Emotional Intelligence and the Tendency to Use Dysfunctional Cognitive Schemas

Abstract The present study investigates the connection between emotional intelligence and the tendency to use certain dysfunctional cognitive schemas. We started from the hypothesis that emotional intelligence, or some of its components are negatively correlated with the tendency to use certain types or categories of dysfunctional cognitive schemas. The hypothesis was validated, therefore the stage of development of the emotional intelligence (and we mean the global, total score) has an influence on the tendency for dysfunctional thinking. On the other hand, however, when we analysed the inter-scale correlations, the results are more nuanced, some of them validates the hypotheses, others contradicting them, as detailed below.