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The Role of Knowledge and Skills for Managing Emotions in Adaptation to

School : Social Behavior and Misconduct in the Classroom
Paulo N. Lopes, José M. Mestre, Rocío Guil, Janet Pickard Kremenitzer and Peter
Salovey
Am Educ Res J 2012 49: 710 originally published online 4 April 2012
DOI: 10.3102/0002831212443077
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American Educational Research Journal
August 2012, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 710–742
DOI: 10.3102/0002831212443077
Ó 2012 AERA. http://aerj.aera.net
The Role of Knowledge and Skills for

Managing Emotions in Adaptation to School:
Social Behavior and Misconduct in the
Classroom
Paulo N. Lopes
Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Catholic
University of Portugal
José M. Mestre
Rocı́o Guil
University of Cádiz
Janet Pickard Kremenitzer
Lehman College, City University of New York
Peter Salovey
Yale University
Students’ ability to evaluate emotionally challenging situations and identify

effective strategies for managing emotions in themselves and others was neg-
atively related to poor classroom social behavior across three studies. These
studies, involving 463 students from two Spanish high schools and one
American university, examined indicators of adaptation to school based
PAULO N. LOPES is an assistant professor at Católica-Lisbon School of Business and

Economics, Catholic University of Portugal, Palma de Cima, Lisbon, 1649-023; e-
mail: paulo.lopes@ucp.pt. He conducts research on emotion regulation, emotional
expression, and interpersonal skills relevant to management.
JOSÉ M. MESTRE is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the
University of Cádiz. He conducts research on emotion regulation processes and emo-
tional intelligence.
ROCÍO GUIL is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University
of Cádiz. She investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence and per-
sonal and social adjustment, as well as ways to improve emotional intelligence skills.
JANET PICKARD KREMENITZER is an assistant professor in the Department of Early
Childhood and Childhood Education, School of Education, Lehman College, City
University of New York. Her current research interest is the study of emotional intel-
ligence skill development in preservice and in-service teachers.
PETER SALOVEY is provost and Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology at Yale University.
He conducts research on the functions of human emotion and on health
communication.
Managing Emotions in School
on teacher ratings and official school records. Relationships between the
ability to manage emotions, measured with a situational judgment test,
and indicators of social adaptation to school remained significant or mar-
ginally significant after controlling for demographic factors, personality
traits, and indicators of cognitive ability. These findings suggest that emotion
regulation knowledge and skills that can be taught explain important aspects
of socio-emotional adaptation to school over and above other relevant
constructs.
KEYWORDS: emotion regulation, social adaptation, social behavior, emo-

tional intelligence, disruptive behavior
S tudents’ ability to respect school rules and interact reasonably well with
their teachers is thought to influence their capacity to learn, commitment
to school, and broader socialization. It is important for their future, both in
the educational system and in life outside of the classroom. It is also relevant
for teachers because it influences educators’ capacity to teach effectively and
derive satisfaction from their work. Many teachers find it difficult to handle
classroom disruptions caused by students who cannot regulate their impul-
sive tendencies and emotional reactions effectively, or who cannot sustain
the motivation for studying. This problem is likely to contribute to high lev-
els of occupational stress among teachers (prevalence estimates ranging
from 30% to as high as 90% in the United States; e.g., Dorman, 2003;
Guglielmi & Tatrow, 1998; Travers, 2001) and to the high percentage of
teachers leaving the profession within their first 5 years (40% to 50% in
the United States; e.g., Sutton & Wheatley, 2003).
Students’ experience of school is suffused with diverse emotions. The
emotions that students experience in academic settings are related to their
motivation, learning strategies, self-regulation, and academic achievement
(Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002). There has been substantial research
on self-regulated learning—students’ capacity to manage their own learning
experiences efficiently and adaptively, as active learners (Schunk &
Zimmerman, 1994). Most of this research has examined how students use
various cognitive and metacognitive strategies to learn, with a clear focus
on cognitive regulation (Pintrich, 2003). In contrast, emotion regulation
has been relatively neglected in the field of education, despite some fruitful
research in this area—including research on the regulation of motivation
(e.g., Wolters, 1998) and on students’ need to balance academic learning
and growth, on the one hand, and emotional well-being and ego protection,
on the other (e.g., Boekaerts & Niemivirta, 2000).
Emotions influence the way people think and behave, and they are inti-
mately linked to motivation (e.g., Buck, 1985). They serve important adap-
tive functions, including guiding attention and cognition to deal with
threats and opportunities, facilitating learning, and coordinating social
711
Lopes et al.
interaction (e.g., Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, & Zhang, 2007; Fredrickson,
1998; Lazarus, 1991; Schwarz, 1990). Yet, intense and unregulated emotions
can also undermine complex information processing, rational decision mak-
ing, and social interaction (Keinan, 1987; Lerner & Tiedens, 2006;
Loewenstein & Lerner, 2003; Simon, 1967). For example, when people are
angry, they might do or say things that harm relationships with others, with-
out due consideration of alternative solutions and possible consequences.
Thus, appropriate emotion regulation is thought to contribute to social, emo-
tional, and academic adaptation. Students who cannot regulate their emo-
tional reactions and impulsive behavior effectively, either because they are
temperamentally overreactive or because they failed to develop emotion
regulation skills, tend to experience difficulties in adapting to school,
work, and social environments later in life (Caspi, 2000; Eisenberg, Fabes,
Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000; Kagan, 1998; Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). In particu-
lar, the failure to develop emotion regulation skills—perhaps because of
a lack of appropriate models—is thought to predict a lack of social compe-
tence (Denham & Burton, 2003) and various kinds of antisocial behaviors
(Lotze, Ravindran, & Myers, 2010) as children grow older.
Situational Judgment and Managing Emotions

