Empathy, personality traits, and emotional management in 2nd and 4th-year dentistry students: a single-center study

Background Patients fearing dental interventions are at risk of delaying or skipping much-needed treatments. Empathic communication could lead to a higher rate of compliance from patients within this group. Empathy, the big five personality traits, and emotion management abilities are all known to influence the quality of communication between dentists and patients. This study was conducted to analyze whether there is a correlation between these factors in dentistry students. Methods Dentistry students in their 2nd and 4th year of study were asked to complete questionnaires assessing empathy, emotion management, and personality traits. Out of a total of 148 eligible participants, 53 students (34%) volunteered to participate. For empathy, the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (students’ version; JSPE-S) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were used. Personality traits were assessed using the Short Big Five Inventory (BFI-s), and the Situational Test of Emotional Management (STEM) to measure emotional management ability. Results Higher scores for emotion management were significantly correlated with the female gender (p ≤ 0.005) and with higher scores in openness (p ≤ 0.05). Students with higher scores in openness also achieved higher scores on the IRI subscales: Perspective taking (p ≤ 0.05), Fantasy (p ≤ 0.01), Empathic concern (p ≤ 0.05), and Personal distress (p ≤ 0.05). For JSPE-S, no correlation with emotion management and personality traits was found. Conclusion Empathy and emotion management might not be significantly related in dentistry students. Regarding personality traits, students who scored higher on openness also indicated higher abilities in emotion management. These findings should be taken into consideration when planning communication courses for dentistry students, as it might be possible to independently train empathy and emotion management as part of emotional intelligence.

Workplace Incivility and Job Satisfaction

Workplace incivility is common in organizations across the world and can have negative effects on individuals and organizations. The purpose of the reported study is to examine the effects of supervisor and coworker incivility on job satisfaction and examines emotion management as a mediator of these relationships. Data from 268 working adults were collected by survey battery and analyzed via a number of multivariate techniques. The model was supported in that both supervisor and coworker incivility had strong direct negative effects on emotion management and job satisfaction, and emotion management partially mediated the incivility-job satisfaction relationship. With supervisor and coworker incivility, the participants reported lower levels of job satisfaction. However, the participants' emotion management mitigated the negative effect of incivility on job satisfaction partially. The findings suggest that organizations need to be aware of the unfavorable consequences of incivility. Organizations need to discover ways to reduce incivility and implement efforts to help employees develop positive emotional management strategies. These actions may help reduce the negative influences of incivility on important organizational outcomes like job satisfaction.

Feeling the emotions, finding the resources: a pathway toward balanced parenting?

The pandemic made childcare a major challenge for parents globally, both in the short and longer term. In this context, it is plausible that emotions and general distress experienced by parents have had an impact at multiple levels in their relationships with their children, potentially increasing their vulnerability. The present study focuses on the analysis of the prevailing emotions of Italian parents during the first lockdown, investigating possible associations with personal perceptions of well-being and readiness to cope with the emergency situation. 319 parents (93% mothers) answered to a semi-structured computer assisted web interview (CAWI; Kurniawan, 2018). The answers showed that parents went through intense emotions, both negative, like worry and anxiety (39.2% named only negative emotions and 32% negative emotions as prevalent) and positive emotional, like hope, serenity and joy (7.8% indicated only positive emotions and 9.5% positive emotions as prevalent). Parents’ perceived positive emotions have proved to be important resources linked to a higher level of personal well-being and the perception of being adequately equipped to deal with an emergency. Emotion management emerged as a key area affecting parents’ way of relating with their children during the strict lockdown: parents declared their need to be supported in building a positive emotional relationship with their children in a stressing situation, highlighting a difficulty in cope with and communicate their own emotionality.

Prosecutors’ Habituation of Emotion Management in Swedish Courts

The article examines the professional emotion management underlying prosecutors’ work in court. Building on interviews and observations of forty-one prosecutors at five offices in Sweden, and drawing on sociological theories of emotion habituation, we analyze the emotion management necessary to perform frontstage (in court) professionalism as a prosecutor. We divide our analysis into three key dimensions of habituation: the feeling rules of confidence and mastering anxiety associated with an independent performance; the feeling rules of emotional distance and a balanced display associated with performing the objective party; and the playful and strategic improvisation of feeling rules associated with relaxed emotional presence. The routinization of feeling rules and the gradual backgrounding of related emotion management leads to habituation. Our findings enhance understanding of emotion management skills as part of tacit knowledge conveyed in the legal professions where emotion-talk and emotional reflexivity are little acknowledged. The article also contributes to the largely US-dominated previous research by adding a civil law perspective on prosecutorial emotion management.

The Role of Strategic Emotional Intelligence in Predicting Adolescents’ Academic Achievement: Possible Interplays with Verbal Intelligence and Personality

As recent meta-analyses confirmed that emotional intelligence (EI), particularly strategic EI, adjoins intelligence and personality in predicting academic achievement, we explored possible arrangements in which these predictors affect the given outcome in adolescents. Three models, with versions including either overall strategic EI or its branches, were considered: (a) a mediation model, whereby strategic EI partially mediates the effects of verbal intelligence (VI) and personality on achievement; the branch-level version assumed that emotion understanding affects achievement in a cascade via emotion management; (b) a direct effects model, with strategic EI/branches placed alongside VI and personality as another independent predictor of achievement; and (c) a moderation model, whereby personality moderates the effects of VI and strategic EI/branches on achievement. We tested these models in a sample of 227 students (M = 16.50 years) and found that both the mediation and the direct effects model with overall strategic EI fit the data; there was no support for a cascade within strategic EI, nor for the assumption that personality merely moderates the effects of abilities on achievement. Principally, strategic EI both mediated the effects of VI and openness, and independently predicted academic achievement, and it did so through emotion understanding directly, “skipping” emotion management.

