Is Improving the Emotions of Household Members During the COVID-19 Confinement Related to the Agent’s Well-Being? The Moderating Role of Gender

Abstract

Given the important effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on positive mental health, the main goal of the present research was to study the relationship between understanding and regulating other household members’ emotions and the agent’s well-being, during the confinement in Spain. Participants (n = 480), who lived during this period accompanied by others, completed the Appraisal of Others’ Emotions Subscale of the Wong-Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Extrinsic Affect-Improving Subscale of the Emotion Regulation of Others and Self, and the Positive Affect Subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). As in previous research, emotional intelligence linked to understanding others’ emotions was positively related to agent’s positive affect. Also, the use of strategies to improve others’ emotions mediated this relationship. More important for the present research, gender moderated the relationship between external regulation to improve others’ emotions and the agent’s positive affect, and consequently the previously mentioned mediation. The predicted relation, as well as the hypothesized mediation, were significant for women but not for men, probably due to gender differences in empathy and emotional contagion. In this sense, emotional intelligence could be used to increase agent’s well-being by improving other people’s feelings or managing people to fulfill agent’s own needs.