Definitions of emotion regulation vary considerably, although we are
guided by the general view that it involves ‘‘physiological, behavioral, and
cognitive processes that enable individuals to modulate the experience
and expression of positive and negative emotions’’ (Bridges, Denham, &
Ganiban, 2004, p. 340). The importance of learning to understand and reg-
ulate emotion is made salient in various models of emotional development
(see Denham, 1998; Eisenberg, 2000; Garber & Dodge, 1991). Emotion reg-
ulation is a key component in the most comprehensive models of the devel-
opment of emotional competencies. For example, Saarni (1999) views the
ability to cope adaptively with aversive emotions as one of eight skills chil-
dren learn in becoming emotionally competent adults. An earlier hierarchy
of emotional skills development presented emotional self-control as the cul-
mination of learning to express, represent, and understand emotion (Fischer,
Shaver, & Carnochan, 1990). Individuals who have learned, usually in child-
hood, to regulate their emotions are able to inhibit inappropriate behavior
motivated by strong emotional experiences; calm themselves when highly
aroused; deploy emotions to help focus attention; organize their thoughts
and feelings to pursue goals; use emotions to influence the feelings,
thoughts, and behaviors of other people; and attempt to be ‘‘in synch’’
with cultural rules for displaying emotions (Hyson, 1994).
To study emotion regulation in the social context of the classroom and
school, we focused on students’ ability to manage emotions in both self and
others. In this context, intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation
712
are interlinked because emotions are contagious (e.g., Hatfield, Cacioppo, &
Rapson, 1994), and individuals tend to ‘‘catch’’ others’ emotions in social en-
counters. For example, curbing our own anger can help to attenuate others’
anger as well. Similarly, appeasing someone who felt offended by our
behavior may help us to calm down by dissipating tension in the interaction.
Accordingly, in this article, we adopt a broad definition of emotion regula-
tion, encompassing both intrapersonal and interpersonal regulation, in line
with the concept of managing emotions described in Mayer and Salovey’s
(1997; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) theory of emotional intelligence, which views
emotional intelligence as a set of interrelated abilities involving perceiving,
understanding, using, and managing emotions. Thus, we consider that man-
aging emotions involves influencing the experience and expression of emo-
tion in self and others, so as to reach one’s goals, achieve well-being, and
adapt to the environment. To clarify that we are studying the regulation of
emotion in both oneself and other people, we will henceforth generally
use the expression managing emotions in this article.
In studying the role of managing emotions in adaptation to school, we
focused on students’ ability to identify effective and appropriate responses to
emotionally challenging situations. In other words, we examined situational
judgment in the emotional realm. We view the ability to evaluate emotional
situations as an important dimension of managing emotions that lies at the
interface of emotion and cognition, involves the intelligent processing of
emotional information, relies on both knowledge of emotions and judgment
skills, and can be learned or developed.
From a theoretical standpoint, this ability is critical for emotion regula-
tion because the way that we evaluate emotional stimuli and situations
(i.e., our appraisals) determines our emotional reactions (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984; see also Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001). In Gross’s
(1998) model of emotion regulation, appraisal is considered a key process
of antecedent-focused emotion regulation, occurring early in the chain of
events that constitutes an emotional response.
The importance of situational judgment is also emphasized by social
information processing models and research, which indicate that biases in
the interpretation of social and emotional situations can trigger inappropriate
emotional reactions (Crick & Dodge, 1994). For example, aggressive chil-
dren tend to reveal hostile attribution bias in evaluating ambiguous situa-
tions: If a classmate pushes them when they are standing in line in the
cafeteria, they tend to think that the other person did it on purpose. When
asked to identify effective responses to challenging situations, they also
reveal a limited repertoire of response strategies: They may think that the
only way to deal with a public affront is to respond aggressively, push
back, or start a fist fight (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Evidence that effective emo-
tion regulation should be flexibly attuned to situational demands and oppor-
tunities rather than rely systematically on any one emotion regulation
713
Lopes et al.
strategy (e.g., Cheng, 2001) further highlights the importance of emotionally
intelligent situational judgment and response selection.
We focused on judgment in emotionally challenging situations to exam-
ine knowledge and skills that can potentially be taught, as opposed to per-
sonality traits that are difficult to change. Numerous studies of emotion
regulation in school have relied on measures that do not distinguish temper-
amental dispositions and personality traits, on the one hand, and acquired
emotion regulation knowledge and skills, on the other. In fact, temperament
and personality are closely linked to emotional reactivity and automatic
emotion regulation processes. For example, Larsen (2000) proposed that
the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism reflect positive and
negative emotional reactivity, respectively, whereas agreeableness and con-
scientiousness reflect response modulation. For both theoretical and educa-
tional purposes, however, it is important to distinguish the effects of
personality dispositions from those of acquired knowledge and skills.
In the present studies, we used a situational judgment test that asks re-
spondents to evaluate emotional situations described in brief vignettes and
to rate the effectiveness of various strategies for managing them. This test
does not measure people’s capacity actually to implement these strategies in
conditions of heightened emotional arousal. In fact, there may be a big differ-
ence between what people know they should do and what they actually do
when they experience intense emotions or stress (Baumeister, Heatherton,
& Tice, 1994; Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). The way people think and behave
may differ in conditions of high versus low emotional arousal, which activate
‘‘hot’’ versus ‘‘cold’’ systems of cognitive processing. Nonetheless, it is impor-
tant to know whether the ability to evaluate emotional situations and to iden-
tify effective emotion regulation strategies (under conditions of low arousal) is
related to appropriate classroom behavior, positive interactions with teachers,
and social adaptation to school. This question is of both theoretical and prac-
tical interest. If the answer is positive, it may be useful to teach students (at
developmentally appropriate levels of instruction) to use their intelligence
to manage emotionally challenging situations and identify effective response
strategies. If the answer is negative, this cognitively based approach to teach-
ing emotion regulation is likely to be ineffective. Thus, we examined the ef-
fects of this ‘‘strategic’’ dimension of managing emotions, emphasizing
cognitive processes of emotion regulation.
Note that the test used in our studies measures both knowledge of emo-
tions and the ability to evaluate emotional situations. Judging complex or
ambiguous situations and identifying effective response strategies entails
using prior knowledge to think intelligently about emotional situations
and to weigh the pros and cons of alternative responses. These judgments
may rely on deliberate and systematic analysis, or on fast and intuitive pro-
cesses involving procedural knowledge codified as complex sets of if-then
contingencies (Sternberg et al., 2000), heuristics (Gigerenzer, 2007), or
714
pattern recognition (Klein, 2003), as often happens in naturalistic decision
making (Lipshitz, 1993). Either way, such judgments involve intelligent pro-
cessing of emotional information and problem solving rather than blind
application of knowledge. Therefore we consider that the ability to judge
emotional situations investigated in the present studies reflects both emo-
tional knowledge and skills, rather than knowledge alone.
Linking the Ability to Manage Emotions and Adaptation to School

The present studies focused on appropriate behavior in school and the
quality of student-teacher interactions as aspects of social behavior and
adaptation to school that are important in their own right and have received
relatively little attention in prior research on emotion regulation.
Inappropriate classroom behavior is an important issue in education
because, as we argued previously, many teachers are concerned not only
with enhancing students’ academic achievement but also with handling
unruly students and maintaining positive discipline in the classroom.
Moreover, there is evidence that the quality of students’ relationships with
teachers is a critical component of adaptation to school and contributes to
academic achievement (Pianta, Steinberg, & Rollins, 1995). Perceived
teacher social support is positively related to participation in and identifica-
tion with school, which in turn contribute to academic achievement among
adolescents (Wang & Holcombe, 2010). The effect of student-teacher rela-
tionships on academic achievement also appears to be mediated by student
and teacher behaviors in the classroom (E. O’Connor & McCartney, 2007).
Students who like school reveal less problem behavior and misconduct, in
general, than those who feel less bonded to school (Simons-Morton,
Crump, Haynie, & Saylor, 1999; Smetana & Bitz, 1996). These findings justify
our focus on appropriate classroom and school behavior and on the quality
of student-teacher interactions.
Both theory and research suggest that the ability to manage emotions
contributes to appropriate and effective social behavior. Emotions serve
important social functions, including facilitating communication, coordinat-
ing social encounters, cementing relationships, defining groups, and foster-
ing socialization (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 2001). They convey information
about people’s thoughts and intentions. They influence others’ emotional
states (Hatfield et al., 1994), and indeed there is evidence of emotional trans-
mission between students and teachers in the classroom (e.g., Frenzel,
Goetz, Lüdtke, Pekrun, & Sutton, 2009). Thus, people need to regulate their
emotions in order to navigate the social world. They may be ostracized in
social settings or reprimanded in the classroom if they fail to conform to pre-
vailing feeling and display rules (Ekman, 2003). In school and other con-
texts, socializing often entails nurturing positive emotions and dampening
negative emotions, as people tend to seek the company of individuals
715
Lopes et al.
who radiate positive affect and avoid those who spread negative affect per-
sistently (Argyle & Lu, 1990; Furr & Funder, 1998). In managing interpersonal
conflict, regulating emotional arousal can help people to avoid reciprocating
destructive behavior and escalating hostilities (Arriaga & Rusbult, 1998;
Zillmann, 1993). Consistent with this line of argument, there is evidence
that the ability to manage emotions, measured with a situational judgment
test, is positively related to the quality of interaction with friends and peers
among university students (e.g., Lopes et al., 2004, 2011; Lopes, Salovey,
Côté, & Beers, 2005). The present studies extend these findings into the
realm of classroom behavior and student-teacher interaction.
There is also theory and research linking emotion regulation and aca-
demic achievement. Emotions may influence learning and achievement in
school through cognitive and motivational mechanisms (Pekrun, 1992;
Schutz & Pekrun, 2007). The emotions (positive and negative) that students
experience in school are associated with their perceptions of academic com-
petence and control, as well as with their values and goals regarding learn-
ing and achievement (Pekrun et al., 2002). Effective emotion regulation may
contribute to academic achievement by helping students to manage test anx-
iety, concentrate on the task at hand, think clearly, and perform effectively
under stress (Seipp, 1991; Zeidner, 2007). It may also help students to adopt
learning and growth goals, deal with the frustrations of grappling with diffi-
cult material (Boekaerts & Niemivirta, 2000), absorb negative feedback,
maintain optimistic expectations, and nurture intrinsic motivation for study-
ing (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984). Many school-based interventions de-
signed to teach skills associated with social competence, captured by the
label social and emotional learning (SEL), focus in some way on developing
emotion regulation skills with an eye toward their application in the school
setting (reviewed by Elbertson, Brackett, & Weissberg, 2010; Zins, Payton,
Weissberg, & Utne-O’Brien, 2007).
Consistent with this idea, some studies have found the ability to regulate
emotions to be related to school readiness (Raver, 2002) and academic
achievement (Gumora & Arsenio, 2002). Scores on a situational judgment
test of managing emotions were also positively related to performance on
logical-reasoning problems under time pressure, controlling for general
intelligence (Lam & Kirby, 2002). However, the evidence that situational
judgment tests of managing emotions predict school grades is mixed
(Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008).
Overview of the Three Studies

