Emotional intelligence and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale: relationships with empathy, attributional complexity, self-control, and responses to interpersonal conflict

According to Salovey and Mayer (1990), the construct of emotional intelligence refers to individual differences in the ability to process and utilize emotional information related to key areas of effective functioning in everyday life. In the current study, 170 participants completed measures of empathy, attributional complexity, self-control, and emotional intelligence (Trait Meta-Mood Scale; Salovey, Mayer, Golman, Turvey & Palfai, 1995). Participants’ responses to a recalled episode of interpersonal conflict were also coded as functional or dysfunctional. Empathy, attributional complexity and self-control were positively associated with aspects of the TMMS, and TMMS scores were negatively related to dysfunctional responses to interpersonal conflict. However, TMMS scores were not positively associated with functional responses to conflict. The findings are discussed in relation to the theoretical basis of emotional intelligence and the validity of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale.