Association between frontal EEG asymmetries and emotional intelligence among adults

This study aimed at investigating the brain correlates of trait emotional intelligence. Trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) is a constellation of emotion-related traits, capturing the extent to which people experience, attend to, identify, understand, regulate, and utilize their emotions and those of others. As previous studies have provided converging evidence that frontal asymmetries were one of the determinants of emotion dispositions and behaviors, and as observations on individuals with a high level of emotional intelligence parallel those on people with a left-sided frontal cortical asymmetry in nearly every respect, we hypothesized that the level of emotional intelligence might be associated with differential frontal activation. Results supported the hypothesis: the pattern of resting electroencephalographic (EEG) activation recorded in the frontal areas was significantly associated with emotional intelligence. Individuals with higher trait EI evidence greater resting left frontal activation.