We conducted three studies to examine relationships between the ability
to identify effective strategies for managing emotions in oneself and others
(henceforth designated ability to manage emotions, or AME, for ease of pre-
sentation) and: (a) indicators of inappropriate behavior, the quality of
716
student-teacher interaction, and students’ socio-emotional competence and
(b) academic achievement. We also examined whether this ability explains
variance in indicators of adaptation to school over and above demographic
factors and existing measures of personality traits and cognitive ability. We
recruited two samples of high school students in Spain and a sample of col-
lege students in the United States. The three studies we conducted allowed
us to address concerns about external validity and enhance confidence in
the generalizability of our findings. Our main goal was to show that relation-
ships between the ability to apply situational judgment to the realm of man-
aging emotions, on the one hand, and appropriate classroom behavior or the
quality of student-teacher interaction, on the other, generalized to varying
age groups and educational contexts.
Study 1
In the first study we examined relationships between the ability to man-
age emotions and teacher ratings of adaptation to school in a sample of
Spanish high school students1 and tested the following hypotheses: (a)
AME is negatively related to teacher ratings of conflict and hostility; (b)
AME is positively related to teacher ratings of adaptation to school, academic
achievement, and acceptance by peers; (c) these relationships remain signif-
icant after controlling for gender, age, IQ, and the Big Five personality traits.
Because previous research has identified gender differences in emotion reg-
ulation (e.g., McRae, Ochsner, Mauss, Gabrieli, & Gross, 2008), we also
examined whether gender moderated relationships between AME and adap-
tation to school.
Method
Participants and Procedure
Data were collected from 204 Spanish high school students in two high
schools in the province of Cádiz in southern Spain. These students were
enrolled in the third and fourth years of the Spanish secondary school sys-
tem, corresponding approximately to Grades 9 and 10 in the United
States. Nearly all students in these schools were Caucasian, and according
to school officials, most came from middle-class families. Data collection
was authorized by the school principals and took place during class time.
The students who participated in the present study were nested in seven dif-
ferent homeroom groupings (four from School A and three from School B).
Students from each homeroom were together in class for core disciplines.
Although not officially sanctioned, it is usual practice in Spanish high schools
to assign students to homerooms according to their academic performance
and school conduct, and this was apparent in School A. Partly for this
717
Lopes et al.
reason, teacher ratings varied significantly across homerooms, and we con-
trolled for this source of variability in statistical analyses.
One participant who copied responses to the situational judgment test of
managing emotions from a classmate was excluded from all analyses. The
remaining 203 participants were aged 14 to 17 (M = 15.11, SD = .87);
50.2% were girls; 66 students were in the third year of high school (two hom-
erooms from School A), and the remaining 137 in the fourth year (five hom-
erooms); 126 students belonged to four homerooms from School A and the
remaining to three homerooms from School B.
Measures
Managing emotions ability was measured using a situational judgment
test: the managing emotions section of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso
Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT Version 2.0; Mayer, Salovey, &
Caruso, 2002; Spanish version by Extremera, Fernández-Berrocal, &
Salovey, 2006). Respondents are asked to rate the effectiveness of different
strategies for managing emotionally challenging intrapersonal and interper-
sonal situations described in eight brief vignettes. Five vignettes are used to
measure managing emotions in oneself, describing situations that involve
improving one’s mood when one is feeling down, managing anger triggered
by an unfair decision, maintaining one’s own good mood, and dealing with
anxiety resulting from personal difficulties, for example. Three vignettes are
used to measure managing one’s own and others’ emotions in interpersonal
contexts. These concern preserving a good relationship with a colleague
who is leaving, talking to someone who is not being helpful, and interacting
with friends when one feels happy and proud about one’s achievements.
Both sets of vignettes describe emotional states and point to the challenge
involved in managing them. The response options encompass a range of
strategies for managing emotions, varying across vignettes. There are four
response options for each intrapersonal situation and three options for
each interpersonal situation. Altogether, this measure includes 29 items,2
using a 1 (very ineffective) to 5 (very effective) response format.
The test publisher does not authorize reproduction of actual test items,
but the following are abridged examples of items considered during the
development of the test:
Debbie just came back from vacation. She was feeling peaceful and
content. How well would each action preserve her mood? (1) She
started to make a list of things at home that she needed to do. (2)
She began thinking about where and when to go on her next vaca-
tion. (3) She called a friend to tell her about the vacation . . . .
Ken and Andy have been good friends for over 10 years. Recently,
however, Andy was promoted and became Ken’s manager. Ken felt
that the new promotion had changed Andy in that Andy had become
718
very bossy toward him. How effective would Ken be in maintaining
a good relationship, if he chose to respond in each of the following
ways? (1) Ken tried to understand Andy’s new role and tried to adjust
to the changes in their interactions. (2) Ken approached Andy and
confronted him regarding the change in his behavior . . . .
Scores are standardized based on consensus or expert norms (M = 100,

