1,721,152 research outputs found
Measurement and training on-line of emotional intelligence and competencies, and relevant criterion and socio-demographic variables in career starters.
No full textNowadays, the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has become more and more important and popular, not only in various areas of behavioral research within the scientific community, but also in the commercial world. For example, the assessment of EI is thought to be useful in the work setting when evaluating ongoing functioning of employees at critical stages of their careers, e.g., at selection, training, and promotion phases. The method and selected findings will be presented of studies carried out within a three-year research project (founded by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo). The project focuses on career starters - mostly University graduates, and people with a high school diploma and/or short professional degree, who have entered or seek to enter the work context - in the hypothesis that EI has an important role for them, in their entering the work context (e.g., by facilitating them to fit their job-role requirements), and/or in their attempts to find a satisfactory job, in line with their personal and professional aims. The most general goal of the project is to develop, administer, and validate a set of EI assessment and training instruments - specifically aimed at career starters. More specifically, the project has both applicative and theoretical-methodological aims. First, to study EI components and their relationships with several variables hypothesized to interact with EI - socio-demographic, psychological ones (e.g., personality, health, well-being) and education-related ones. A second aim is to test whether EI abilities and competencies can be successfully trained. A third aim is to gain, by so doing, a better conceptualization, at both the theoretical and operational level, of the EI construct, especially as regards the distinction between trait-EI (Pérez, Petrides, & Furnham, 2005) and ability-EI (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, Sitarenios, 2001). The project is partially based on a method developed within a recent European Leonardo project, involving hundreds young Europeans, in the period 2004-2005, on the assessment and training of EI in career starters, and on its results (e.g., Kafetsios et al. 2009; Zammuner & Kafetsios 2005a, 2005b). According to the project aims, a set of EI assessment and training instruments was constructed, and tested. In this phase of the project, participants fill in on-line both the EI tests and the training. This paper will report on the overall design of the project, the variables that are measured, the procedures used to implement the aim of giving access to the instruments to a large sample. Some illustrative results on aspects of emotional intelligence and competences, and their relation to criterion and socio-demographic variables, will be reported
Felt emotions, and verbally communicated emotions: The case of pride.
No full textPotential discrepancies between felt and verbally communicated emotions elicited by two Pride events (‘selected for a job among a large group’ and ‘being congratulated for one's own new partner’) were studied by means of a structured questionnaire. Italian male (n = 88) and female (n = 107) university students attributed felt and communicated emotions to the event protagonist P, choosing from a list of 14 emotions; the communication occurred with P‘s partner or friend, or with an acquaintance. Statistical analyses of subjects’ attributions confirmed the hypothesis that felt emotions are regulated in verbal communication to others: pride, triumph, self-satisfaction and excitement were de-emphasized in communication; joy, satisfaction, happiness and surprise were intensified; other emotions were communicated as felt. Event type, and to a lesser extent sex of subject, significantly influenced the direction and extent of regulation. The results are interpreted as showing that the verbal communication of emotion is influenced by emotion-related social norms and beliefs
People's dispositional makeup, their emotion regulation preferences, and their effects on wellbeing.
No full textIn order to feel better, or interact adequately with others, regulation of emotions is often necessary –many construe it as a major component of emotional intelligence. But regulation takes many forms, requires various resources, and its intra- and interpersonal effects might be functional and adaptive, or not. Who is most likely to regulate emotions effectively, and how? Do regulation modes differ in their effects? To shed further light on the regulation construct, this study examined two strategies, expressive Suppression and Reappraisal (Gross & John, 2003) in relation to dispositional (e.g., alexitimia, coping, attachment) and personal (sex, age) variables, and their effect on wellbeing (e.g., health, loneliness). Participants were young men and women (N = 1,075, 17-33 year-olds). The results confirmed that what regulation strategies a person favours is indicative of, congruent with, crucial aspects of her 'overall makeup’, her ways of dealing with emotional events, and predicts her wellbeing. Higher levels of alexitimia (especially in the comunication of feelings), unsecure, fearful attachment, avoidance coping, expressive opaqueness, and lower levels of emotion awareness were associated with a greater inclination to use Suppression, predicting lesser positive affect, life satisfaction and psychophysical wellbeing, and greater social and emotional loneliness, and negative affect. A Reappraisal preference was instead related to more positive coping strategies (e.g., problem-solving), higher levels of emotion awareness and optimism, and lower levels of alexitimia, contributing to predict higher life satisfaction, wellbeing, positive affect and perceived social support. Suppression -greater in men and younger people- and Reappraisal were not correlate
Social and emotional loneliness in young, mature and older italian adults.
No full textSubjective loneliness describes people who feel a disagreeable or unacceptable lack of meaningful social relationships, both at the quantitative and qualitative level. Three studies will be reported that used an Italian 18-items self-report loneliness measure, that included items adapted from scales previously developed, namely a short version of the UCLA (Russell, Peplau and Cutrona, 1980), and the 11-items Loneliness scale by De Jong-Gierveld & Kamphuis (JGLS; 1985), plus 2 single-item criterion measures of sad mood, and social contact. Participants further supplied information on a number of socio- demographic variables. In the first study, 50 to 70-plus year-old internet-users filled the test on-line. In the second study, participants were elderly men and women living at home or in residential care units; they were administered also depression, social network, and other scales assessing subjective well-being. In the third study, 207 participants, 17 to 75 year olds (M 32,5 SD 12,4), 57% women, answered the JGLS, plus measures of well- being and emotional intelligence (including TIEIT (Zammuner 2007, 20008; Zammuner & Kafetsios 2004) and Msceit (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso 2002). In all studies the results confirmed the reliability of the component subscales and showed that JGLS social and emotional loneliness were significantly correlated with each other, as was JGLS emotional with the ‘general’ UCLA loneliness. Results further showed that loneliness scores were significantly predicted by a variety of socio-demographic and well being variables, including: sex, age, education level; sad mood and social contact (study I and II); depression level and social network quality (Study II); felt emotions, life satisfacton, and various components of emotional intelligence (Study III). The obtained results will be discussed as regards their implications for life quality in young, mature and alderly people, and the measurement of loneliness across cultures
Joy, Pride, Envy, Jealousy, and Sadness: are they 'sincerely' shared?"
