Disentangling the effects of intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional competence on parental burnout

Emotional competence (EC) has been documented as one of the most influential resource to protect parents from parental burnout (PB). However, the dimensions of EC have inconsistent effects across studies: while intrapersonal EC consistently had a protective effect on PB, interpersonal EC was paradoxically documented both as a risk factor and a protective factor. Relying on third-variable effect analyses on two independent datasets (842 Belgian parents and 377 Polish parents), this pre-registered study found that (1) intrapersonal EC drives the protective effect of interpersonal EC, and (2) after being adjusted for intrapersonal EC, interpersonal EC does not have significant effect on PB in the Polish sample and even becomes detrimental in the Belgian sample. These findings highlight the importance of examining the unique effect of each EC dimension while controlling for the others. Besides, it also implicates interventions aimed at improving EC to reduce PB should focus on intrapersonal EC.