INTERRELATION OF A PENCHANT FOR DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR AND EMOTIONAL INTELLECT OF TEENAGERS

Purpose. The aim of the study was to study the relationship between the propensity for auto-destructive behavior and the emotional intelligence of adolescents.Methods. The methodology for diagnosing deviant behavior of minors (SDP test – propensity to deviant behavior) was developed by E. V. Leus. Two scales were used from this technique: addictive (dependent), self-injurious (auto-aggressive) behavior. The questionnaire of suicidal risk (SR) in the modification of T. N. Razuvaeva and the questionnaire for emotional intelligence (D. V. Lyusina).Results. in the main part, based on empirical material, it is shown that there is a negative relationship between demonstrativeness and interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions, emotion management by adolescents. A negative relationship between affectivity and interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions, and emotion management by adolescents was revealed. The uniqueness of adolescents negatively correlates with intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions, and emotion management by adolescents. A negative correlation was established between the failure and interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions and emotion management by adolescents. A negative correlation of social pessimism and interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions, and emotion management of adolescents was revealed. The time perspective negatively correlates with interpersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions, and emotion management in adolescents. A negative relationship between the impossibility of constructive future planning and intrapersonal emotional intelligence of adolescents has been revealed. The tendency to dependent behavior of adolescents is negatively associated with interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions and managing emotions. The tendency to auto-aggressive behavior of adolescents negatively correlates with interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, understanding of emotions and emotion management.Conclusions. As a result of an empirical study, the relationship between the propensity for auto-destructive behavior and the emotional intelligence of adolescents was revealed. In conclusion, as a promising line of development of this study, the approbation of the technology for the development of high emotional intelligence as a psychological barrier to the tendency to auto-destructive behavior of adolescents is outlined.Key words: interpersonal emotional intelligence, intrapersonal emotional intelligence, tendency to dependent behavior, tendency to self-injurious behavior, tendency to suicidal behavior. Целью исследования являлось изучение связи склонности к аутодеструктивному поведению и эмоционального интеллекта подростков.Методы. Методика диагностики девиантного поведения несовершеннолетних (тест СДП – склонности к девиантному поведению) разработан Э.В. Леус. Из данной методики использовали две шкалы: аддиктивное (зависимое) и самоповреждающее (аутоагрессивное) поведение. Опросник суицидального риска (ОСР) в модификации Т.Н. Разуваевой и опросник на эмоциональный интеллект (Д.В. Люсина).Результаты. В основной части на эмпирическом материале показано, что существует отрицатель-ная связь между демонстративностью и межличностным эмоциональным интеллектом, внутриличностным эмоциональным интеллектом, пониманием эмоций, управлением эмоциями подростками. Выявлена отрицательная связь между аффективностью и межличностным эмоциональным интеллектом, внутриличностным эмоциональным интеллектом, пониманием эмоций, управление эмоциями подростками. Установлено, что такие показатели, как «уникальность подростков», «несостоятельность», «социальный пессимизм», «временная перспектива, «планирование будущего», «склонность к зависимому поведению», «склонность к аутоагрессивному поведению», отрицательно коррелируют с внутриличностным эмоциональным интеллектом, межличностным эмоциональным интеллектом, пониманием эмоций, управлением эмоциями подростками. Выводы. В результате эмпирического исследования выявлена отрицательная связь склонности к аутоде-структивному поведению и эмоционального интеллекта подростков. В заключении в качестве перспективной линии развития настоящего исследования намечена апробация технологии развития высокого эмоционального интеллекта как психологического барьера склонности к аутодеструктивному поведению подростков.Ключевые слова: межличностный эмоциональный интеллект, внутриличностный эмоциональ-ный интеллект, склонность к зависимому поведению, склонность к самоповреждающему поведению, склонность к суицидальному поведению.

Relating supervisor interpersonal emotion management- and task-oriented leadership to adaptive performance: a moderated-mediation model incorporating trust and gender

PurposeThe authors incorporated leadership and gender theories with research on trust to propose a model relating interpersonal emotion management (IEM, a type of relational leadership) and task-oriented (T-O) leadership to follower adaptive performance. The authors also examine the indirect effect of IEM and T-O on adaptive performance via trust and the possible moderating role of gender on these relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested this model using a sample of 314 workers who rated their direct leaders (supervisors).FindingsOverall, results supported the model for IEM as it was directly and indirectly related (via trust) to adaptive job performance (even after controlling for transformational leadership) and these relationships were more positive for women leaders. T-O leadership was related to adaptive job performance as expected but was unrelated to trust or, via trust, to adaptive performance. Findings also suggest that women direct leaders may garner more trust and adaptive performance from followers by engaging in higher levels of IEM, while also not experiencing backlash for engaging in the more agentic T-O behaviors during a crisis.Practical implicationsDespite an emphasis on women's relational leadership during a crisis, the authors findings show organizations are best served by ambidextrous leaders who can manage the emotions and tasks of their followers and that both women and men can engage in these leadership styles without penalty.Originality/valueMuch research regarding women's leadership advantage during a crisis is based on political leaders or has been conducted in lab settings. Further, it has focused on attitudes toward the women leaders rather than their performance. Research has also not considered both IEM along with the possible backlash women may experience for engaging in T-O leadership.