No full textThe paper will present results obtained in five parallel studies of the emotion-constellations of Jealousy, Pride, Sadness, Joy and Envy. Five independent samples of Italian men and women (N total = 1.156) answered a questionnaire that presented a typical constellation antecedent as a personal narrative, in a story format ---e.g. for Envy, a colleague of the story protagonist P, less capable than P, is promoted to a higher position. Subjects were asked to answer a few (both open and closed) questions about which emotions the protagonist P was likely to feel with respect to the described event, and which ones P was likely to share with someone else (e.g., partner, friend, rival), and why. The analysis of subjects' emotion attributions showed that a discrepancy between felt and verbally shared emotions is the norm rather than the exception: felt emotions that have (social or personal) negative implications will be 'toned down' or not shared at all, whereas those that are normative or carry positive implications will be shared. Subjects' explanations indicated that sharing behaviours are most often strategically oriented: the sharing person tries to convey a positive self-image, to conform to emotional standards, to steer the interpersonal relationship with the sharing partner in the desidered direction, and so forth. In general, there were not many significant differences in the sharing behaviors associated with the different constellation types; the key factor was instead the normative status of the emotions comprised in each constellation in relation to the specific event that elicited them
Gender differences in emotional intelligence. Assessment and training results from a cross-cultural study
No full textThe paper focuses on gender-related differences obtained in a multidisciplinary cross-national research project (funded by the Leonardo Da Vinci Community Programme) to develop innovative methods for assessing and training career starters' interpersonal-skills (ISs) that tested, among others, skills relevant for interpersonal relationships and interpersonal perception and communication in daily life and in work settings (e.g., Kafetsios et al., 2004). More specifically, tested skills involved different facets of emotional intelligence (EI) abilities. The study method was a pre-post experimental design. Control and experimental subjects were assessed twice, at time 0 and time 1 (2 months later); experimental subjects also completed a self-administered EI training in the time 0-time 1 interval. Both the assessment and the training instruments were developed specifically for this project (Zammuner & Kafetsios, 2005). The results showed that gender differences were frequently present, typically in the hypothsized direction: females showed a greater interpersonal-emotional orientation, and related, skills than males - including greater Team Orientation, Interpersonal Orientation at work, Initiative capacity, Expressive Transparency, and Awareness of other's Emotions. On the other hand, the size of differences was typically very small. In sum, on the one hand males need to work somewhat harder than females at their interpersonal skills if they want ‘to fit’ better their life settings, on the other hand two sexes are more similar than different in their emotional competence, a result that leaves us the opportunity to tailor future training packages so that they suit the different needs of males and females
Pride, joy, sadness, jealousy, and envy: lay theories by Dutch subjects, and a comparison with Italians
Full text linkLay theories” (LT) of emotion of 117 Dutch male and female university students were studied using a questionnaire that described in a vignette format 5 events, each typical of one of 5 emotion constellations. Subjects attributed to same-sex or to opposite-sex event protagonists aspects of the emotional experience, including social sharing of felt emotions and perceived 'adequacy' of the experience. Subjects answered using category lists of cognate items - e.g., “Joy, happiness, euphoria, pride, cheerfulness”, and “Anxiety, fear, anguish, dread” was a category for the felt-emotion question. Subjects judged events defined either as “very salient” on the basis of results obtained in previous studies, or as “less salient”. Results showed that LT expressed by subjects are quite rich and complex. The beliefs subjects hold, and their “richness”, vary first of all as a function of the specific emotion constellation, and of its hedonic tone (e.g., LT for negatively toned constellations were typically more articulate than those for positively toned ones), as well as a function of salient features of the judged event (e.g., reactions such as attempts at regulation characterize mostly negatively valenced constellations, but are more prominent for jealousy events than for sadness ones). Men and women overall express similar rather than different theories, and theories that are “egalitarian” rather than gender-differentiated. Observed differences, however, tend to be gender-congruent rather than gender-incongruent, especially for males. A few interesting cultural differences emerge when comparing Dutch theories to those held by Italians
Il focus group. Teoria e tecnica
No full textIl focus group è un metodo qualitativo di ricerca che ricava le informazioni da una discussione approfondita di gruppo. 4-12 persone si confrontano, con l'aiuto di un moderatore, su uno specifico problema (il "focus", appunto: un tema, un prodotto, una campagna pubblicitaria, ecc.). Nell'ultimo decennio questo metodo è stato utilizzato sempre più frequentemente nelle ricerche sociali e di mercato, per indagare a fondo opinioni, atteggiamenti, motivazioni e comportamenti. Il volume descrive puntualmente e con molte esemplificazioni questa tecnica di ricerca: caratteristiche, varianti (i mini-group, i focus group virtuali), vantaggi e svantaggi, ambiti di applicazione, modalità d'uso
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