Emotional intelligence-related health status in young and aged women

Abstract

It has been argued that emotion-regulation skills may impact quality of life and survival. Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the abilities to perceive and understand emotional information and use it to adapt. So, the EI may impact quality of life. By considering that women use more emotion regulation strategies in adaptation than men, present investigation aimed to explore the role of aging in the relationship between self-reported different aspects of emotional intelligence and quality of life (QL) in women. Eighty and eight healthy older women (64.5±0.8 years) (OG) and groups of young women (19.1±1.0 years, n=80) (YG) were involved in the study. The Russian versions of trait EI measures (EI-IPIP) and the 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36) were used. Using analysis of variance, significantly more “positive expressivity†was found in YG than OG as well as more physical health than psychological health in YG whereas these components did not differ in OG. The varied patterns of correlations between the components of EI and QL were obtained in the groups differenced by age. “Responsive joy†and “responsive distress†were significant predictors (positively and negatively, correspondingly) of physic health in YG but not in OG. A ratio of “positive expressivity†to “negative expressivity†was universal predictor of high-quality psychological life. Obtained results support the concept that dominance of positive affect is associated with high-quality of life in adolescents and seems to protect individuals against health status declines in old age. This work was supported by a grant of the RFHR № 15-06-00052.