The role of emotional intelligence and negative affect as protective and risk factors of aggressive behavior: A moderated mediation model

Abstract

The General Aggression Model (GAM) offers an integrative explanation of the aggressive behavior based on three stages: 1) inputs: personal and situational factors; 2) routes or individual internal states: affect, cognition, and arousal; and 3) outcomes: decision processes with a (non) aggressive result. Researchers are interested in looking for protective factors within the GAM to diminish aggression. Previous studies have found two relevant variables acting independently as risk and protective factors: emotional intelligence (EI) and negative affect (NA). The aim of the present study is to analyze a moderated mediation model including these variables as an explanation of aggressive behavior and integrate it within the GAM. Four hundred and six participants were assessed on EI, NA, and aggression. The moderated mediation analysis showed a significant negative indirect effect of the perceiving EI branch on total aggression mediated through NA levels, which, in turn, was moderated by the managing EI branch. Moreover, this relationship was also observed for the physical, anger, and hostility sub-scales of aggression. Our study demonstrates the importance of having a high ability to perceive emotions as a protective factor in the first stage of the GAM. These individuals will present lower NA in the second stage of the model, resulting in a reduction in aggression. Moreover, having a high ability to perceive emotions is particularly relevant for individuals that are less able to manage emotions, given that those participants with higher scores on the managing EI branch can reduce their aggressive behavior by mitigating the effect of NA on aggression in the third stage of the GAM.

The Effect of Social Network Use on Chinese College Students’ Conspicuous Consumption: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…This study used SPSS and Hayes’ (2013) [ 61 ] SPSS macro program PROCESS to organize and analyze the data. This SPSS macro program can be used to validate a wide range of mediated moderation and mediated models with moderation based on the bootstrap method of bias correction percentile and has been used by others to test whether the first or second half of the mediating effect is moderated [ 62 , 63 ].…”

The Effect of Social Network Use on Chinese College Students’ Conspicuous Consumption: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…This study used SPSS and Hayes’ (2013) [ 61 ] SPSS macro program PROCESS to organize and analyze the data. This SPSS macro program can be used to validate a wide range of mediated moderation and mediated models with moderation based on the bootstrap method of bias correction percentile and has been used by others to test whether the first or second half of the mediating effect is moderated [ 62 , 63 ].…”

The Moderated Mediation Effect of Age and Relaxation on the Relationship between the Type A Behavior Pattern and Blood Pressure in South Korea

“…The methodology of Gutiérrez-Cobo and colleagues [ 19 ] was adopted for data analysis. This study initially employed correlational analysis to identify the relationships among the research variables (i.e., TABP, relaxation, age, and blood pressure).…”

Ability-Related Emotional Intelligence: An Introduction

“…People with higher levels of EI, because they possess more extensive knowledge about emotion and its management, may be capable of down-regulating their tendencies toward emotional impulsivity in ways that people with lower levels of EI cannot (Heatherton and Wagner 2011). In support of such theorizing, research has shown that high-EI individuals are less vulnerable to reactive aggression (Gutiérrez-Cobo et al 2018), distress-influenced suicidal behavior (Cha and Nock 2009), and counterproductive work behavior, particularly when triggered by job negative affect (Krishnakumar et al 2017). A related line of work has started to show that individual differences in ability EI, but not self-reported EI, can be linked to cognitive control in emotion-related contexts (Checa and Fernández-Berrocal 2019;Gutiérrez-Cobo et al 2017).…”

The Effect of Social Network Use on Chinese College Students’ Conspicuous Consumption: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…This study used SPSS and Hayes’ (2013) [ 61 ] SPSS macro program PROCESS to organize and analyze the data. This SPSS macro program can be used to validate a wide range of mediated moderation and mediated models with moderation based on the bootstrap method of bias correction percentile and has been used by others to test whether the first or second half of the mediating effect is moderated [ 62 , 63 ].…”

The Moderated Mediation Effect of Age and Relaxation on the Relationship between the Type A Behavior Pattern and Blood Pressure in South Korea

“…The methodology of Gutiérrez-Cobo and colleagues [ 19 ] was adopted for data analysis. This study initially employed correlational analysis to identify the relationships among the research variables (i.e., TABP, relaxation, age, and blood pressure).…”

Ability-Related Emotional Intelligence: An Introduction

“…People with higher levels of EI, because they possess more extensive knowledge about emotion and its management, may be capable of down-regulating their tendencies toward emotional impulsivity in ways that people with lower levels of EI cannot (Heatherton and Wagner 2011). In support of such theorizing, research has shown that high-EI individuals are less vulnerable to reactive aggression (Gutiérrez-Cobo et al 2018), distress-influenced suicidal behavior (Cha and Nock 2009), and counterproductive work behavior, particularly when triggered by job negative affect (Krishnakumar et al 2017). A related line of work has started to show that individual differences in ability EI, but not self-reported EI, can be linked to cognitive control in emotion-related contexts (Checa and Fernández-Berrocal 2019;Gutiérrez-Cobo et al 2017).…”

The Effect of Social Network Use on Chinese College Students’ Conspicuous Consumption: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…This study used SPSS and Hayes’ (2013) [ 61 ] SPSS macro program PROCESS to organize and analyze the data. This SPSS macro program can be used to validate a wide range of mediated moderation and mediated models with moderation based on the bootstrap method of bias correction percentile and has been used by others to test whether the first or second half of the mediating effect is moderated [ 62 , 63 ].…”

The Moderated Mediation Effect of Age and Relaxation on the Relationship between the Type A Behavior Pattern and Blood Pressure in South Korea

“…The methodology of Gutiérrez-Cobo and colleagues [ 19 ] was adopted for data analysis. This study initially employed correlational analysis to identify the relationships among the research variables (i.e., TABP, relaxation, age, and blood pressure).…”

Ability-Related Emotional Intelligence: An Introduction

“…People with higher levels of EI, because they possess more extensive knowledge about emotion and its management, may be capable of down-regulating their tendencies toward emotional impulsivity in ways that people with lower levels of EI cannot (Heatherton and Wagner 2011). In support of such theorizing, research has shown that high-EI individuals are less vulnerable to reactive aggression (Gutiérrez-Cobo et al 2018), distress-influenced suicidal behavior (Cha and Nock 2009), and counterproductive work behavior, particularly when triggered by job negative affect (Krishnakumar et al 2017). A related line of work has started to show that individual differences in ability EI, but not self-reported EI, can be linked to cognitive control in emotion-related contexts (Checa and Fernández-Berrocal 2019;Gutiérrez-Cobo et al 2017).…”