Pathways between Ability Emotional Intelligence and Subjective Well-Being: Bridging Links through Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies

Based on a primary prevention perspective, the main purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between ability emotional intelligence, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and well-being indicators (e.g., psychological well-being and satisfaction with life), controlling for sociodemographic variables and personality traits in our analyses. Three hundred and seventy-eight college students (123 males; 252 females; 3 unreported) participated voluntarily in this study. We predicted that ability emotional intelligence would be significantly and positively correlated with well-being outcomes, and that cognitive emotion regulation strategies would mediate the associations between ability emotional intelligence and well-being, controlling for sociodemographic and personality traits. Structural equation modelling estimated by bootstrap method indicated that two adaptive cognitive coping strategies were found to act as partial mediators between ability emotional intelligence and well-being indicators. Our findings provide preliminary support for theoretical work linking ability emotional intelligence, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and well-being outcomes, and contribute to the understanding of how ability emotional intelligence is related to subjective well-being via specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies in college students.


Introduction
University life is regarded as a key time of transition into adulthood. Although university offers students opportunities for personal growth and development, numerous studies have found that students experience high levels of stress due to financial affairs, academic work, time constraints, new relationships, and career choice difficulties, which might have an impact on students' well-being [1]. In the last few years, research has examined contributing factors that protect students from the negative consequences of stress and foster their individual well-being. According to the psychology of sustainability approach [2] and based on a primary prevention perspective [3], it is necessary to increase personal strengths, particularly at the college stage, prior to entering workplace life, to provide valuable resources that lead to positive outcomes for sustainable development and optimal well-being in future workers. These personal resources might help individuals to better cope with continuous changes and adaptations in the professional workplace setting. and low EI people use to maintain subjective well-being [21,27]. Furthermore, conceptual models have also been proposed where coping is thought to be one of the primary mechanisms by which the effects of EI are transferred to subjective well-being and psychological adjustment [22]. As EI plays a key role in both how people understand and regulate their own emotions [28], we can expect EI to have considerable effect on coping and thereby on well-being.
Coping has been defined by Lazarus and Folkman [29] as the behavioral and cognitive efforts one uses to manage the demands of a stressful encounter. Current theory on coping underlines that coping involves a mixture of conscious cognitive and behavioral strategies of responding to negative events [30,31]. Nevertheless, according to Garnefski et al. [32], cognitive appraisal processes might precede the process of taking behavioral actions. As such, these authors assume that cognitive emotion regulation strategies should be studied in a conceptually pure way, focusing on specific cognitive coping subtypes, separate from behavioral strategies, in order to make a significant contribution to the coping field. In line with this reasoning, Garnefski et al. [32] defined these coping strategies as the conscious, cognitive way of handling and processing affective arousing data, developing a theoretical categorization of coping strategies which are called cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Nine conceptually different cognitive strategies have been distinguished which can be classified into two major categories: adaptive cognitive coping related to higher psychological adjustment and quality of life (e.g., acceptance, focus on planning, positive refocusing, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective) and maladaptive cognitive coping (e.g., self-blame, blaming others, rumination, and catastrophizing) which is linked to more psychological maladjustment and mental and physical health problems [19,[32][33][34]. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that maladaptive strategies (e.g., catastrophizing, self-blame, rumination) show stronger associations with anxiety or depression [32,35]. However, far less research has analyzed the role of cognitive strategies in positive aspects of the individual's well-being. In a previous study, Balzarotti et al. [36] reported that two adaptive strategies (positive reappraisal and focus on planning) were the more important predictors of different indicators of hedonic and eudaemonic well-being. In addition, catastrophizing, rumination, and self-blame were negatively and significantly associated with lower hedonic and eudaemonic well-being [36]. To date, however, no studies have examined the role of ability EI and emotion regulation cognitive strategies in explaining well-being outcomes.
According to the above-mentioned theoretical framework and previous findings, we conducted the present study to examine the extent to which relationships between EI and well-being are mediated by specific use of emotional cognitive regulation strategies. Based on the available evidence, we expected ability EI to be significantly and positively correlated with adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and well-being outcomes, and negatively correlated with maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Next, in accordance with the mediation approach, it was expected that the relationship between ability EI and well-being would be mediated by these adaptive cognitive strategies.

Participants and Procedure
The participants were 378 college students (123 males; 252 females; 3 unreported) who participated voluntarily and anonymously in the study. The participants completed the questionnaires during class time and received course credits for their participation. Their mean age was 22.04 years (SD = 5.60). The study was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki [37] and all participants provided written informed consent. The protocol study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Malaga (Spain) as part of the project PSI2012-38813.

