

It appears that no amount of alcohol is good for you.

It turns out that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol daily does not—as previously thought—protect against heart disease or contribute to a longer life. Apologies if your alcohol consumption depends in part on this popular belief and (until now) useful rationalization.
For decades, scientific studies suggested moderate drinking was better for most people’s health than not drinking at all, and could even boost longevity. But, a new analysis of more than 40 years of research has concluded that many of those studies were flawed and that the opposite is true.
Just published in JAMA Network Open, this meta-analysis reviewed 107 observational studies that involved more than 4.8 million people. The massive study stressed that previous estimates of the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption on the risk of death by “all causes” — meaning anything, including heart disease, cancer, infections, and automobile accidents — were “significantly” biased by flaws in study design.
According to the researchers, earlier research did not adjust for numerous factors that could influence the outcome, for example, age, sex, economic status, and lifestyle behaviors such as exercise, smoking, and diet. Using statistical software, they essentially removed such bias, adjusting for various factors that could skew the research. After doing so, there were no significant declines in the risk of death by any cause among the moderate drinkers.[1]
While these previous observational studies could identify potential links or correlations, they could also be misleading and didn’t prove cause and effect. Moreover, they failed to recognize that many light and moderate drinkers had other healthy habits and advantages and that non-drinkers used as a comparison group often included people who had given up alcohol after developing health problems.
This represents the largest study to effectively call B.S. on the widely held belief that moderate drinking of wine or other alcoholic beverages is healthy. In contrast, it found that the risk of numerous health problems, as well as that of dying prematurely, increased significantly after less than two drinks per day for women and after three per day for men.
This data adds to that of another substantial meta-analysis from 2022 in which researchers in Britain examined genetic and medical data of nearly 400,000 people and concluded that alcohol consumption at all levels was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.[2]
The modern-day belief that daily alcohol consumption promotes health emerged in the 1980s, when researchers identified the so-called “French paradox,” which suggested that low rates of cardiovascular disease among men in France was associated with daily wine consumption. Although later analyses found flaws in the research, the idea that moderate drinking improved health became broadly accepted. Wine—particularly red wine—developed a reputation for having health benefits after news stories highlighted its high concentration of resveratrol, a protective antioxidant also found in blueberries and cranberries.
However, the hypothesis that moderate alcohol use is health-enhancing has come under increasing scrutiny over the years as the alcohol industry’s role in funding research became clear, revealing that many of the studies that purport the alleged health effects of alcohol have been funded by that industry. A 2020 report found that 13,500 studies have been directly or indirectly paid for by the alcohol industry.[3] Concurrently, a range of other studies has found that even moderate consumption of alcohol—including red wine—may contribute to cancers of the breast, esophagus, head and neck, high blood pressure, and atrial fibrillation, a serious heart arrhythmia.
Dietary guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 recommend that adults limit alcohol intake to two drinks or fewer a day for men and one drink or less for women, adding “that drinking less is better for health than drinking more.” The guidelines also warn that even drinking within the recommended limits may increase the overall risk of death attributable to various causes, including some types of cancer and heart disease, even at levels of less than one drink per day.[4]
This past January, Canada issued new guidelines warning that no amount of alcohol consumption is healthy and urges people to reduce drinking as much as possible. Issued by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, the new guidance was a significant departure from its 2011 guidelines, which recommended women limit themselves to no more than 10 standard drinks a week and men no more than 15.[5]
Alcohol is the most used recreational drug, and unfortunately, for those who enjoy drinking for relaxation and recreation, this is unwelcome news. As comforting as it might be to think that it’s good for one’s health, increasingly the science simply does not support it. The extensive new research decimates the hope of many that moderate alcohol use is healthy and makes clear that people should not drink alcohol for the express purpose of improving their health. If maintaining and/or improving health is your priority, in terms of alcohol consumption, less is more.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/some-assembly-required/202304/alcohol-is-not-good-for-your-health-even-in-moderation
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What COVID Can Teach Us About Stress Management

