Association between Emotional Intelligence and Stress Coping Strategies According to Sex in Mexican General Population

Emotional intelligence has been associated with adaptive coping in the adolescent and young population; however, the association of specific dimensions of emotional intelligence with each coping strategy has not been associated in general nor by each sex separately. Therefore, the aim of the study was to determine such an association. The general population was invited to perform an electronic questionnaire via social networks. A sample of 984 individuals were included, from which 62.1% were women, in whom we detected higher levels of emotional attention, and lower levels of emotional clarity and emotional repair, as well as increased levels of stress, depression and anxiety than men. In the bivariate correlations we observed significant positive correlations between emotional attention with stress, depression and anxiety, and significant negative correlations between emotional clarity and emotional repair with the three negative psychological variables, in both sexes. Adaptive coping strategies (mainly active coping and planning) showed positive correlations with emotional attention, emotional clarity and repair, being higher for emotional clarity and repair in both sexes. In addition, these two subscales also showed low negative correlations between some maladaptive strategies in both sexes, which suggests that interventions addressed to increase these emotional abilities could be useful in increasing adaptive coping.