Cargando…

Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience

In this article, we provide preliminary evidence for the ‘hypersensitivity hypothesis’, according to which Emotional Intelligence (EI) functions as a magnifier of emotional experience, enhancing the effect of emotion and emotion information on thinking and social perception. Measuring ability EI, an...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fiori, Marina, Ortony, Andrew
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8163171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34064403
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9020024
_version_ 1783700851109396480
author Fiori, Marina
Ortony, Andrew
author_facet Fiori, Marina
Ortony, Andrew
author_sort Fiori, Marina
collection PubMed
description In this article, we provide preliminary evidence for the ‘hypersensitivity hypothesis’, according to which Emotional Intelligence (EI) functions as a magnifier of emotional experience, enhancing the effect of emotion and emotion information on thinking and social perception. Measuring ability EI, and in particular Emotion Understanding, we describe an experiment designed to determine whether, relative to those low in EI, individuals high in EI were more affected by the valence of a scenario describing a target when making an affective social judgment. Employing a sample of individuals from the general population, high EI participants were found to provide more extreme (positive or negative) impressions of the target as a function of the scenario valence: positive information about the target increased high EI participants’ positive impressions more than it increased low EI participants’ impressions, and negative information increased their negative impressions more. In addition, EI affected the amount of recalled information and this led high EI individuals to intensify their affective ratings of the target. These initial results show that individuals high on EI may be particularly sensitive to emotions and emotion information, and they suggest that this hypersensitivity might account for both the beneficial and detrimental effects of EI documented in the literature. Implications are discussed.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8163171
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-81631712021-05-29 Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience Fiori, Marina Ortony, Andrew J Intell Article In this article, we provide preliminary evidence for the ‘hypersensitivity hypothesis’, according to which Emotional Intelligence (EI) functions as a magnifier of emotional experience, enhancing the effect of emotion and emotion information on thinking and social perception. Measuring ability EI, and in particular Emotion Understanding, we describe an experiment designed to determine whether, relative to those low in EI, individuals high in EI were more affected by the valence of a scenario describing a target when making an affective social judgment. Employing a sample of individuals from the general population, high EI participants were found to provide more extreme (positive or negative) impressions of the target as a function of the scenario valence: positive information about the target increased high EI participants’ positive impressions more than it increased low EI participants’ impressions, and negative information increased their negative impressions more. In addition, EI affected the amount of recalled information and this led high EI individuals to intensify their affective ratings of the target. These initial results show that individuals high on EI may be particularly sensitive to emotions and emotion information, and they suggest that this hypersensitivity might account for both the beneficial and detrimental effects of EI documented in the literature. Implications are discussed. MDPI 2021-05-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8163171/ /pubmed/34064403 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9020024 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fiori, Marina
Ortony, Andrew
Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience
title Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience
title_full Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience
title_fullStr Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience
title_full_unstemmed Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience
title_short Initial Evidence for the Hypersensitivity Hypothesis: Emotional Intelligence as a Magnifier of Emotional Experience
title_sort initial evidence for the hypersensitivity hypothesis: emotional intelligence as a magnifier of emotional experience
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8163171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34064403
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9020024
work_keys_str_mv AT fiorimarina initialevidenceforthehypersensitivityhypothesisemotionalintelligenceasamagnifierofemotionalexperience
AT ortonyandrew initialevidenceforthehypersensitivityhypothesisemotionalintelligenceasamagnifierofemotionalexperience