Can ability emotional intelligence help explain intercultural effectiveness? Incremental validity and mediation effects of emotional vocabulary in predicting intercultural judgment

A review of the literature reveals that previous studies on the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in predicting intercultural effectiveness have focused solely on trait EI, i.e., self-reported emotional efficacy, and on emotion recognition, disregarding the core components of ability EI, particularly its understanding emotions branch. Considering this gap and arguing for the relevance of emotion understanding in intercultural communication, the present study examined whether emotional vocabulary (EV), a marker of the ability to understand emotions, predicts intercultural problem solving above verbal intelligence and personality, and whether it (partially) mediates their effects on the criterion. Participants were 336 university students from Serbia, assessed on EV, verbal intelligence, the Big Five, and intercultural judgment and decision making (CJDM). A hierarchical regression analysis found verbal intelligence, Openness, and Extraversion (Step 1), and EV (Step 2) to significantly predict CJDM, with EV incrementally explaining 2% of criterion variance. A path analysis yielded excellent fit indices for a model postulating EV as a partial mediator of the effects of verbal intelligence and Openness on CJDM. The study thus provides first evidence of the specific contribution of emotion understanding to solving intercultural communication problems, the implications of which for both EI and intercultural research are discussed.