Awareness of emotionally competent responding in work contexts and its relationship with personal traits and well-being

This study - funded by Cariparo Foundation - tested the extent to which young adults - who often are just starting their professional career - are emotionally competent in their responding to problematic interpersonal situations in the work context (PISIWC; e.g., your work is criticized by your boss; you have to deal with an annoying customer; a colleague is depressed because she did not get an expected promotion; you find it difficult to be integrated in a new work group). Italian participants (sample completing all measures: N 347; 30% males) evaluated the adequacy of each (3 to 4) behavioral response to each of 18 scenarios depicting a variety of PISIWC. Participants' alexitimia level, job involvement and job satisfaction, and well being (e.g., loneliness level) were also assessed. Several statistical analyses of participants' answers were performed. The results showed that behavioral responses to the scenarios were characterized by 3 factorial dimensions: Empathic communication (EC; 20 items, alpha .91), an emotionally-competent behavioral response type, preferred significantly more by women than by men, Aggressivity and superior attitude (ASA) 18 items, alpha .88), least preferred by 27-year-olds or older participants in comparison to 18-23 and 24-26 year-olds, and Individualism and closure (IC) 18 items, alpha .86), a type of response more frequent in the youngest age group. The latter two emotionally-incompetent factors were highly correlated (r = ,689**). Preferences for the response dimensions showed significant associations with participants' traits and well-being indexes. In particular, EC was positively related to higher Job involvement and Job satisfaction, and negatively related to the alexitimia dimension of Externally-oriented thought; ASA was positively related to Emotional Loneliness, and to all three alexitimia dimensions (e.g., Difficulty in identifying feelings); IC was positively related to all three alexitimia dimensions (e.g., Difficulty in communicating feelings). The study has implications for counselling.