Different coping styles tell us a lot about healthy eating

Now that COVID is somewhat behind us, we have some space to stop and reflect. We can remember the days when masks were mandatory, lockdowns were frequent, and many businesses were shutting down (except, of course, hospitals).
Some of us used the time to down-regulate our lives, taking advantage of a less hectic lifestyle. Others’ lives became even more hectic as schools closed, and daycare was a non-starter. Job insecurity became a huge issue. Supply chains were questionable. Not to mention the loss of loved ones and acquaintances.
And we had no idea when things were going to improve, at least until a vaccine became widely available. That first year was quite a challenge, and there was nowhere to go. It was a worldwide health threat.
COVID Anxiety and the Consumption of Junk Foods
A couple of studies presented in a 2022 research paper (Juad and Lunardo) looked at anxiety during 2020 in adults aged 18-35 in the United Kingdom and France. Their background research showed that this age group tended to struggle more with anxiety than older adults, showing a greater tendency to feel isolated, overwhelmed, and helpless.
This particular study decided to look at the uptick in eating junk foods (high-calorie, processed foods) and sugary drinks as a coping strategy for pandemic anxiety. Juad and Lunardo also found that there were specific coping strategies used by some individuals that did not lead to continued states of anxiety and turning to compensatory eating practices.
They discovered that feelings of helplessness caused many individuals to have a lower acceptance of the situation. Helplessness indicates a general feeling of not having the ability to find a way to cope with the situation. This is known as low self-efficacy.
Individuals who felt helpless tended to eat more junk food (often accompanied by weight gain) during the first year of the pandemic. On the other hand, those who were able to accept the situation were then able to develop positive coping strategies. As a result, they did not turn to junk food as a coping strategy.
Anxiety and Self-Efficacy
Other research has explored the connection between helplessness and feelings of low-self efficacy. Low self-efficacy can lead to ignoring or rejecting positive coping strategies that a person does not feel capable of performing. The opposite would be self-efficacy, or a person’s belief in their ability to find and use coping strategies to achieve a goal or complete a task.
These same concepts are evident when designing behavior change interventions that promote a healthy eating style compatible with maintaining a healthy weight.
What do they have in common? Both have to do with conquering the negativity that comes with stress that can leave a person stuck in an unproductive belief system. Without self-efficacy on board, it is easy to stay focused on the negative, use negative self-talk, and stay in black-and-white thinking. These patterns can lead a person to think that changing the situation is impossible.
The question is, can some interventions increase self-efficacy, and if so, how?
The Role of Stress Management
A study in 2022 (Carfora, Morandi, and Catellani) identified several techniques that had a positive effect on developing dietary self-efficacy. Self-monitoring, feedback on performance, review of behavioral goals, setting up a reward system, and social support all increased dietary self-efficacy.
The kicker was that stress management was consistently associated with self-efficacy across all analyses and came out as the strongest indicator.
This finding takes us right back to what was happening during COVID with regard to turning to unhealthy foods. Anxiety is a big part of stress. Jaud and Lunardo found a huge association between being able to handle the anxiety of an uncontrollable situation like the pandemic and the ability to make healthy food choices. That association points to the role of self-efficacy when handling the stress of the situation.
Rewriting Stress
Getting back to the question of whether self-efficacy can be increased, it would appear that stress management plays a key role. Taking it a step further, what actions can be taken to respond to stress that will lower its effect on us?
As Jaud and Lunardo indicated, the ability to accept the situation could then serve as the basis for developing coping strategies leading to the ability to maintain healthy eating during the pandemic.
Other research has supported several techniques used to reduce stress and develop coping strategies when designing healthy eating interventions. These techniques have been proven effective time and again. These strategies can be applied to the successful management of stress during challenging times, such as the pandemic, as well as using behavior change interventions in healthy eating or weight-loss programs.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/health-and-human-nature/202303/what-covid-can-teach-us-about-stress-management
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Is Exercise as Effective as Medications or Talk Therapy?

A large meta-review suggests it is.

