I strongly recomend you to use an emotional intelligence performance TEST as MSCEIT. Emotional intelligence, I mean as intelligence, should be measured using a performance test.

Thank you, this is definitely a sound advice.

My question, however, is whether there are studies connecting EI (measured by MSCEIT or by TEIQue, or some other instrument) and attachment dimensions or patterns. For instance, do securely attached adults score significantly better on EI measures than the insecure ones?

just try this paper (2003), leaded by Marc Brackett. Beyond this article there're some papers (I did a couple of this matter in Spanish) with these authors (JC Perez, A. Furnham, or Petrides: TEIQue)

Maybe it is not highly relevant, but I did a research examining the relation between adult attachment (measured by ECR) and alexithymia (measured by TAS-20). I guess alexithymia is the lack of emotional intelligence in some degree. You can find this paper on my RG profile, titled Attachment and Emotion Regulation.

OK, that`s an old and well-known hypothesis but I have always thought that it was wrong. A person with alexythimia would score low on the MSCEIT, right? But what would happen to people who score low on the MSCEIT? [branch four is a measure of a emotion regulation ability] Are they alexythimics? You can test it only in one way, but not viceverse. I mean not all people who have a lack of EI have alexythimia. Despite my opinion, it’s so great your interest linking attachment and emotion regulation. ER is an interesting field to me. That’s my research line and nowadays I’m focusing in both theory and measuring ER. Probably, both topics are related each other. I’m going to read your paper ASAP.

Thank you, Andras, I'll read the paper carefully.

Did you find TAS-20 reliable and useful? Do you think it would be wortwhile to standardize its Serbian translation?

My best regards to Pecs, where I was twice guest of the Doctoral program in theoretical psychoanalysis.

Thank you. This is an excellent paper, that surely helps. Do you know about papers addressing this topic in adults?

A secure attachment style is associated with higher EI, as noted in:

Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D., & Salovey, P. (1999). Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 27, 267-298

One of my student in her Master level dissertation examined the correlation between perceived EI (trait measure) and performance measure of EI (ability measure) and found a very low correlation between the two. Further, the two measures correlated differently with a measure of hemispheric preference. The trait EI correlated with a left hemispheric preference whereas the ability measure of EI correlated with a right hemispheric preference. However, this work is still unpublished.

I do not know much about how ability and trait measures correlate with attachment. But I guess that a differential pattern of relationship is very likely if your two measures do not correlate strongly with each other.

Dear Dr. O'Donnell,

I have just downloaded the paper you recommended. Strangely, the word attachment does not appear in it even once. Could it be that you thought of another paper by this prolific trio? Thank you!

Aleksandar, you're right! It appears I have provided the incorrect reference. I can't remember the exact paper that I should have referenced in that instance. But if you are still looking to acquire literature on this then I suggest you look for a paper in the journal Personality and Individual Differences by Kafetsios, K. (2004). This study employed the MSCEIT to look at attachment across different ages.

Hi

It depends on how you define EI. For example, Jeff Simpson and colleagues found (2011 for example) that people high on anxiety have greater empatic accuracy. Is that higher EI? depends. I found that people high on attachment anxiety can better detect lies and deceptions (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235727513_Full_House_of_Fears_Evidence_that_People_High_in_Attachment_Anxiety_are_More_Accurate_in_Detecting_Deceit?ev=prf_pub) - is it higher EI? again depends.

Article Full House of Fears: Evidence That People High in Attachment...

One useful thing to think about in this context is to consider the question from the perspective of regulatory targets and capacities. Put more simply, it is critical to know what experiences/expressions persons with different attachment profiles are trying to attain and/or avoid and the skill or resource sets they bring with them. IMO, the experience between experiential and expressive regulation is critical to understanding regulatory "success".

Have you looked at the work of Meins and Fernyhough in relation to maternal mind-mindedness, I think they discuss some of this?