In plain language
By the early 2000s, emotional intelligence (EI) had become enormously popular, but some researchers argued there was little evidence that it added anything useful beyond well-established constructs such as personality and general intelligence. This study asked whether EI could make a unique contribution to understanding how life stress relates to mental health — specifically depression, hopelessness, and suicidal thinking.
A sample of 302 university students took part in a cross-sectional study that measured recent life stress, both objective (performance-based) and self-reported emotional intelligence, and mental health. The researchers then tested whether different components of emotional intelligence changed the strength of the link between stress and mental health.
Stress did not affect everyone equally. People who scored high in emotional perception — the ability to notice emotions — showed a stronger link between stress and depression, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation, suggesting that being highly tuned in to emotions can be a vulnerability under stress. In contrast, people skilled at managing other people's emotions were partly protected: among those low in this skill, stress was linked to more suicidal thinking. Because these EI components were statistically distinct from other relevant measures, the study supported EI as a distinctive construct that matters for understanding the stress–mental health link.
Key findings
- In 302 university students, life stress was associated with greater depression, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation among people high in emotional perception compared with others.
- Stress was associated with greater suicidal ideation among people low in the skill of managing others' emotions, suggesting this social-emotional skill buffers against stress.
- Emotional intelligence acted as a moderator: it changed the strength of the relationship between stress and mental health rather than simply predicting mental health directly.
- Being highly perceptive of emotions emerged as a potential vulnerability factor under stress, an important counterpoint to the assumption that more emotional awareness is always better.
- Both emotional perception and managing others' emotions were statistically distinct from other relevant measures, supporting emotional intelligence as a distinctive construct.
- The study used both objective (performance-based) and self-report measures of emotional intelligence alongside measures of life stress and mental health.
How to cite
APA
Ciarrochi, J., Deane, F. P., & Anderson, S. (2002). Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between stress and mental health. Personality and Individual Differences, 32(2), 197–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00012-5
BibTeX
@article{ciarrochi2002emotional,
author = {Ciarrochi, Joseph and Deane, Frank P. and Anderson, Stephen},
title = {Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between stress and mental health},
journal = {Personality and Individual Differences},
year = {2002},
volume = {32},
number = {2},
pages = {197--209},
doi = {10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00012-5}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.