In the United States, when someone is experiencing a chronic health condition or persistent negative mood states, medications or talk therapy tend to be first to the rescue. Exercise is sometimes relegated to the category of “complementary and alternative medicine” for those who have tried medications and therapy and found them to be “ineffective” based on either provider opinion or a patient’s experience of subjective relief. However, this is not the case everywhere. In countries like Australia, behavioral approaches coined “lifestyle management,” which include exercise, is considered a front-line approach.
A new meta-review by a group of behavioral scientists from the University of South Australia highlighted the equivalence of physical activity to medications and psychotherapy in the treatment of depression, anxiety, various chronic diseases, and maintenance of overall health. The current findings, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that physical activity has a medium effect size on depression, anxiety, and chronic disease, which is larger than the typical small effect sizes found in behavioral health research. This association improved with increased intensity of movement compared to treatment as usual. Critically, the effect size for physical activity on depression (median effect size = -0.43) and on anxiety (median effect size = -0.42) was comparable, though slightly greater, than medication or therapy (median effect size ranges = -0.22 to -0.37).
Though there have been dozens of randomized controlled trials or meta-analytic studies exploring the positive health impacts of exercise, they are typically limited due to examining very narrow demographics at a time, which may not generalize well to the larger population. The authors of the newest study attempted to include as many forms of physical activity as possible without focusing on specific subgroups of any one population to see what patterns emerged from data, which included over 128,000 participants across 1,039 clinical trials.
Any adult 18 years or older who participated in a research trial that aimed to increase physical activity was included in the analysis. Physical activity was defined as “any bodily movement produced by the contraction of skeletal muscles that results in a substantial increase in caloric requirements over resting energy expenditure.” The physical activity intervention had to occur across time (versus a single physical activity event, like a one-time marathon). Studies which included confounding variables in their intervention such as dietary changes, medications, or psychotherapy were excluded to be able to highlight the impact of physical activity alone on health outcomes. Participants included in the study ranged from 29 to 86 years old, with a median age of 55 years old.
Results showed depression and depressive symptoms were significantly reduced with a medium effect size as a result of physical activity in over 62,000 participants across 875 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from 72 meta-analyses. Anxiety symptoms were significantly reduced with a medium effect size as a result of physical activity in over 10,000 participants across 171 RCTs from 28 meta-analyses. Psychological distress significantly reduced with a medium effect size in more than 500 participants across six RCTs from one systematic review. Importantly, effect sizes varied highly by the assessment instrument used, highlighting the importance of measurement-based care, utilizing validated screening tools to assess symptomology in patients and research participants.
Perhaps even more promising than the massive number of participants for whom these impacts of physical activity on mood symptoms held true is the finding that all modes of exercise were effective in reducing depression and anxiety symptoms. Regardless of strength-based movement, mind-body practices like yoga and tai chi, aerobic exercise, or mixed-mode exercises which include both aerobic and resistance training, exercise was shown to be effective in improving negative emotions and health distress. Higher intensity exercises were found to be more effective in ameliorating depression symptoms than lower or moderate-intensity exercises, while both moderate and higher intensity physical activity was found to be effective for reducing anxiety symptoms.
As the overall physical activity treatment was extended beyond 12 weeks, the amount of reduction in mood symptoms paradoxically diminished. This highlights the importance of structuring physical activity interventions for discrete periods of time, consistent with how individuals set effective behavioral goals, compared to giving patients open-ended guidance on physical activity which is not time-bound. Limiting physical activity interventions to a “sweet spot” of roughly three months is also more effective for patients, medical systems, and payers alike, reducing the burden of healthcare costs while maximizing health outcomes.
Weekly physical activity close to or under 150 minutes each week is ideal, compared to exercise beyond 150 minutes weekly which showed diminishing health impacts. Exercising a moderate amount, of 4-5 times per week, was found to be more closely tied to better mood than exercising at higher frequency like daily or at lower frequency like only 1-2 times each week. For anyone wondering what the optimal length of an exercise session may be, the authors found 30-60 minute exercise sessions are most effective. Given the potential benefits of physical activity as an intervention and the minimal negative side effects, it stands to reason that exercise should be considered a front-line approach for mood and chronic health problems when possible. Or at least, exercise should be given equal consideration as medications and psychotherapy for improving health outcomes.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/202303/is-exercise-as-effective-as-medications-or-talk
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Does Having a Baby Actually Make Parents Happy?

The first year tends to be great. The fifth, not so much.

