Emotional intelligence and gender: beyond sex differences.

Abstract

Research on gender and Emotional Intelligence (EI) has analysed individual differences in relation to sex and has yielded contradictory results. With the aim of suggesting new proposals in this field of study, the present work analyses the influence of gender identity on EI in a sample of 338 workers. We combined self-report measures (TMMS) and ability based measures (MSCEIT) of Emotional Intelligence. Results indicate that women´s higher acceptance of expressive traits may help to explain their higher scores on EI. Also, results show that androgynous individuals, compared with instrumental and expressive individuals, present higher levels of EI. Taking into account these results, the need to go beyond the “sex differences” approach when analysing EI and to develop less stereotyped gendered identity references is discussed.