José M. Salguero

Short- and Midterm Effects of Emotional Intelligence Training on Adolescent Mental Health

PURPOSE To analyze the effects that an emotional intelligence (EI) educational program based on the EI ability model had on adolescent mental health immediately and 6 months after completion of the training. METHODS A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design with a treatment and a control group was used; 479 Spanish adolescents (47.4% male, mean age of 13 years) were involved in the study. Adolescents were recruited through several schools in three Spanish cities. The 2-year training program involved 24 sessions lasting 1 hour each, conducted `weekly during 6 months of 2009 and 2010. Data on psychological adjustment, mental health, and negative affect were collected at baseline, at the end of the training program, and 6 months later. Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance. RESULTS Students who participated in the EI educational program reported fewer clinical symptoms compared with students in the control group, and these differences persisted 6 months after the conclusion of the program. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that EI programs created to develop skills in perceiving, facilitating, understanding, and managing emotions can be effective at promoting mental health in adolescents.

Major depressive disorder following terrorist attacks: A systematic review of prevalence, course and correlates

BackgroundTerrorist attacks are traumatic events that may result in a wide range of psychological disorders for people exposed. This review aimed to systematically assess the current evidence on major depressive disorder (MDD) after terrorist attacks.MethodsA systematic review was performed. Studies included assessed the impact of human-made, intentional, terrorist attacks in direct victims and/or persons in general population and evaluated MDD based on diagnostic criteria.ResultsA total of 567 reports were identified, 11 of which were eligible for this review: 6 carried out with direct victims, 4 with persons in general population, and 1 with victims and general population. The reviewed literature suggests that the risk of MDD ranges between 20 and 30% in direct victims and between 4 and 10% in the general population in the first few months after terrorist attacks. Characteristics that tend to increase risk of MDD after a terrorist attack are female gender, having experienced more stressful situations before or after the attack, peritraumatic reactions during the attack, loss of psychosocial resources, and low social support. The course of MDD after terrorist attacks is less clear due to the scarcity of longitudinal studies.ConclusionsMethodological limitations in the literature of this field are considered and potentially important areas for future research such as the assessment of the course of MDD, the study of correlates of MDD or the comorbidity between MDD and other mental health problems are discussed.

Emotional Intelligence and Acute Pain: The Mediating Effect of Negative Affect

UNLABELLED Emotional abilities are predictive variables of lower perceived pain. However, no studies have been published investigating the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI), which refers to the ability to accurately perceive, appraise, understand, communicate and regulate emotions, and pain. The objective of the present study was to analyze the influence of EI, measured using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), on the level of sensory and affective pain generated by an experimental cold pressor task (CPT). In addition, we examined the influence of negative affect, as measured through the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), on the relationship between EI and pain. Healthy college students (N = 67) completed measures of EI before the CPT, during which they submerged their nondominant hand into ice water, and they completed measures of negative emotional state before and after the CPT. Participants with higher EI rated pain as less intense and perceived it as less unpleasant. Greater emotional intelligence predicted less pain in this experimental paradigm, and the effects seemed to be mediated by the lower NA reactivity associated with greater EI. PERSPECTIVE Emotional intelligence is an important element in the processing of emotional information during an experience of acute pain since it reduces the level of negative affect generated by the experimental task.

Emotional Regulation and Acute Pain Perception in Women

UNLABELLED Emotional regulation is an important variable in the experience of pain. Currently, there are no experimental investigations of the relation between emotional regulation and pain. The goal of the present study work was to analyze differences in pain perception and mood generated by the cold-pressor (CPT) experimental paradigm in women with high and low emotional regulation. Two groups of women were formed as a function of their level of emotional regulation: women with high emotional repair (N = 24) and women with low emotional repair (N = 28), all of whom performed the CPT. The results show that the women with a high score in emotional repair reported having experienced less sensory pain and affective pain during the immersion, as well as a more positive affective state before beginning the task. During the experimental task, they also reported a better mood, thus displaying lower impact of the experience of pain. PERSPECTIVE Emotional regulation is proposed as a key element to manage the emotional reaction that accompanies the experience of acute pain experimentally induced by the CPT experimental paradigm in a sample of healthy women.

A meta-mood model of rumination and depression: Preliminary test in a non-clinical population

Depressive rumination and trait meta-mood (emotional attention, emotional clarity and emotional repair) have been suggested as vulnerability factors leading to depression, but less is known about the associations among them. In this study, we examined the relationships between trait meta-mood, rumination and depressive symptomatology. Using structural equation analysis in a large sample of a non-clinical population we found a preliminary test of the role of trait meta-mood dimensions in rumination and depressive symptomatology. Results indicated that attention to feelings has two pathways in its relation with rumination and depressive mood. On the one hand, emotional attention was associated with emotional clarity, and emotional clarity with emotional repair, which was related to lower depressive symptomatology, in part, by reducing rumination. On the other hand, emotional attention was directly associated with ruminative thoughts which, in turn, were related to higher depressive mood. Findings are discussed in terms of the implications of beliefs about emotions in the treatment of depression.