SD = 15). Consensus scores reflect the degree of agreement between a partic-
ipant’s responses and those provided by a sample of about 5,000 individuals
from various nations. For example, if a participant answers ‘‘A’’ and 21% of
the normative sample also chose that response option, the participant re-
ceives a score of .21 for that item. Expert scores reflect the degree of agree-
ment between a participant’s responses and those provided by 21 emotion
researchers belonging to the International Society for Research on
Emotion. The two scoring methods correlate highly (r . .9; Mayer,
Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2003), and findings tend to replicate across
the two scoring methods (e.g., Brackett & Mayer, 2003). The rationale for
using consensus and expert criteria is described elsewhere (Legree, 1995;
Mayer et al., 2001). Additional information appears in Lopes et al. (2005)
and Mayer et al. (2003). In this study we used consensus norms because
the capacity to identify emotion regulation strategies that are deemed effec-
tive by most people may be particularly relevant for social adaptation. In the
present study the mean score for AME was 81.39 (SD = 11.26; intraclass cor-
relation [ICC] = .18), and the split-half reliability (corrected by the Spearman-
Brown formula) was .82. Mayer et al. (2003) found a split-half reliability of
.81, based on 2,112 English-speaking adults, and Extremera et al. (2006) re-
ported a reliability of .85, based on 946 Spanish individuals aged 16 to 58.
The MSCEIT was originally developed for late adolescents and adults. In
the present study we used it with a slightly younger age group because it
was the only well-established situational judgment test of managing emo-
tions ability available at the time. The emotion regulation strategies implicit
in the response options of this test are relevant to the age group that we
studied, and we checked that students of this age could understand the
test instructions and items fully.
Teacher ratings of adaptation to school were obtained using four single-
item scales measuring: disruptive behavior and hostility (‘‘to what extent
does this student create conflict—i.e., reveal hostility towards peers and/or
teachers, misconduct in the classroom, etc?’’), academic adaptation (‘‘to
what extent is this student well adapted to school—i.e., does s/he attend
classes regularly, complete homework in a timely manner, respect rules,
etc?’’), academic achievement (‘‘what is this student’s average academic
achievement?’’), and peer acceptance/recognition (‘‘to what extent is this stu-
dent well accepted and socially recognized by his or her peers in the class?’’).
719
Lopes et al.
In School A, 4 teachers (2 men, 2 women) who knew all the participants
well, having taught them for at least 2 years, rated each participant using 10-
point response scales (1 = lowest, 10 = highest). These ratings were then
aggregated across the 4 teachers. Interrater agreement among these 4 teach-
ers, estimated using intraclass correlations, ranged from .73 to .96.
Descriptive statistics for School A were as follows: for disruptive behavior
and hostility, M = 3.25, SD = 2.14; for academic adaptation, M = 5.64, SD =
2.03; for academic achievement, M = 5.13, SD = 2.05; and for peer accep-
tance/recognition, M = 5.78, SD = 1.25.
For each of the three homerooms in School B, a different set of 4 teachers
who taught the core subjects provided a single consensual rating for each stu-
dent on the measures identified previously, following joint deliberation. If there
was disagreement among the 4 teachers, a 5th teacher, who had a coordinating
role, arbitrated. In this school, teachers preferred a different response format:
they used a 3-point response scale for disruptive behavior and hostility (1 =
low, 2 = medium, 3 = high) and a 6-point response scale for the other measures
(1 = lowest, 6 = highest). Based on these response scales, descriptive statistics
for School B were: for disruptive behavior and hostility, M = 1.29, SD = 0.51;
for academic adaptation, M = 3.42, SD = 1.16; for academic achievement, M
= 3.10, SD = 1.20; and for peer acceptance/recognition, M = 3.36, SD = 1.18.
For subsequent analyses, ratings from School B were transformed so that
they would be roughly comparable (i.e., use a similar metric and yield com-
parable means and variances) to those based on the 1 to 10 response scales
used in School A. For example, for the 1 to 6 response scales used in School
B, the transformation used was: 1 = 1.75, 2 = 3.25, 3 = 4.75, 4 = 6.25, 5 = 7.75,
and 6 = 9.25. Based on these scores, intraclass correlations were .13 for dis-
ruptive behavior and hostility, .31 for academic adaptation, .27 for academic
achievement, and .53 for peer acceptance/recognition.
IQ or general cognitive ability was measured using a standardized, mul-
tilevel, 70-item IQ test that yields a global score for general intelligence (IGF-
M; Yuste, 1997). This test encompasses verbal, numerical, spatial, and
abstract reasoning as well as verbal understanding and has been validated
for the Spanish student population. We administered the intermediate-level
version of the test recommended for high school students aged 13 to 16 (M =
101.69, SD = 16.78; ICC = .49).3 Split-half reliability corrected by the
Spearman-Brown formula was .93.
The Big Five personality traits were measured with the 120-item Big Five
Questionnaire (BFQ; Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Borgogni, 1995), which has
been validated in Spain. The response format was 1 (completely false) to 5
(completely true). The five traits measured by this questionnaire (with 24
items each) are: emotional stability, encompassing emotional control and
impulse control (e.g., ‘‘sometimes even small difficulties can get me wor-
ried’’; reverse scored; M = 2.90, SD = .40; a = .76; ICC = .00); extraversion/
energy, encompassing interpersonal dominance and energy/positive
720
emotions (e.g., ‘‘it is easy for me to talk to strangers’’; M = 3.22, SD = .39; a =
.73; ICC = .15); openness, encompassing openness to experience and open-
ness to culture (e.g., ‘‘I am always looking for new experiences;’’ M = 3.30,
SD = 0.37; a = .61; ICC = .11); agreeableness, encompassing cooperation/
empathy and cordiality/trust (e.g., ‘‘I believe every person has a good
side’’; M = 3.43, SD = .35; a = .70; ICC = .05); and conscientiousness, encom-
passing scrupulousness/order/dutifulness and persistence/achievement
striving (e.g., ‘‘I follow through on my decisions, even if this entails unex-
pected effort’’; M = 3.32, SD = .45; a = .80; ICC = .08). Prior research with
Spanish adolescents (Ortet et al., 2010) suggests that the five factors mea-
sured by the BFQ correspond approximately to those measured by the
NEO Five Factor Inventory by Costa and McCrae (1992), except for open-
ness, which emphasizes somewhat different dimensions.
Participants also reported age and gender.
Results
Students were nested within homerooms, constituting a hierarchically
nested data structure. Nested data structures violate the assumption of inde-
pendent observations underlying ordinary least squares analyses. Therefore
we analyzed the data using multilevel random coefficient models, also called
multilevel models (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992), which allow simultaneous esti-
mation of individual- and classroom-level effects. For this purpose, we used
the program HLM (Version 6; Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, Congdon, & du
Toit, 2004). Intraclass correlations indicated that variance between homer-
ooms represented a significant percentage of the total variance in teacher rat-
ings (ICCs ranged from .13 for disruptive behavior and hostility to .53 for peer
acceptance, ps \ .01). Note that classroom-level effects took into account dif-
ferences across both homerooms and schools (school-level effects could not
be estimated separately in multilevel models using these data). Individual dif-
ferences were modeled at Level 1, and no predictors were entered at Level 2
(the classroom level). Level-1 predictors were centered around their group
mean to disentangle student- and classroom-level effects. Using group mean
centering, the fact that the original response scales used by teachers in
Schools A and B were different should have little impact on the statistical tests
of fixed effects of interest in this study. To facilitate the interpretation of re-
sults, all predictors (except age and gender) were standardized prior to mul-
tilevel analyses. We report fixed effects coefficients and the corresponding
tests of statistical significance based on the t ratio.
Preliminary moderation analyses revealed significant gender differences in
relationships between AME and teacher ratings. Therefore we estimated sepa-
rate intercepts and slopes for boys and girls using the following Level-1 model:
yij = b0j 3 F 1 b1j 3 M 1 b2j 3 (F 3 AME) 1 b3j 3 (M 3 AME) 1 rij.
721
Lopes et al.
Table 1
Study 1 (Spanish High School Students): Relationships Between the Ability to
Manage Emotions and Teacher Ratings—Multilevel Analyses of Fixed Effects
Girls Boys
g20 t g30 t
No control variables
Disruptive behavior and hostility –.27** 2.85 –.39** 3.81
Adaptation to school .43** 4.23 .22* 2.04
Academic achievement .43** 4.25 .21* 1.98
Peer acceptance .28** 2.61 .02 0.17
Controlling age, IQ, and the Big Five Personality Traits
Disruptive behavior and hostility –.25* 2.17 –.34** 3.26
Adaptation to school .34** 2.73 .13 1.12
Academic achievement .34** 2.93 .14 1.26
Peer acceptance .33** 2.66 –.02 0.13
Note. N = 203 students at Level 1 and seven classrooms at Level 2 for the main analyses; for
analyses controlling age, IQ, and Big Five, N = 162 due to missing data on IQ and Big Five.
All variables except gender and age were standardized prior to multilevel analyses.
*p \ .05. **p \ .01.
M and F are dummy variables coding gender (male and female, respec-
tively), and AME is the predictor of interest (centered around the group
mean). Thus, b0j represents the intercept for girls, b1j the intercept for
boys, b2j the slope for girls, and b3j the slope for boys. At Level 2, intercepts
were modeled as varying randomly across homerooms, but slopes were
fixed (because the small number of homerooms precluded reliable estima-
tion of random slopes). Note that this model, used to estimate separate pa-
rameters for boys and girls, is functionally equivalent to a model that
includes, at Level 1, terms for an overall intercept, gender, AME, and the
interaction of gender and AME (Nezlek, 2011).
In Table 1 we report the (nonstandardized) gamma coefficients repre-
senting the average slopes or relationships between AME and teacher rat-
ings, for boys and girls. These analyses indicated that AME was negatively
related to teacher ratings of disruptive behavior and hostility for both boys
and girls, supporting our first hypothesis. Given that trait-level measures
were standardized, the coefficients in the table represent the expected
change in standardized scores of teacher ratings for 1 SD increase in AME.
For example, an increase of one standard deviation in AME was associated
with a reduction of .39 standard deviations in teacher ratings of disruptive
behavior and hostility for boys, a moderate to strong effect.
AME was also positively related to teacher ratings of adaptation to
school and academic achievement (for both genders) and to teacher ratings
722
of peer acceptance (for girls only). These findings generally supported our
second hypothesis.
Next we controlled for age, IQ, and the Big Five by adding these varia-
bles to the model described previously. In these analyses (also reported in
Table 1), relationships between AME and teacher ratings of disruptive
behavior remained statistically significant and essentially unchanged for
both genders. Relationships between AME and other teacher ratings re-
mained significant for girls but were somewhat reduced and no longer sig-
nificant for boys. Thus, our third hypothesis was partially supported.
Supplementary Analyses
Some readers may want to know how control variables were related to
teacher-rated criteria. We examined these relationships using separate multi-
level models including only one predictor and report here only those relation-
ships that were statistically significant (p \ .05). IQ was positively related to
academic achievement (g = .48) and peer acceptance (g = .40). Openness
was negatively related to peer acceptance (g = –.16) and disruptive behavior
(g = –.20) and positively related to adaptation to school (g = .16); agreeable-
ness was negatively related to disruptive behavior (g = –.19) and positively
related to adaptation to school (g = .18); emotional stability, extraversion/
energy, and conscientiousness were unrelated to criteria. Gender (coded
boys = –1, girls = 1) was related to disruptive behavior (g = –.24), adaptation
to school (g = .21), and academic achievement (g = .17), indicating that teach-
ers perceived girls to be generally better adjusted than boys. Finally, age was
associated with all four criteria, with older students rated higher on disruptive
behavior (g = .43) and lower on adaptation to school (g = –.43), academic
achievement (g = –.46), and peer acceptance (g = –.19) than younger students.
This could be due to the fact that students who were held back one or more
years (because they experienced difficulties in school and failed to meet appro-
priate standards for promotion) were likely to be older than their peers.
Discussion
The first study indicated that students scoring higher on a situational
judgment test of AME received lower teacher ratings of disruptive behavior
and hostility and higher ratings of adaptation to school and academic
achievement. Among girls, AME was also associated with higher ratings of
peer acceptance. The gender differences observed in these relationships
could be due to different patterns of emotion regulation, socialization, and
learning for boys and girls; or differences in teacher perceptions of both gen-
ders; or random sampling fluctuations. One limitation of this study is that
teacher ratings may reflect in part the extent to which teachers like students.
The next study addressed this concern by relying on official school records
of disruptive behavior and academic achievement.
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Lopes et al.
Study 2
In the second study, we examined relationships between the ability to
manage emotions and official records of two indicators of adaptation to
school (disruptive behavior and academic achievement) in a sample of early
teenage Spanish high school students, an age group that exhibits a high inci-
dence of disruptive behavior in Spain (Álvarez et al., 2006). We examined the
following hypotheses: (a) AME is negatively related to disruptive behavior in
high school, (b) AME is positively related to academic achievement, and (c)
these relationships remain significant after controlling for gender, age, IQ,
and the Big Five personality traits. Two meta-analyses of emotional intelli-
gence research suggest that ability and self-report measures tap into different
aspects of competence (Joseph & Newman, 2010; O’Boyle, Humphrey,
Pollack, Hawver, & Story, 2010). Therefore in this study we also controlled
for self-perceived intrapersonal emotion regulation ability when examining
the incremental validity of AME.
Method
Data were collected from 151 Spanish high school students, enrolled in
the second and third years of the Spanish secondary school system, in two
schools in the province of Cádiz in southern Spain. These schools were not
the same as those participating in Study 1. As in the previous study, nearly
all students in these schools were Caucasian, and according to school officials,
most came from middle-class families. Data collection was authorized by the
school principals and took place during c1ass time. School grades, records of
disruptive behavior, and IQ scores were obtained from official school records.
Achievement and disruptive behavior varied significantly across homeroom
groupings. Although we sought to collect data from eight homerooms, it
was not possible to collect trustworthy data from one of these due to students’
noncompliant behavior. Thus, the students who participated in the present
study were grouped in seven different c1assrooms.
One participant who reported being 12 years old and another who ob-
tained an extremely low score on the test of AME were excluded from all anal-