Materials
Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT 2.0) [38]: The MSCEIT is a 141-item ability scale designed to measure the four branches of Mayer and Salovey's theory of emotional intelligence: perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions. The MSCEIT yields a total emotional intelligence score; the four branch scores comprise this total score. As previous research has found high correlations between the overall and branch scores [38], in the present study we used overall EI scores. The Spanish version of this instrument was used; this has shown satisfactory psychometric properties [39].
Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) [32]: This scale measures cognitive strategies that characterize the individual's style when responding to stressful events. The CERQ is a 36-item questionnaire, consisting of the following nine conceptually different dimensions, each consisting of two items measured on a five-point Likert scale: self-blame, other-blame, acceptance, refocus on planning, positive refocusing, rumination, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, and catastrophizing. The CERQ has shown adequate psychometric properties [32]. For this study, we used the well-validated Spanish version of CERQ [40].
The Big-Five Inventory-44 (BFI-44) [41]: This inventory is a self-report measure designed to assess the Big Five facets: neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience. The BFI-44 scales have shown satisfactory indices of reliability and validity both in the original and Spanish versions [41].
Scales of Psychological Well-Being (PWB) [42]: This scale assesses different aspects of psychological well-being and contains six subscales: environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. These can be summed to provide a composite of psychological well-being score. We used the Spanish version of the psychological well-being [43].
Scale of Subjective Well-Being: We used the satisfaction with life scale [44]. This self-report instrument consists of five items that assess a perceived general life satisfaction. We used the highly reliable Spanish version [45].

Data Analyses
To examine means, standard deviations, correlation coefficients, and internal reliability, statistical analyses were carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. To determine the internal reliability of the instruments, we estimated Cronbach's α coefficient for self-report instruments and Spearman-Brown split half reliability (for MSCEIT). Thus, we used a path analyses approach, using AMOS 20 software to examine whether the relationship between ability EI and well-being was mediated by these adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Finally, to evaluate the goodness-of-fit for the model, we used chi-square (X 2 /df), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), and comparative fit index (CFI) [46].
In order to examine the significance of indirect or mediated effects of cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the link between EI and psychological/subjective well-being, the Preacher and Hayes procedure was followed [47]. Accordingly, this method allows for the joint exploration of several estimated indirect (e.g., mediated) effects in a model (through the pathway of each mediator variable, M) and the direct effect of the independent variable (IV) on the dependent variable (DV) using bootstrapping with 5000 re-samples. Mediation implies a set of direct and indirect effects summarized as: (a) the direct effect of ability EI (IV) on cognitive emotion regulation strategies (mediators); (b) the effect of cognitive strategies (M) on psychological/subjective well-being (DV); (c) the total effect of ability EI (IV) on psychological/subjective well-being (DV); and (c (c-prime)) the direct effect of ability EI (IV) on psychological/subjective well-being (DV) [48]. Ninety-five percent bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs) were used to determine whether effects were statistically significant: if the 95% bias-corrected CI does not contain zero, then the mediation is considered statistically significant [47], providing evidence of the indirect effect of cognitive coping in the link between ability EI and psychological/subjective well-being.

Structural Model
The initial path analyses model included all the cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between EI and psychological/subjective well-being. To avoid the possibility that associations between EI, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and psychological/subjective well-being could be confounded by sociodemographic factors and personality traits, we also controlled for age, gender, and Big-Five traits in the subsequent analysis. Sex, age, and agreeableness showed no significant effects on psychological well-being; however, significant effects were found for extraversion (β = 0.232, p < 0.001), conscientiousness (β = 0.232, p < 0.001), neuroticism (β = -0.257, p < 0.001), and openness (β = 0.081, p = 0.045). Likewise, sex and openness showed no significant effects on subjective well-being, but significant effects were found for age (β = -0.016, p < 0.001), extraversion (β = 0.186, p < 0.001), agreeableness (β = 0.119, p = 0.042), conscientiousness (β = 0.192, p < 0.001), and neuroticism (β = -0.333, p < 0.001). In accordance with the recommendations of the software, we proceeded to eliminate those mediating strategies that did not maintain a significant effect. Total EI did not show significant effects for self-blame, other-blame, acceptance, and positive refocusing; therefore, these were discarded from the model. On the other hand, rumination did not show a significant effect on psychological/subjective well-being, and, therefore, was also discarded from the model. In the second model, catastrophizing and putting into perspective did not show significant effects and were also discarded from the model. The final model, as shown in Figure 1, included refocus on planning and positive reappraisal (only for subjective well-being) as significant mediators, and showed a satisfactory fit to the data: X 2 /df (3, N = 378) = 1.382, p = 0.246; RMSEA = 0.032; SRMR = 0.032; CFI = 0.998. The final mediational model showed a sum of direct and indirect effects that explains a total variance of 28% and 17% for psychological and subjective well-being, respectively.   Table 2 summarizes the results for the multiple mediator analysis, indicating the path coefficients and confidence intervals for each effect being tested in the model. The association with ability EI was mediated by focus on planning and positive reappraisal (only for psychological well-being). It is worth noting that the pathways involving these mediators only partially accounted for the relationship between ability EI and well-being outcomes, given that the direct effect (c prime) was statistically significant in this analysis. The multiple mediator model independently explained 57% of the variance of psychological well-being and 52% of the variance of subjective well-being. Note: Estimated using bias corrected and accelerated bootstrapping, with 5000 samples. CI = confidence interval; Ability EI= Ability Emotional Intelligence: PWB = Psychological Well-being; SWB = Subjective Well-being; * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01.

