DO YOU PLAY NICE WITH OTHERS?Emotional Intelligence predicts individual differences in social exchange reasoning

Reis, D., et al. (2007)

Presented by Fred Lam

Background literature• Study was conducted at Yale University• Direction of the study was guided by years of research

done at Yale by:

• Marc Brackett• Involved in over 80 scholarly articles relating EI to measures of:

• Social Interaction• Academic Performance• Interpersonal social competence• …etc.

• Peter Salovey• Developed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test

(MSCEIT)—a widely accepted evaluator of EI

Overview• Explores the relationship between Emotional Intelligence

(EI) and Social Exchange Reasoning (SER) via 2 studies:

• Behavioural: • Tested response time and error rate solving 3 different types of

problems: abstract, social exchange, and precautionary• Hypothesis: High emotional intelligence will predict better

performance in social exchange problems.

• fMRI:• Tested for specific brain site activation of subjects that were solving

problems of social exchange vs. precaution

What is Emotional Intelligence?• Emotional Intelligence (EI) refers to the general ability to

monitor the emotional information (self & others) and to use that information to relate the information to thoughts and actions.

•Perception•Use•Understanding•Management of emotion

Retrieved from (March 12, 2012): http://digitaljournal.com/img/9/0/1/2/2/1/i/4/6/0/o/Angry_baby.jpg

Social Exchange Theory

Retrieved from (March 12, 2012): http://www.offthemark.com/cartoons/barter

• Is the theory that explains human social interaction in the forms of cost-benefit analysis

• Social exchange reasoning is the set of cognitive processes that allow problem solving of this nature

MSCEIT• The aforementioned four branches (perception, use,

understanding, and management) are tested via a series of emotion-based problem-solving items.

• The test is modeled on ability-based IQ tests

• Scores reflect proximity of reasoning to social norms• Higher scores indicate overlap of an individual’s answer to a

worldwide sample of responses

Retrieved from (March 12, 2012): http://www.eiskills.com/msceitexamples.html

Wason Card Selection Task

Which card(s) must be turned over to test the idea that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?

Retrieved from (March 12, 2012): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task

Which card(s) must be turned over to test the idea that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?

…with a social twist

Beer Cola 16 22

If a person is drinking beer, then the person is over 19-years-old.

The Participants• Behavioural Study:

• - Yale undergraduate students from a introductory psychology course (N=48, mean age not given)

Neuroimaging Follow-up Study:- Random, healthy, right-handed participants responding to an advertisement (N=16, mean age = 21.7)

Results (Behav.)a.) • X-axis: Emotional Intelligence (MSCEIT)• Y-axis: Response Time (RT) to Social

exchange problems

• Correlation: pr(42)=-0.39, p=0.008

b.) • X-axis: Harm Avoidance (TCI*)• Y-axis: RT to precautionary problems

• Correlation: pr(42)=-0.32, p=0.036

Note: EI and HA were not related, r(46)=-0.02

Results (Behav.)

Results (fMRI)

SE vs. Precautionary problem solving

BA 10• Left frontal polar cortex

BA 20• Temporal Cortex

Results (fMRI) cont’d• The test was run: social exchange vs. precautionary

• Part of the reason was because the baseline abstract problems were much more difficult and the behavioural study had shown the “exceptionally well-matched” difficulty level of the SE vs. precautionary problems

• Negative correlation between MSCEIT score and BA 10 and 20 activation

Summary• Using the Wason Card Task and problems in social,

precautionary, or abstract contexts:• Behavioural study:

• Emotional Intelligence and Harm Avoidance are independent “personality variables”

• EI predicts capacity in solving social exchange problems (RT and error rate)

• HA predicts capacity in solving precautionary problems (RT and error rate)

• fMRI study:• EI predicts brain activation at BA 10 and 20

???• Things glanced over:

• Method• Wason Card Task Solution• Why is this study important?

Why is this important?• (a.) Provides strong evidence that social exchange reasoning

is at least a partially isolated from general problem solving

• (b.) Controversy: Emotional intelligence =/= intelligence (t/f)• Despite correlation between EI and areas such as:

• Academic performance• Effective communication• Interpersonal social competence• Correlation =/= causation

• The demonstrated relationship between EI and social exchange reasoning (a) provides a new angle for future research (b)