The relationship between psychological reactance and emotional intelligence

Psychological reactance is a motivational force that may arise when ones freedom is threatened (Blehm,1966). Emotional intelligence (El) is the ability to label and control emotions. The purpose of this study is to explore relationships between reactance and emotional intelligence. A total of 298 undergraduate students (54.4% male) completed a measure of psychological reactance and El. Results show that males with low behavioral reactance have significantly higher El subscale scores on well-being, self-control, and emotionality. For females there is no significant difference between high and low behavioral reactance, and any of the El subscales. However, for verbal reactance males with higher reactance scores have higher El scores on self-control, well-being, emotionality, and sociability. Females with higher verbal reactance scores have higher El scores on emotionality and sociability. These findings suggest that the relationship between reactance and El is somewhat gender dependent and that overall emotionality is highly associated with reactance in both genders. (C) 2015 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.