Gender-linked personality and mental health: The role of trait emotional intelligence

► Agency had a moderate protective effect on internalizing mental health difficulties (IMHDs). ► Communion was not associated with IMHDs. ► Agency and Communion each predicted trait EI, which had a strong effect on IMHDs. ► Trait EI fully mediated the effect of Agency on IMHDs. ► Communion had an in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality and individual differences 2013-01, Vol.54 (2), p.221-225
Main Authors: Vesely, Ashley K., Siegling, Alexander B., Saklofske, Donald H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agency
Biological and medical sciences
Communion
Emotional intelligence
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gender-linked personality
Internalizing difficulties
Mental health
Personality traits
Personality. Affectivity
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:► Agency had a moderate protective effect on internalizing mental health difficulties (IMHDs). ► Communion was not associated with IMHDs. ► Agency and Communion each predicted trait EI, which had a strong effect on IMHDs. ► Trait EI fully mediated the effect of Agency on IMHDs. ► Communion had an indirect, protective effect on IMHDs via trait EI and a direct, adverse effect. The present study examined the role of the emotion-related personality dimension, or trait emotional intelligence (EI), in the relationship between gender-linked personality (GLP) traits and internalizing mental health difficulties (IMHDs). GLP traits were measured as Agency and Communion, due to conceptual advantages over other semantic representations (e.g., masculinity, femininity) in the literature. IMHDs as the outcome variable were conceptualized as a latent composite of anxiety, stress, and emotion-oriented coping. A moderate relationship between Agency and IMHDs was fully mediated by trait EI. Trait EI also divided an overall non-significant effect of Communion on IMHDs into an indirect, protective effect via trait EI and a direct, adverse effect. The results suggest that Agency and Communion subsume different sets of trait EI facets, which may account for much of the differential protective effects of these GLP traits on IMHDs. Discussion focuses on implications of the results for sex differences in mental health.
ISSN:0191-8869
1873-3549
DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2012.08.038