yses. The remaining 149 participants were aged 13 to 15 (M = 13.66, SD = .75);
53% were girls; 60 were in the second year and 89 in the third year of high
school; 121 students belonged to six homerooms from one school and 28 be-
longed to one (third-year) homeroom from the other school.
Measures
The ability to manage emotions was measured using the emotion regu-
lation section of the Spanish version of the MSCEIT, scored based on
724
consensus norms, as in the previous study (M = 80.93, SD = 12.30; ICC = .01;
split-half reliability corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula = .85).
Disruptive behavior was measured based on official school records, as
the sum of disciplinary problems recorded during the course of the academic
year under five categories: (a) disturbing the class (e.g., interrupting class or
making inappropriate noises or jokes), (b) disturbing other students (e.g.,
undermining others’ attention to class), (c) disrespecting peers or teachers
(e.g., insulting or threatening others), (d) refusing to follow teachers’ instruc-
tions or to pay attention in class, and (e) damaging school equipment or fur-
niture. For 60.4% of students there was no official record of disruptive
behavior, but 18.1% of students had five or more such records (M = 4.01,
SD = 10.54; range = 0 to 75; ICC = .11). Note that this measure corresponds
to the total count of disciplinary problems recorded in the official document
books and therefore does not rely on retrospective and subjective teacher
evaluations. Academic achievement was also measured through official
school transcripts, as the average grade for five core subjects: mathematics,
Spanish, natural sciences, social sciences, and English. The lowest possible
grade was 1 (fail) and the highest 5, the passing grade being 2 (M = 2.13,
SD = 1.13; ICC = .23; a = .93; 51% of students passed all core subjects).
Control variables. IQ percentile scores were obtained from official
school records, based on a revised version of the IQ test that was used in
Study 1 (IGF-5r; Yuste, 2002; M = 53.72, SD = 17.87; ICC = .11). The test
was administered by the school district (Forms A and B, totaling 144 items).
Yuste (2002) reported a test reliability of .95 for the normative sample.4 The
Big Five personality traits were measured with the BFQ, as in Study 1 (for
emotional stability, M = 2.88, SD = .48; a = .78; ICC = .00; for extraver-
sion/energy, M = 3.18, SD = .43; a = .71; ICC = .08; for openness, M =
3.28, SD = .43; a = .72;ICC = .11; for agreeableness, M = 3.35, SD = .45; a
= .74; ICC = .24; and for conscientiousness, M = 3.40, SD = .43; a = .75;
ICC = .01). Perceived emotional regulation ability was measured with an
eight-item version of the mood repair subscale of the Trait Meta Mood
Scale (TMMS; Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995; Spanish ver-
sion by Fernández-Berrocal, Extremera, & Ramos, 2004), using a 1 to 5
response scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree; M = 3.82, SD =
.62; a = .71; ICC = .00). Sample item: ‘‘When I become upset, I remind myself
of all the pleasures in life.’’ Participants also reported age and gender.
Results
The data were analyzed using multilevel models, as in Study 1. Intraclass
correlations indicated that variance between homerooms represented a sig-
nificant percentage of the total variance in the two outcomes of interest. As
expected for count data, the distribution of disruptive behavior was strongly
positively skewed and semi-continuous, with a high frequency at zero and
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Lopes et al.
a long tail of students with many disciplinary problems. Academic achieve-
ment was also positively skewed, with many students receiving the lowest
possible mark. These variables could not be adequately modeled as nor-
mally distributed (even if transformed). Instead, they were dichotomized
and then analyzed using multilevel logistic regression: hierarchical general-
ized linear models with a Bernouilli sampling distribution and a logarithmic
link function (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). For disruptive behavior, we cre-
ated a dichotomous variable to divide students into two groups: those
who had no record of disruptive behavior versus those who had one or
more records. For academic achievement, we used the pass grade of 2 (on
a grading scale from 1 to 5) as the cut-off point to divide the sample into
low versus acceptable to high achievement groups.
As in the previous study, individual differences were modeled at Level 1,
and no predictors were entered at Level 2 (the classroom level). Level-1 pre-
dictors (except gender) were centered around their group mean to disentan-
gle student- and classroom-level effects. Intercepts were modeled as varying
randomly across homerooms, but slopes were fixed. All independent varia-
bles except age and gender were standardized prior to multilevel analyses to
facilitate the interpretation of results. Preliminary analyses revealed no sub-
stantial gender difference in relationships between AME and outcomes, and
for the sake of parsimony we report results for boys and girls combined
(fixed effects based on population-average models), based on the following
Level-1 model:
yij = b0j 1 b1j 3 AME 1 rij.
These multilevel analyses indicated that AME was negatively and signif-
icantly related to disruptive behavior, supporting the first hypothesis (slope g
= –.64, t = 3.30, p \ .01). This was a substantial effect. Holding other factors
constant, the probability of disruptive behavior was 24% for a child scoring 1
SD above the mean on AME but 52% for a child scoring 1 SD below the mean
on AME—a difference of 28 percentage points.
The relationship between AME and academic achievement was positive,
as expected, but did not reach statistical significance (g = .27, t = 1.57, p =
.12). Therefore the second hypothesis was not supported.
The relationship between AME and disruptive behavior remained signif-
icant after controlling for age, gender, IQ, and the Big Five personality traits
(g = –.51, t = 2.48, p = .01). In this analysis, an increase of 1 SD in the AME
amounted to a decrease of 11% in the probability of disruptive behavior. This
supported the third hypothesis. Furthermore, the relationship between AME
and disruptive behavior remained significant even when we included self-
perceived intrapersonal emotion regulation ability as an additional control
variable in the model.5
726
As in Study 1, we examined relationships between control variables and
criteria using separate multilevel models including only one predictor. In
these analyses, only age (g = .97) and self-perceived intrapersonal emotion
regulation ability (g = –.36) were significantly related to disruptive behavior
(ps \ .05). The strong association with age can be explained by the fact that
students who were held back one or more years (because they failed to meet
standards for promotion) also tended to engage in disruptive behavior.
Discussion
As hypothesized, AME was negatively related to official records of dis-
ruptive behavior in school, controlling age, gender, IQ, the Big Five person-
ality traits, and self-perceived emotion regulation ability. These findings are
consistent with and extend those of the first study, which were based on
teacher perceptions of disruptive behavior and adaptation to school. They
suggest that AME contributes to our understanding of an important dimen-
sion of adaptation to school over and above existing constructs.
AME was unrelated to official records of academic achievement. It is
possible that the relationship between AME and academic achievement is
weak because this outcome is influenced by many different factors, such
as IQ, motivation, conscientiousness, social adaptation to school, and the
influence of parents and peers.
One limitation of the first two studies is that the test of AME was admin-
istered to students younger than the age group for which this test was de-
signed (late adolescents and adults). Thus, mean scores on this test were
substantially below the mean of 100 for the normative sample. We used
this test because it was the only validated situational judgment test of AME
available at the time (as far as we were aware). It is possible that verbal com-
prehension might influence scores on this test. However, one researcher was
present during the administration of the test to ensure that students under-
stood test questions. Moreover, this concern is attenuated by the fact that
the relationship between AME and disruptive behavior remained significant
controlling for IQ scores that also tap verbal comprehension. Nonetheless,
we addressed this concern in the following study by recruiting a sample
of college students.
Study 3
Does the relationship between the ability to manage emotions and adap-
tation to school observed in the previous studies generalize to late rather
than early adolescents, in a college rather than a high school environment,
and in a different country? The third study sought to extend the previous
findings in a sample of American college students, so as to address concerns
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Lopes et al.
about external validity. As mentioned previously, one concern about a situa-
tional judgment test of managing emotions such as the MSCEIT is that test
scores may reflect reading comprehension and the tendency to provide
socially desirable responses (because these scores are based on consensus
or expert norms). Therefore in this study we controlled specifically for verbal
ability and socially desirable responding. We focused on teachers’ percep-
tions of students’ social skills because disruptive behavior is much less of
a problem in college than in high school classrooms.
Thus, we examined the following four hypotheses: AME is positively
related to (a) teacher ratings of students’ social and emotional competence,
(b) teacher ratings of the quality of student-teacher interaction, and (c) offi-
cial records of academic achievement; and (d) these relationships between
AME and criteria remain significant after controlling for age, gender, the
Big Five personality traits, verbal ability (as an indicator of cognitive ability),
socially desirable responding, and self-perceived emotion regulation ability.
Method
Data for this study were obtained from a broader research project that
included other measures (and additional respondents) for different research
purposes. Data were collected from undergraduate student volunteers at
a university in New England, in two waves of data collection spanning
two academic years, using partially overlapping sets of questionnaires.
The present study focused on all of the 91 students from the department
of education at this university who completed a test of AME and were rated
by a teacher on measures of interaction quality and social and emotional
skills.6 Wave 1 participants were first-year students, whereas Wave 2 partic-
ipants were in their second, third, or fourth year of university. Participants
completed a battery of questionnaires on paper during classes (in small
batches, over several classes) while nonparticipants did other work. The
test of AME was completed online. Each participant was rated by one teacher
only. Altogether, there were nine raters. The seven raters in Wave 1 were
teachers who had been randomly assigned to freshman orientation groups
and met first-year students in small groups once a week during the fall
semester. Three teachers rated participants in Wave 2. One of these raters,
who interacted with Wave 2 students in a seminar, provided most of the rat-
ings in Wave 2 and also rated one group of students in Wave 1.
Based on the information available, 90% of participants were women
and 10% men; 91% were Caucasian, 5% African American or African, and
5% reported other ethnic identities; 42% were freshmen and 58% upperclass-
men; and 99% were native English speakers. Ages ranged from 17 to 38 (M =
19.9, SD = 2.7).
728
Measures
The ability to manage emotions was assessed with the corresponding sub-
scale of the MSCEIT (V. 2.0; Mayer et al., 2002), as in the previous studies (M =
90.54, SD = 8.57; split-half reliability corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula
= .71; ICC = .00). Teacher ratings of social and emotional competence included
nine items, using a 1 to 9 Likert scale anchored at not at all (much below aver-
age) and extremely (far above average); (M = 6.18, SD = 1.50; a = .95; ICC =
.14). Sample items: ‘‘Does this person have good ‘people skills?’’’; ‘‘Is this per-
son easy to get along with?’’; ‘‘Is this person sensitive to the feelings and con-
cerns of others?’’; and ‘‘Does this person understand other people’s points of
view?’’7 The quality of student-teacher interaction was measured using teacher
ratings on a single-item scale (‘‘Do you have a good relationship with this per-
son?’’), with an identical 1 to 9 response format (M = 6.64, SD = 1.58; ICC = .40).
Academic achievement was measured using college grade point average
(GPA), obtained from university records (with participants’ prior consent)
more than 3 years after the first wave of data collection, when 78% of partic-
ipants had already graduated (M = 3.21, SD = .64; ICC = .20).
Control variables. We measured the Big Five personality traits with the
BFI-44 (John & Srivastava, 1999), a 44-item, self-report measure, using a 1
to 5 response scale anchored at 1 (disagree strongly) and 5 (agree strongly):
emotional stability (M = 2.29, SD = 0.73; a = .80; ICC = .00); extraversion
(M = 3.24, SD = 0.63; a = .77; ICC = .00); openness (M = 3.34, SD = 0.58; a
= .78; ICC = .00); agreeableness (M = 3.57, SD = 0.56; a = .75; ICC = .07);
and conscientiousness (M = 3.33, SD = 0.54; a = .73; ICC = .05). Verbal ability
was measured with the Mill Hill vocabulary scale for adults, a 66-item, multi-
ple-choice test that requires respondents to identify synonyms (Raven, Court,
& Raven, 1994; M = 29.33, SD = 5.89; split-half reliability corrected by the
Spearman-Brown formula = .85; ICC = .00). In the instructions for this test,
we reminded participants that their answers were confidential and asked
them not to consult a dictionary or ask others for assistance so as not to distort
the results. We also included a 20-item version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social
Desirability Scale, with a true-false response format—for example, ‘‘I’m always
willing to admit it when I make a mistake’’ (Strahan & Gerbasi, 1972; M = .46,
SD = .19; a = .79; ICC = .00; note that we calculated the mean rather than the
sum of 0 to 1 items). Self-perceived intrapersonal emotion regulation ability
was measured using the Mood Repair subscale of the Trait Meta Mood
Scale (Salovey et al., 1995), as in Study 2. Due to practical constraints,
a four-item version of this scale was used here, with a 1 to 7 response format
(M = 4.88, SD = .94; a = .61; ICC = .00).
Results
Exploratory analyses identified five outliers on GPA and age.8 These
extreme values were shrunk toward the mean and replaced with values
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Lopes et al.
close to those of the nearest participant in the distribution, to minimize the
distorting effect of outliers on covariance analyses. Winsorized GPA scores
were then further transformed to attenuate skewness (by reflecting scores
and computing the inverse). All subsequent analyses were based on these
transformed variables.
Relationships between AME and criteria were analyzed using multilevel
models where students were nested within raters (and classrooms), as in the
previous studies. Variables were centered around their group means to disen-
tangle individual- and group-level effects. Note that group-level effects take
into account differences across both classrooms and raters. Individual differ-
ence variables were modeled at Level 1, and once again, there were no predic-
tor variables at Level 2. Intercepts were modeled as varying randomly across
groups, and slopes were fixed across groups. To facilitate the interpretation
of results, all variables except age and gender were standardized prior to mul-
tilevel analyses. Preliminary analyses revealed no significant gender differences
in relationships between AME and teacher ratings. Although there was a signif-
icant interaction between AME and gender in predicting GPA, we report results
for men and women combined as the small number of men in this sample pre-
cluded reliable inferences regarding gender differences.
Relationships Between AME and Teacher Ratings