Discussion
Past studies have generally demonstrated that people with higher levels of EI experience higher subjective well-being and life satisfaction than others. However, there exists only a limited understanding of what promotes this positive functioning [16]. Addressing this limitation, the current study examined the potential role of several cognitive emotion regulation strategies as mediators between EI and well-being outcomes. Our study provides preliminary evidence that ability EI is associated with well-being indicators and that this link is mediated by specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies.
Consistent with expectations, our results revealed that greater EI was significantly associated with greater psychological well-being and satisfaction with life; these are in line with past studies that demonstrated the positive impact of EI on positive quality-of-life indicators [10]. Moreover, in line with a growing body of literature on EI and coping [49], our study found that ability EI was significantly associated with different cognitive emotion regulation strategies. In short, higher ability EI was associated with lower catastrophizing and higher rumination, focus on planning, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective. Several authors have theoretically underlined that knowing how one feels and discriminating between these mood states provides important information about the current situation, clarifies the best options for what to do next, and suggests specific strategies for modifying that emotion if desired [21,49]. Our results provide preliminary support of this assumption, showing that individuals who scored higher for ability EI reported higher use of different adaptive emotion regulation strategies and lower use of maladaptive coping strategies.
Moreover, specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies were significantly associated with well-being outcomes. Higher scores in positive refocusing, focusing on planning, and positive reappraisal, along with putting into perspective, were positively and significantly associated with subjective well-being. On the contrary, self-blame, catastrophizing, and other-blame were negatively and significantly associated with subjective well-being. Similarly, regarding psychological well-being, higher scores in positive refocusing, focusing on planning, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective were positively and significantly associated with psychological well-being; while self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing, and other-blame were negatively and significantly related to psychological well-being. In line with prior studies, our findings suggest some positive benefits of cognitive coping in well-being outcomes [36].
Finally, regarding the interplay of EI and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in explaining well-being outcomes, some researchers have suggested that EI may influence well-being by affecting the way individuals cope when they encounter life stressors [21,22]. Consistently, the current findings provided support for a path model in which a focus on planning and positive reappraisal (only for subjective well-being) mediated the relationship between ability EI and well-being outcomes. In short, our results suggest that the mechanism that might mediate the positive effect of EI on well-being might be attributed, to some extent, to the different strategies that emotionally intelligent people use to maintain subjective well-being. Therefore, for high EI students, reframing the meaning of everyday stressful events (e.g., positive reappraisal) or applying a strategy to manage these events in the future (e.g., focusing on planning) might be key to maintaining and increasing various aspects of well-being. It is plausible that, under certain conditions out of their control, using positive reappraisal and focusing on future planning offers an effective coping option for emotionally intelligent people; this is associated with positive benefits in well-being [32,50].
Moreover, our results suggest that educators and counsellors in universities should teach college students, via organizing workshops or talks, to change their cognitive coping styles from maladaptive to adaptive in order to increase levels of well-being. As EI skills [51] and cognitive emotion regulation strategies [52] tend to be modifiable through intervention programs, career counselling workshops aimed at improving well-being might assist students in identifying and coping with the emotions produced by daily life, academic, and workplace hassles, and thereby help participants to understand the meaning of their feelings and to apply adaptive coping skills in daily life. Additionally, counsellors could provide practice guidelines about what adaptative emotion regulation strategies to employ and how best to handle an academic/workplace problem through individual career counselling, in-session exercises, and homework assignments to equip participants with psychological resources before they experience negative academic consequences and to promote their overall well-being. For example, they can help students refocus on the positive aspects of a negative situation by reinterpreting the problem in terms of personal growth which, according to our findings, seems to have a key role in the interplay between ability EI and well-being.
Despite the use of performance-based measures of EI in our research offers some advantages compared to EI self-report approach [53], there are some limitations to the current study that warrant caution when interpreting and generalizing the findings. One limitation is that this study used a cross-sectional design, which limits any causal inference of the findings. To address requirements to support causal interpretations, further longitudinal studies are needed. The participants were college students and relatively young. Therefore, replication is needed in older samples and community-based groups. Finally, females were overrepresented in the sample. Further research should be conducted with male samples to help increase the generalizability of current findings.

Conclusions
These results provide preliminary evidence to support the view that emotional abilities, assessed by performance measures, might lead to enhanced well-being through more adaptive coping strategies. This is an extension of previous findings with different mechanisms (e.g., social support, affectivity, perceived stress, etc.). Accordingly, certain adaptive cognitive coping skills may be important mechanisms for explaining why EI is positively related to well-being. To enhance the effectiveness of well-being interventions, intervening mechanisms need to be better understood. Therefore, as a primary prevention strategy, new directions in sustainable development should include studies on the beneficial effects of improving EI and cognitive coping strategies which may help develop individual graduate well-being and their ability to handle stress properly during college life. Such a program might equip graduates and future employees with psychological resources for fostering good mental health and job performances in a rapidly changing and highly challenging workplace environment.