Pages: 6-15

Abstract

There is growing interest in the emotion regulation processes that underle the adaptive functioning of emotionally intelligent individuals. This study uses experience sampling to examine whether the emotional intelligence (EL) of undergraduate students (N=84) relates to their day-to-day use of five emotion regulation processes over a five-day period. We also test whether EI predict motives for one of the emotion regulation processes (social sharing). We measure both ability EI (the brief Situational Test of motion Management) and self-rated El (the Self-Rated motional inteligence Scale) Self-rated El significantly predict more social sharing, direct situation modification and reappraisal. Ability El does not significantly predict any of the five regulation processes. Both ability and self-rated El are significantly related to greater bonding and relief motives for social sharing Self-rated El is also reated to recovery motives. These results suggest that it is the self-beliefs about one's emotional abilities, rather than emotion knowledge, which influence the emotion regulation processes people use in daily life.