Which of the following behaviors have been shown by research to improve intelligence

Within the field of social cognition, emotion processing is a key element, comprising both perception of emotion and management of emotion (Phelps, 2006, Williams and Gordon, 2007). Behavioral and neural correlate studies of emotion have revealed the involvement of interconnected neural systems, including cortical (e.g. medial frontal cortex) and sub-cortical (e.g. amygdala, hippocampus) components, and their reciprocal connections with the sensory cortices, such as the visual cortex (Adolphs, 2002, Phelps, 2006). However, much less empirical work has been conducted on determining the correlates of emotional intelligence (EI). EI has been defined as an array of emotional and social skills that enable people to monitor their feelings (and the emotions of others), cope with daily demands, and use this capacity to be more effective in their living (Bar-On et al., 2003, Salovey and Mayer, 1990), or alternatively as emotion-related perceptions (Petrides, Pérez-González, & Furnham, 2007). Nevertheless, there are concerns about the extent that self-report EI measures overlap with personality constructs (Petrides & Furnham, 2001) and whether EI is truly an “intelligence” (Roberts, Zeidner, & Matthews, 2001). Bar-On et al. (2003) provided evidence that EI is a different construct to cognitive intelligence and others have found little relationship between EI and academic intelligence. Furthermore, the relationship between EI and its neuropsychophysiological correlates lacks evidence due to deficiencies in research (Bar-On et al., 2003, Kemp et al., 2005a).

Recent research has identified correlates of EI. Bar-On et al. (2003) showed that low self-report EI scores were associated with lesions in areas associated with emotional processing, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Salovey, Stroud, Woolery, and Epel (2002) found lower levels of EI were related to higher cortisol release during stressful encounters. Kemp et al. (2005a) found lower EI scores were associated with reduced arousal in brain activity in the left frontal cortex of adult males and females (i.e. increased 4–12 Hz and lowered 13–20 Hz activity in the electroencephalogram or EEG). These findings are interesting given that frontal alpha hemispheric asymmetry has been shown to be related to individual differences in emotional processing (Coan and Allen, 2004, Mathersul et al., 2008). Alpha asymmetry research assumes that alpha activity power is inversely related to cortical activation, such that high levels of alpha activity is related to low cortical activation (Tran, Craig, & McIssac, 2001). Positive asymmetry scores (assuming F4–F3) indicate that the right hemisphere has higher alpha power relative to the left, meaning that the right hemisphere has lower levels of cortical activity. A negative asymmetry score suggests that the left hemisphere has lower cortical activity.

Differences between males and females in cortical and sub-cortical activity during emotional processing have been found (Coan and Allen, 2004, Kemp et al., 2003, Williams et al., 2005). Kemp et al. (2003) found females differed from males in their processing of emotional stimuli and of unpleasant stimuli in particular, such that widespread frontal (particularly right-sided) electrophysiological activation was displayed in females but not in males. Moreover, females with a documented clinical history of childhood-onset depression have been found to display higher right midfrontal alpha suppression relative to controls (Miller et al., 2002). Williams et al. (2005) found females displayed persistent bilateral amygdala activation suggesting a lower threshold for vigilance to signals of danger. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether trait EI is related to alpha asymmetry as a function of gender. It is also important to study the association of heart rate variability (HRV) with EI as a function of sex, as HRV can be regarded as a biological marker for well-being (Gorman & Sloan, 2000).

Petrides and Furnham (2000) showed gender was a significant predictor of EI, and typically, females score higher on EI sub-scales such as empathy while males score higher than females on self-concept (Kemp et al., 2005a). It is thought that trait EI has a conceptual overlap with personality constructs such as extraversion (Petrides & Furnham, 2001). Not surprisingly then, personality factors have been found to be related to self-report trait EI (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2007, Furnham, 2003, Gannon, 2005). Extraversion has been found to be associated with higher levels of EI, while neuroticism has been found to be related to both lower and higher levels of EI (Brackett and Mayer, 2003, Gannon, 2005, Kemp et al., 2005a, Saklofske et al., 2003). Constructs such as agreeableness and openness have also been found to be associated with EI (Brackett and Mayer, 2003, Furnham, 2003, Gannon, 2005). The association of personality with EI as a function of gender needs further exploration.

The aim of this research was to extend our earlier work (Kemp et al., 2005a) by increasing the number of participants, studying additional variables such as alpha asymmetry and HRV and focusing on the correlates of EI between males and females. It was hypothesised that females will score higher on EI than males; personality factors such as extraversion would contribute to EI in both males and females, low cortical arousal will be related to low EI and that a relation between EI and biomarkers of well-being such as HRV will also be found.

Participants

A total of 1400 healthy subjects (51.7% females; age range: 18–60 years; mean age = 35.5, SD = 13.2) were selected from the Brain Resource International Database (BRID; Gordon, 2003). However, due to missing values (such as EI or brain activity scores), the sample was reduced to 856 (446 females and 410 males; female mean age = 35.8, SD = 13.4; male mean age = 34.3, SD = 12.9). Participants were screened and tested using the standardized protocols of the BRID (Gordon, 2003). People were excluded from the

Results

The total EI mean for the entire sample was 47.7 (SD = 5.7), self-esteem 12.6 (SD = 2.2), social skills 13.2 (SD = 2.6) and empathy 21.8 (SD = 3.1).

Discussion

The study hypotheses were largely supported. First, males were found to have lower overall EI scores than females, and most of this small difference was accounted for by the empathy EI sub-scale. However, males were found to have slightly higher self-concept scores than females. No significant gender differences were found for the social skills EI sub-scale. These findings replicate prior research (Kemp et al., 2005a, Petrides and Furnham, 2000) and though differences were small, this finding

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