Understanding and responding to interpersonal workplace situations. Assessing emotional competence, its relationship to traits and well-being, and its training.

The study tested an emotional-intelligence (EI) ability-measure of Contextualized Emotion Understanding and Responding (CEUR), its association with personal variables, and whether CEUR can be enhanced by instruction. Within a pre-post experimental-design, participants (N = 481, 19% men) were randomly assigned to the experimental or the control group. Participants filled out several trait and well-being scales (e.g., job involvement, loneliness), and rated the adequacy of behavioral responses to CEUR scenarios. The results showed a three-factor stable structure for CEUR. At pre-test, all participants endorsed Empathic-Constructive responding (EC, women especially) more than Dismissing-Ironical options (DI) or Passive ones (PA, men especially). Similar trends characterized post-test ratings. EC was negatively associated with DI and PA. At post-test, experimental participants increased EC orientation and decreased DI and PA with respect to pre-test, whereas control participants did not change or even increased less-intelligent responding. CEUR dimensions were significantly associated with well-being (especially loneliness, negative affect, health) and with job satisfaction. The study confirmed the hypotheses that CEUR is associated with both traits and well-being, and that these EI skills can be trained.