AME was positively related to teacher ratings of socio-emotional compe-
tence (g = .16, t = 1.54, p = .13) and the quality of student-teacher interaction
(g = .15, t = 1.64, p = .10). These relationships were only marginally significant
and relatively weak, as indicated by the low percentage of variance at Level 1
explained by AME (1.6% for socio-emotional competence and 2.1% for stu-
dent-teacher interaction). Nonetheless, AME revealed incremental validity
over a large set of control variables, suggesting that these effects were robust.
Considering that the sample size for this study provided modest statistical
power and that there were some missing data for age, we examined the incre-
mental validity of AME in two stages. In the first set of analyses, where we
controlled for gender, the Big Five, and verbal ability, AME was significantly
related to teacher ratings of socio-emotional competence (g = .22, t = 2.06,
p \ .05) and marginally related to the quality of student-teacher interaction
(g = .20, t = 1.92, p = .06). In the second set of analyses, when we also
included age, self-perceived emotion regulation ability, and social desirability
as additional control variables, AME remained marginally related to teacher
ratings of socio-emotional competence (g = .21, t = 1.76, p \ .10) and to
the quality of student- teacher interaction (g = .20, t = 1.73, p \ .10). Note
that these last analyses included 10 control variables, and the coefficients of
interest were not reduced. These findings broadly support our hypotheses
regarding the relationships between AME and teacher ratings of socio-
emotional competence and the quality of student-teacher interactions.
730
Relationships Between AME and GPA
AME was significantly and positively related to GPA (g = .28, t = 2.89, p \
.01), explaining 8.5% of the individual-level variance in this criterion. This
relationship remained marginally significant controlling gender, the Big
Five, and verbal ability (g = .16, t = 1.67, p \ .10). It was practically
unchanged but no longer statistically significant when we included age,
self-perceived emotion regulation ability, and socially desirable responding
as additional control variables (g = .14, t = 1.30, p . .10). Further analyses
suggested that the zero-order relationship between AME and GPA might
be more positive for women than for men (as in Study 1), but this finding
should be interpreted with caution because the sample included few men.
As in previous studies, we examined relationships between control
variables and criteria using separate multilevel models including only
one predictor. In these analyses, teacher ratings of socio-emotional compe-
tence were significantly related to gender only (g = .33, indicating that
women tended to be rated higher than men). The quality of student-
teacher interaction was significantly related to age (g = –.13) and socially
desirable responding (g = .19) only. GPA was significantly related to age
(g = .17), verbal ability (g = .27), and conscientiousness (g = .25) only
(all ps \ .05).
Discussion
The findings of Study 3 are generally consistent with and extend those of
our previous studies. Teachers tended to rate university students scoring
highly on a situational judgment test of emotion regulation as more socially
and emotionally competent than students who scored lower on this test.
Teachers also tended to report better interactions with students who scored
highly on AME. These effects were weak and did not reach traditional crite-
ria of statistical significance when we examined zero-order relationships,
possibly due to limited statistical power and the restricted nature of
student-teacher interactions in the university context. Nonetheless, these ef-
fects proved statistically significant or marginally significant when we con-
trolled for a range of possible confounds, including gender, the Big Five
personality traits, and verbal ability. AME was also positively related to aca-
demic achievement, measured through official school records. This effect
also remained marginally significant controlling for gender, verbal ability,
and personality traits. The limitations of this study include possible self-
selection bias, gender imbalance, and the fact that the number of students
rated by each teacher was uneven.
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Lopes et al.
General Discussion
To summarize, three studies conducted in Spain and the United States
yielded evidence that students scoring higher on a situational judgment test
of managing emotions in self and others revealed better socio-emotional adap-
tation to school than their lower scoring counterparts. In Study 1, the ability to
manage emotions was negatively related to teacher ratings of inappropriate
behavior and hostility and positively related to teacher ratings of adaptation
to school and of peer acceptance (the latter among girls only). In Study 2,
the ability to manage emotions was negatively related to official records of inap-
propriate behavior in high school. In Study 3, the ability to manage emotions
was positively (although marginally) related to teacher ratings of the quality
of student-teacher interaction and of students’ social and emotional competence
in an American college. Most of these relationships remained significant or mar-
ginally significant controlling for demographic factors, indicators of cognitive
ability, and the Big Five personality traits. Controlling for self-perceived intraper-
sonal emotion regulation ability and (in Study 3) socially desirable responding
did not diminish these relationships substantially. The fact that the findings were
broadly consistent across different educational contexts, age groups, and crite-
rion measures, reflecting varying demands on emotion regulation, enhances our
confidence in their generalizability.
Taken together, the findings from the three studies highlight the impor-
tance of managing emotions in self and others for students’ adaptation to
high school and university. The ability to judge emotionally challenging sit-
uations and identify effective strategies for managing them was positively
related to appropriate behavior in school, the quality of teacher-student in-
teractions, and other indicators of socio-emotional adaptation to school. One
of the limitations of most prior research on emotion regulation is its reliance
on measures that could not distinguish temperamental reactivity from
knowledge and skills that can be taught and learned in school. An important
contribution of the present studies was precisely to show that emotion reg-
ulation knowledge and skills that are potentially teachable are related to key
dimensions of students’ adaptation to school. Although we cannot infer cau-
sality, our findings suggest that the ability to judge emotional situations and
to identify effective strategies for managing these makes a difference in
adaptation to school, pointing to the potential benefits of helping students
to learn about emotion regulation.
These results extend previous research linking the ability to manage
emotions and social adaptation (e.g., Lopes et al., 2004, 2005, 2011) into
the realm of school. In particular, they break new ground by linking the abil-
ity to judge emotional situations and identify effective emotion regulation
strategies, on the one hand, to inappropriate behavior in school and the
quality of student-teacher interactions, on the other. Furthermore, this ability
to manage emotions was found to explain variance in important dimensions
732
of adaptation to school over and above other important constructs. Our find-
ings are consistent with prior research suggesting that emotional intelligence
is associated with prosocial behavior and other dimensions of adaptation
(e.g., Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Mayer, Roberts, et al., 2008).
In the present studies we examined teachers’ perceptions of students’
behavior and socio-emotional competence to understand how students
behave and fare in the classroom or at school. Although teachers may
have limited information about students’ relationships with their peers, our
findings focus on the school environment, and students’ capacity to interact
reasonably with teachers and respect school rules is likely to influence their
future in the educational system. These findings should be of interest to
teachers at all levels because, from a developmental perspective, behaviors
demonstrated in high school often have a history rooted in earlier school be-
haviors (Kremenitzer, Mojsa, & Brackett, 2008).
Academic Achievement
The ability to manage emotions was significantly related to academic
achievement in Study 1 (based on teacher ratings in high school) and in
Study 3 (based on official university records), but this relationship did not
reach statistical significance in Study 2. Moreover, the ability to manage emo-
tions was not consistently related to academic achievement after controlling
for other explanatory variables. It is important to note that the situational
judgment test used in the present studies was not focused on academic sit-
uations. It is possible that a situational judgment test focused on intraper-
sonal emotion regulation in academic situations, and specifically on
situations related to studying and test taking, would be a better predictor
of academic achievement. The development of such a test would be an inter-
esting avenue for further research. Note that the situational judgment test of
managing emotions used in the present studies does not yield reliable sep-
arate scores for intrapersonal and interpersonal regulation, precluding
meaningful analyses of the unique effects of these two dimensions.
The lack of significant relationships between managing emotions scores
and academic achievement could also be explained by limited statistical
power. If emotion regulation influences academic achievement in part
through adaptation to school, the indirect effect on academic achievement
may be weak and therefore difficult to detect. Academic achievement is influ-
enced by many different factors (e.g., cognitive ability, conscientiousness,
motivation, and the influence of parents and peers), and our studies lacked
statistical power to detect weak effects. Note also that students with strong
interpersonal skills are not always focused on grades. Some other studies
based on college students have also failed to detect significant relationships
between the scores on situational judgment tests of managing emotions and
academic achievement (e.g., Barchard, 2003; R. M. O’Connor & Little, 2003).
733
Lopes et al.
Further theoretical development is warranted to link emotion regulation to
existing models of self-regulated learning. Boekaerts’ (2007) dual-process
model of self-regulation suggests that students may switch between learning
and well-being/self-protection goals depending on affective processes. We
would argue that emotion regulation plays an important role in sustaining the
motivation to pursue learning or mastery goals in the face of frustration or
self-doubt and helps to explain why people sustain or give up learning goals.
Theoretical and Measurement Issues