For many couples, having a baby is one of their greatest wishes in life. But does having a baby really make parents happier? And if yes, how long does this baby bliss last? A new study published in the journal Emotion focused on answering these questions (Asselmann & Specht, 2023).
A New Study on How Parents Feel After Having a Baby
In the study, German scientists Eva Asselmann and Jule Specht analyzed data from more than 5,000 first-time parents from the German Socio-Economic Panel, a large-scale cohort study that started in 1984. All parents included in the study had experienced the birth of their first child between 2007 and 2019. The parents were interviewed yearly and asked about a number of different things. These included life satisfaction (“How satisfied are you currently with your life as a whole?”), as well as happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger in the four weeks before the interview. These data were analyzed from five years before the couple became parents to five years after they became parents.
A Surprising Result
The scientists found out that having a baby changes psychological well-being in several ways.
The most pronounced effect was a strong increase in life satisfaction and happiness in the first year of parenthood – so baby bliss is indeed real! However, life satisfaction and happiness gradually bounced back in the years following the baby’s birth. Altogether, couples showed similar levels of life satisfaction and happiness five years after becoming parents compared to five years before becoming parents.
Regarding negative emotions, the strongest effect was found for anger. Anger decreases in the five years before a couple becomes parents and reaches its lowest point during the first year of parenthood. After that, it increases, and five years after the baby was born, anger was even larger than five years before the baby was born.
The authors of the study suggested that these higher anger levels reflect a reaction due to the stressful aspects of being a parent, such as sleep deprivation or time conflicts between family and work. For sadness and anxiety, the effects were only small. Sadness showed similar effects to anger but did not reach higher levels five years after the baby was born compared to five years before the baby was born, and anxiety gradually increased the five years before the baby was born, which may reflect anticipation effects.
An analysis of gender effects revealed that mothers experienced a more substantial increase in happiness and life satisfaction than fathers but also experienced stronger anger effects. The study's authors suggested that biological factors or gender role expectations may explain this effec.
Take-Away: Baby Bliss Lasts for a Short Time
Taken together, the results of the study clearly show that baby bliss exists. In the first year of a baby’s life, the parents are happier and more satisfied with their life than before. However, this effect only lasts shortly and when the child is five years old, both happiness and life satisfaction of his or her parents had bounced back to the level they were at five years before the child was born.
Moreover, anger levels rise, reflecting the stressful aspects of parenthood. This shows that having a baby has a lot of positive short-term effects on psychological well-being, but for high long-term life satisfaction, it is essential to find strategies to cope with the stressful aspects of having a child.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-asymmetric-brain/202303/baby-bliss-does-having-a-baby-make-parents-happy
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A New Hope for Building Your Emotional Intelligence

New research shows the skill that can make you more emotionally intelligent.

Do you ever wonder whether it’s better to show your emotions or to keep them hidden? Perhaps your hairstylist cuts your hair much shorter than you asked for. Do you decide it’s better just to wait till it grows back in (and find a different stylist), or should you let the manager know how infuriated you are? Either strategy has pros and cons, so which is the lesser of the two evils?
According to a recent study by the University of Catania’s Maria Quattropani and colleagues (2022), most situations present two starkly different alternatives for managing your emotions, and it is indeed often hard to know which way to react. The key to healthy adjustment, they argued, isn’t always being right about your choice but being able to see that there is indeed a choice.
They noted that “flexibility in emotion regulation represents a central tenet for overall psychological adjustment” (p. 698). In other words, some situations call for expression, and some for suppression. Even if you take the wrong turn in this dilemma, at least you’re able to see that life often presents more gray than black-and-white areas when it comes to handling your emotions.
Emotional Flexibility and Its Measurement
You might think that all of these choices would depend on the quality of your emotional intelligence. But what if your emotional intelligence isn’t all that high? Are you stuck in an endless loop of constantly saying and doing the wrong thing?
The idea of emotional flexibility can become your saving grace. Even if you don’t top out at the positive end of the emotional intelligence curve, Quattropani et al.’s research suggested using emotional flexibility as your go-to alternative skill.
You can get an idea of what this quality looks like by seeing where you rate on the measure the Italian research team used, the “Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression” scale, abbreviated as “FREE” (Burton & Bonanno, 2016). To complete this scale, you put yourself into 16 situations that fall into four categories based on the emotion involved in the situation (positive or negative) and your reaction to that emotion (express or conceal). For each, you are to rate yourself from “unable” to “very able” to be even more expressive of how you were feeling.
See how you would do on these four sample items:

See how you would do on these four sample items:
Positive-Expressive: You receive a gift from a family member, but it’s a shirt you dislike.
Negative-Expressive: Your friend is telling you about what a terrible day they had.
Positive-Conceal: You are in a training session and see an accidentally funny typo in the presenter’s slideshow.
Negative-Conceal: You are at a social event, and the person you’re talking to frequently spits while they speak.

reference:
psychology today

link:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/fulfillment-at-any-age/202303/a-new-hope-for-building-your-emotional-intelligence
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