The power of emotional intelligence for facilitating psychologically flexible thinking: a contextual perspective in decision making and workplace flourishing

Abstract

There is growing support for the value of emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility in multiple life outcomes. Independently, emotional intelligence facilitates decision making and is a strong predictor of work performance. Likewise, psychological flexibility predicts job performance and facilitates decision making consonant with personal values. Notably, the relationship between these variables and their associated benefits are contextually-bound, manifesting to varying degrees for individuals in different circumstances. Despite intuitive connections between adaptive emotional functioning epitomised in emotional intelligence and the range of adaptive abilities comprising psychological flexibility, some theorists propose an inverse relationship. The series of four studies in this thesis aimed to investigate the interaction between emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility in promoting positive outcomes and to identify the primary mechanisms responsible. Given the contextual nature of both these constructs, outcomes were assessed in relation to two applied areas of investigation: decision making and workplace functioning. Both emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility are implicated in promoting positive outcomes in these selected fields and examination within these contexts strengthens the chances of detecting a relationship. Further, decision making and work functioning form pervasive aspects of daily life and applicability of findings in these contexts potentially extends widely throughout the population. The initial study provided preliminary support for the purported relationships between emotional intelligence, psychological flexibility and maximising personality traits relevant to decision making processes and outcomes. Administration of a decision changeability paradigm showed that emotional intelligence predicted higher psychological flexibility, mediated by positive affect, which in turn mitigated ruminative outcomes typical of maximising personalities in changeable decision conditions. A workplace intervention study experimentally assessed the directional nature of the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility. Emotional intelligence causally contributed to improved work engagement through enhanced positive affect and work-related psychological flexibility following emotional self-efficacy training. However, conflicting results between global and work-specific measures of psychological flexibility warranted follow-up. Laboratory confirmation of causal components clarified the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility to some extent. Emotionally intelligent individuals were adept at maintaining positive affect following induction conditions that resulted in emotional regression for the majority of participants. In these conditions, emotional intelligence was related to higher functioning on a performance proxy indicating features of psychological flexibility. However, the power of emotional intelligence for facilitating flexibility in mood enhancing conditions was equivocal and further research is required to test this relationship using positive induction methods with greater efficacy. The intractability of the global psychological flexibility measure (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire) in conditions commonly considered to facilitate flexibility suggests some limitations in the use of this tool. Future directions should explore alternative measurement methods for capturing psychological flexibility, particularly brief performance measures or positively keyed global self-reports and a range of context-specific assessments. Overall, the thesis offers promising insights on the value of emotional intelligence training and potentially positive affect interventions for promoting psychological flexibility. Ultimately, this could address some of the negative outcomes associated with maximizing tendencies, such as ruminative responding in changeable decision conditions, and promote workplace flourishing. Show more