We measured the ability to manage emotions using a situational judg-
ment test that asks respondents to rate the effectiveness of different strategies
for managing emotions in self and others, in various situations described in
brief vignettes. This test taps into the ability to judge emotionally challenging
situations as well as knowledge of effective emotion regulation strategies. It
focuses on a strategic dimension of emotion regulation that may be particu-
larly important for antecedent-focused strategies of emotion regulation
involving situation modification and cognitive reappraisal (Gross, 1998).
Note that this test does not measure automatic processes of emotion regula-
tion or the actual capacity to regulate emotions in everyday life. Thus, we
have used the expression managing emotions for ease of presentation,
with the understanding that existing tests do not measure all the skills that
contribute to effective emotion regulation and without claiming that manag-
ing emotions represents a cohesive domain of ability.
There is ongoing debate about the cohesiveness of emotional skills con-
structs and about the psychometric properties of performance measures of
emotional skills such as the MSCEIT (see Mayer et al., 2011). In the present
studies we focused on managing emotions as one dimension of emotional
ability, recognizing that it may overlap to some extent with other skills,
including interpersonal skills. Although factor analyses of the MSCEIT
have supported the idea that managing emotions can be viewed as a single
dimension (Mayer et al., 2003), further research will be needed to examine
the factor structure of emotion regulation skills, encompassing other meas-
ures and disentangling method variance. It is important to keep in mind
the measurement challenges involved in assessing emotion regulation skills.
In particular, the situational judgment test used in the present studies meas-
ures the ability to evaluate emotional situations for which there is no abso-
lutely right or wrong answer—as often happens when situations are
complex or challenging—and this contributes to measurement error.
Another concern about the use of situational judgment tests scored ac-
cording to consensus norms is that they might measure conformity bias or
social desirability more than actual knowledge or skill. This concern is atten-
uated by the fact that the relationship between managing emotions scores
and teacher ratings remained significant or marginally significant controlling
734
for social desirability bias in Study 3. Moreover, other studies have found that
scores on the same test of managing emotions were unrelated to social desir-
ability (Lopes, Salovey, & Straus, 2003). Scores based on consensus and
expert norms correlate strongly (Mayer et al., 2003) and reveal similar pat-
terns of relationships with other variables (e.g., Brackett & Mayer, 2003;
Mayer, Salovey, et al., 2008).
Further Research and Practical Implications