If You Have High Emotional Intelligence (EI), You Must Trust in Your Abilities: The Interaction Effect of Ability EI and Perceived EI on Depression in Women

Recent research has suggested that the association between emotional intelligence (EI) and depression is dependent on the type of EI measured (ability EI vs. perceived EI) and on gender. Whereas perceived EI is negatively related with depression in both men and women, only men with high levels of ability EI report less of a depressive affect. An intriguing question arises from these results: Is ability EI an important resource to reduce negative moods in women, and if so, when? In this study, we tried to shed light on this by examining the interaction effect of ability EI and perceived EI on depression in women. Participants were 213 female students who completed an ability measure of EI, a self-report measure of EI, and a depression inventory. Results showed that perceived EI moderated the associations between ability EI and depression, with ability EI being negatively related with depression only in women with high levels of perceived EI. We discuss the importance of integrating ability EI and perceived EI in the EI theory, as well as practical implications of their interactive effects.

Spanish version of the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire 30 (MCQ-30).

The Meta-cognitions Questionnaire 30 (MCQ-30; Wells & Cartwright-Hatton, 2004) has been used to assess individual differences in metacognitive beliefs considered to be central in the metacognitive theory of generalized anxiety disorder (Wells, 2005). In the present study, the psychometric properties, reliability, and validity of a Spanish adaptation of the MCQ-30 were tested in a broad sample of participants (N = 768) of Spanish nationality aged 16-81 years (31.1% males, 68.9% females). Confirmatory factor analysis showed the expected five-factor structure, which was found to be invariant across gender. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the subscales were adequate, and the expected relationships to theoretically related variables such as pathological worry, meta-worry, thought suppression and trait anxiety were obtained. Convergent validity with other measures of beliefs about worry was also found. Taken together, these findings suggest that the Spanish version of the MCQ-30 is a valid instrument for evaluating metacognitive beliefs in the Spanish-speaking population.

Perievent panic attacks and panic disorder after mass trauma: a 12-month longitudinal study.

Panic attacks frequently lead to psychopathological disorders, including panic disorder. Even though panic disorder is a highly comorbid and disabling mental health problem associated with stressful life or traumatic events, perievent panic attacks and their association with panic disorder have hardly been investigated as a central topic after mass trauma. Using data from a longitudinal population-based assessment of Madrid residents after the March 11, 2004 train bombings (N = 1,589), with assessments conducted 1, 6, and 12 months after the attacks, the rate of perievent panic attacks was 10.9%. Level of exposure, previous life stressors, and negative emotionality were associated with perievent panic attacks (β = .12, .15, and .10, respectively), which in turn mediated the relationship between exposure to the terrorist event and panic disorder in the following year. Previous life stressors (β = .15) and low social support (β = -.14) were directly associated with panic disorder during the subsequent year. The most vulnerable individuals who experienced perievent panic attacks were 3.7 times, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [2.1, 6.4], more likely to suffer from panic disorder in the following year. Results suggest that early identification of perievent panic attacks following mass trauma may be helpful for reducing panic disorder.

Anger rumination in Australia and Spain: Validation of the Anger Rumination Scale

Objective Rumination has been empirically supported in the experience of anger. The Anger Rumination Scale ( ARS ) was developed to assess ruminative processes in anger. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the ARS in Australia and Spain. Method A large non‐clinical sample (N = 1,752) completed a battery including the ARS and measures of trait anger, anger expression and control, aggression, emotional symptoms, and emotion regulation strategies, to determine the factor structure, validity, and reliability of the ARS. Variations between the two cultural samples were also analysed. Results Confirmatory factor analysis verified the four‐factor structure of Angry Memories, Thoughts of Revenge, Angry Afterthoughts, and Understanding of Causes in both samples. Findings established good psychometric properties, evidence of convergent and discriminant validity, and associations in the expected direction with related variables. Males in both samples endorsed Thoughts of Revenge significantly higher. Spanish participants scored higher on Angry Memories and Understanding of Causes. Conclusions The ARS is a valid measure of anger rumination in Australian and Spanish populations. Further, gender and cultural variations may influence the tendency to engage in anger rumination.

The personality basis of aggression: The mediating role of anger and the moderating role of emotional intelligence

High neuroticism and low agreeableness have been found to predict higher levels of aggression through an increase of negative emotions such as anger. However, previous research has only investigated these indirect associations for physical aggression, whereas evidence for such indirect effects on other types of aggression (i.e., verbal or indirect aggression) is currently lacking. Moreover, no previous work has investigated the moderating role of Ability Emotional Intelligence (AEI), which may buffer against the effects of anger on aggression. The present study (N = 665) directly addresses these gaps in the literature. The results demonstrate that high neuroticism and low agreeableness were indirectly related to higher levels of physical, verbal, and indirect aggression via increased chronic accessibility to anger. Importantly however, the associations with physical aggression were significantly weaker for those higher (vs. lower) on AEI, confirming the buffering role of AEI. We discuss the implications of our findings for theoretical frameworks aiming to understand and reduce aggression and violent behavior.