Trait emotional intelligence in sports: A protective role against stress through heart rate variability?

Emotional intelligence (EI) has received very scant attention from researchers in the sport domain to date, yet emotions are key to sport performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the influence of trait EI in athletes when they have to face the stress of competition. Thirty male handball players (MAge = 22.5 years; SD = 1.7) were exposed to a competition-like stressor in the laboratory consisting of 20 min of negative imagery coupled with the sound of a crowd hissing. Their trait EI was measured with the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, and a mental stress indicator, the low-frequency/highfrequency (LF/HF) ratio, was calculated from their heart rate variability. A repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant Time of Measurement ! Trait EI interaction, F(1, 28) = 6.036, p = .020, g2 " :18, indicating that high trait EI athletes experienced a lower increase of stress compared to their low trait EI counterparts. Through its influence on the LF/HF ratio, trait EI may help athletes cope better with stress.

[1]  Mika P. Tarvainen,et al.  Software for advanced HRV analysis , 2004, Comput. Methods Programs Biomed..

[2]  S. Murphy,et al.  The effects of positive and negative imagery on motor skill performance , 1985, Cognitive Therapy and Research.

[3]  C. Sit,et al.  Motivational orientations in youth sport participation: Using Achievement Goal Theory and Reversal Theory , 2005 .

[4]  Olivier Luminet,et al.  Trait emotional intelligence and the cognitive appraisal of stressful events : an exploratory study , 2008 .

[5]  Neil J. V. Weston,et al.  Examining relationships between emotional intelligence and coaching efficacy , 2008 .

[6]  Olivier Luminet,et al.  Explaining the protective effect of trait emotional intelligence regarding occupational stress: Exploration of emotional labour processes , 2007 .

[7]  R. Gunderman,et al.  Emotional intelligence. , 2011, Journal of the American College of Radiology : JACR.

[8]  E Kristal-Boneh,et al.  Heart rate variability in health and disease. , 1995, Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health.

[9]  Nicolas Scelles,et al.  Trait emotional intelligence and preference for intuition and deliberation: Respective influence on academic performance , 2010 .

[10]  E. Gordon,et al.  Toward an integrated profile of emotional intelligence: introducing a brief measure. , 2005, Journal of integrative neuroscience.

[11]  A. Williams,et al.  Influence of Crowd Noise on Soccer Refereeing Consistency in Soccer , 2007 .

[12]  L. Williams,et al.  Relationship between Athletes' Emotional Intelligence and Precompetitive Anxiety , 2010, Perceptual and motor skills.

[13]  A. Duperier.  The Positive Effect , 1958 .

[14]  J. McKenna,et al.  Stressors and Coping Strategies among Early and Middle Adolescent Premier League Academy Soccer Players: Differences According to Age , 2009 .

[15]  Eran Halperin,et al.  The positive effect of negative emotions in protracted conflict: The case of anger , 2011 .

[16]  I. Karsai,et al.  Emotional intelligence and emotions associated with optimal and dysfunctional athletic performance. , 2010, Journal of sports science & medicine.

[17]  L. Downey,et al.  Emotional Intelligence in Sport: Theoretical Linkages and Preliminary Empirical Relationships from Basketball , 2009 .

[18]  Remco Polman,et al.  Mental toughness, stress, stress appraisal, coping and coping effectiveness in sport , 2009 .

[19]  S. Hanton,et al.  Competition stress in sport performers: Stressors experienced in the competition environment , 2009, Journal of sports sciences.

[20]  A. Lane,et al.  Emotional intelligence and psychological skills use among athletes , 2009 .

[21]  Moïra Mikolajczak,et al.  Association between frontal EEG asymmetries and emotional intelligence among adults , 2010 .

[22]  F. Kokkinaki,et al.  The location of trait emotional intelligence in personality factor space. , 2007, British journal of psychology.

[23]  S. Laborde,et al.  Culture, individual differences, and situation: Influence on coping in French and Chinese table tennis players , 2012 .

[24]  D. Erik Everhart,et al.  Healthy high-hostiles: reduced parasympathetic activity and decreased sympathovagal flexibility during negative emotional processing , 2004 .

[25]  D. V. Harris,et al.  The Athlete's Guide to Sports Psychology: Mental Skills for Physical People , 1984 .

[26]  O. Luminet,et al.  The moderating impact of emotional intelligence on free cortisol responses to stress , 2007, Psychoneuroendocrinology.

[27]  J. Parker,et al.  Assessing emotional intelligence: theory, research, and applications , 2009 .

[28]  K. Petrides.  Psychometric Properties of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) , 2009 .

[29]  E. Gordon,et al.  Psychological and neural correlates of emotional intelligence in a large sample of adult males and females , 2009 .

[30]  P. Grossman,et al.  Anxiety and Vagal Control of Heart Rate , 1998, Psychosomatic medicine.

[31]  R. Lazarus.  How Emotions Influence Performance in Competitive Sports , 2000 .

[32]  B. Long,et al.  Coping Effectiveness: A Path Analysis of Self‐Efficacy, Control, Coping, and Performance in Sport Competitions1 , 1995 .

[33]  Thomas Kubiak,et al.  The impact of heart rate variability on subjective well-being is mediated by emotion regulation , 2010 .

[34]  Deniz S Ones,et al.  An other perspective on personality: meta-analytic integration of observers' accuracy and predictive validity. , 2010, Psychological bulletin.

[35]  H. Kinoshita,et al.  Psycho-physiological responses to expressive piano performance. , 2010, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[36]  Dorret I. Boomsma,et al.  Relationships between trait emotional intelligence and the Big Five in the Netherlands , 2010 .

[37]  Yoshio Nakamura,et al.  Heart rate variability, trait anxiety, and perceived stress among physically fit men and women. , 2000, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[38]  A. Malliani,et al.  Heart rate variability. Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use , 1996 .

[39]  C. Lombard,et al.  Emotional Intelligence Scores Predict Team Sports Performance in a National Cricket Competition , 2009 .

[40]  Moïra Mikolajczak,et al.  Increasing emotional intelligence : (How) is it possible? , 2009 .

[41]  S. Zizzi,et al.  The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Performance Among College Basketball Players , 2003 .

[42]  G. Breithardt,et al.  Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. , 1996 .

[43]  M. Siepmann,et al.  A Pilot Study on the Effects of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback in Patients with Depression and in Healthy Subjects , 2008, Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback.

[44]  A. Neubauer,et al.  Testing and validating the trait emotional intelligence questionnaire (TEIQue) in a German-speaking sample , 2008 .

[45]  A. Perlini,et al.  Emotional Intelligence in the National Hockey League , 2006 .

[46]  A. Lane,et al.  Validity of the emotional intelligence scale for use in sport. , 2009, Journal of sports science & medicine.

[47]  A Legge,et al.  A positive effect. , 1998, Community nurse.

[48]  Adrian Furnham,et al.  On the criterion and incremental validity of trait emotional intelligence , 2007 .

[49]  P. Moriarty.  Increasing emotional intelligence , 2008 .

[50]  J. Thayer,et al.  Heart Rate Variability, Prefrontal Neural Function, and Cognitive Performance: The Neurovisceral Integration Perspective on Self-regulation, Adaptation, and Health , 2009, Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.