Emotional Intelligence Buffers The Effect of Physiological Arousal On Dishonesty

Abstract

We studied the emotional processes that allow people to balance two competing desires: benefitting from dishonesty and keeping a positive self-image. We recorded physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate) during a computer card game in which participants could cheat and fail to report a certain card when presented on the screen to avoid losing their money. We found that higher skin conductance corresponded to lower cheating rates. Importantly, emotional intelligence regulated this effect; participants with high emotional intelligence were less affected by their physiological reactions than those with low emotional intelligence. As a result, they were more likely to profit from dishonesty. However, no interaction emerged between heart rate and emotional intelligence. We suggest that the ability to manage and control emotions can allow people to overcome the tension between doing right or wrong and license them to bend the rules.

Relationships between Trait Emotional Intelligence, mood states, and future orientation among female Italian victims of Intimate Partner Violence

“…To rebuke criticism of the trait EI model as redundant compared to the classification of personality traits, scholars have highlighted its incremental validity as a predictor of attitudes, coping strategies, and the typology of different mental disorders ( Petrides et al., 2007 ; Mikolajczak et al., 2006 ). In fact, people with high trait EI manage emotional distress better than people with low trait EI ( Laborde et al., 2011 , 2014 ; Lea et al., 2019 ), and they are less susceptible to depression ( Kircaburun et al., 2019 ), more resilient to failure, and less likely to perceive events as threatening ( Agnoli et al., 2019 ; Mikolajczak et al., 2007 ; Pittarello et al., 2017 ). People with high levels of EI (in terms of understanding, expressing, and managing one's own emotions and the emotions of others) are able to use emotions to solve problems, motivate themselves, and reach chosen objectives ( Batool et al., 2014 ).…”