The relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict resolution styles

Abstract

Although the term „Emotional Intelligence‟(EI) was coined in 1990 by Mayer and Salovey (Mayer & Salovey, 1990), the notion of an intelligence that goes past just pure cognition was already being discussed in the 1920s by Thorndike (Thorndike, 1920). Since then, emotional intelligence was researched innumerable times, with different researchers proposing their own version of the definition of EI. The findings of these studies have consistently found a link between EI and many social skills, to interest for this study is the skill of conflict resolution. Studies have suggested that age (Salovey, Mayer, and Caruso, 2004) and gender (Clarke, Marks & Lykins, 2016; Tsirigotis & Łuczak, 2016; Petrides & Furnham, 2000; Schutte et al., 2001), may both have an effect on the levels of one‟s EI, and in turn EI levels affect which method of resolving conflict one prefers (Jordan & Troth, 2002; Jordan & Troth, 2004; Rahim, Buntzman & White, 1999). The relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict resolution style was investigated using data obtained from 102 University students. Females‟ mean scores of emotional intelligence was slightly higher than mean scores for men; but this finding was not statistically significant in the sample used. High levels of emotional intelligence correlated with the use of the integrating and compromising styles of conflict resolution, as expected. Conversely, the findings regarding low levels of EI were very surprising. The findings in this study may be used to further explore the theme among the University population, with the possibility of incorporating initiatives aimed at increasing students‟ emotional intelligence before they embark on their career path.