Interesting avenues for future research include examining emotion regula-
tion skills in school settings through longitudinal or experimental studies, using
larger samples and more reliable measures to examine underlying mecha-
nisms, distinguishing intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation skills,
and attending to the specific emotions that students experience in school. The
research design that we used cannot determine causality. It is possible that
adaptation to school also facilitates emotion regulation and the development
of emotion regulation skills. Nonetheless, the notion that emotion regulation
contributes to school adaptation is supported by various lines of research. In
particular, some school-based interventions focused on emotional and inter-
personal skills have been shown to yield positive effects on school behavior
(e.g., Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1999; Hawkins,
Catalano, Kosterman, Abbott, & Hill, 1999; see also the meta-analysis by
Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011). Moreover, there is
evidence that individual differences in emotion regulation in children predict
later adjustment in various realms of life. In light of this evidence, our results
suggest the possibility that educating students to identify effective strategies
for managing emotionally challenging situations may contribute to their social
adaptation to school. This approach can be incorporated into existing pro-
grams of social and emotional learning. Although the effects found in the pres-
ent studies varied in magnitude, even small effects should not be dismissed
when the outcomes are important and are influenced by many different factors,
as is the case of adaptation to school (Meyer et al., 2001).
We have argued that appropriate student behavior in school and the quality
of student-teacher interaction are important for both students’ and teachers’
achievement and well-being. Student misconduct is a common source of strain
for teachers, and stress at work appears to be a greater problem in teaching than
in other professions (Guglielmi & Tatrow, 1998; Vandenberghe & Huberman,
1999). This suggests that interventions aimed at enhancing the social and emo-
tional climate in schools could target both students’ and teachers’ ability to man-
age emotions in self and others. Teachers who model emotional skills should
find it easier to foster socially competent behavior in students, cultivate a stron-
ger sense of community in the classroom, and enhance students’ academic per-
formance (Wentzel, 2002). Thus, emotionally engaged teachers who receive
training in emotional intelligence may be in a better position to help students
735
Lopes et al.
develop self-regulation (Brackett & Kremenitzer, 2011). Although teachers who
are trained in emotional regulation techniques may be able to thwart some of
the negative impact of poorly behaving students, such interventions are only
beginning to be introduced into the preparation of pre-service teacher candi-
dates or in-service teaching professional development, and deserve further
attention (e.g., Kremenitzer, 2005).
Notes
For their collaboration and invaluable help with data collection, we thank Paloma
Gil-Olarte, Natalie Segal, and Sallie Townsend, as well as the following high schools:
Colegio San José in San Fernando, Colegio Argantonio in Cádiz, and Colegio Divino
Salvador and I.E.S. La Janda in Vejer. Studies 1 and 2 were partly funded by a grant
from the Spanish government (MCyT I1D, reference SEJ2006-04941/EDUC) to Rocı́o Guil.
1
Mestre, Guil, Lopes, Salovey, and Gil-Olarte (2006) examined a broader dimension
of emotional intelligence using a subsample of the participants included in the present
study, without studying ability to manage emotions (AME) specifically. For the present
study we focused on AME and recruited a larger sample.
2
According to test publisher MHS, 5 items related to managing emotions in self are
excluded from the calculation of consensus scores, leaving 24 items to assess managing
emotions in self and others.
3
One participant scored in the first percentile on IQ, and we adjusted his score to the
nearest lowest value in the distribution to attenuate the influence of this outlier on statis-
tical analyses.
4
We could not estimate the reliability of the IQ test for the present sample because the
test was administered by the school district of Cádiz and we were provided global test
scores but not item-level data.
5
Although the multilevel analyses reported are most appropriate for these nested
data, readers who are less familiar with this type of analysis may like to know that ordinary
least squares logistic regression analyses yielded similar findings. We allowed the intercept
to vary across classrooms by including six dummy variables to code for classroom mem-
bership. In these analyses, AME was also negatively related to disruptive behavior and this
relationship remained significant controlling for age, gender, IQ, and the Big Five.
6
Beside the 91 participants included in the present study, another 26 students from
the department of education completed some self-report questionnaires. A comparison
of participants and nonparticipants using multivariate analysis of variance based on the
Big Five personality traits found no significant differences: Wilks’s Lambda = .97, F(5,
109) = 0.70, p . .10. This attenuated concerns about possible attrition bias.
7
For reasons related to the broader project on which the present study was based, the
format of two items changed from the first to the second wave of data collection but their
meaning and content were essentially unchanged. These items were presented as ques-
tions in one wave of data collection and as statements in the next.
8
Four people had grade point averages (GPAs) ranging from 0.7 to 1.16, more than 3
standard deviations below the mean; and one participant was aged 38, 12 years older than
the next oldest participant.
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American Educational Research

The Role of Knowledge and Skills for Managing Emotions in Adaptation to

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The Role of Knowledge and Skills for

Students’ ability to evaluate emotionally challenging situations and identify

PAULO N. LOPES is an assistant professor at Católica-Lisbon School of Business and

KEYWORDS: emotion regulation, social adaptation, social behavior, emo-

Situational Judgment and Managing Emotions

Linking the Ability to Manage Emotions and Adaptation to School

Overview of the Three Studies

Scores are standardized based on consensus or expert norms (M = 100,

Relationships Between AME and Teacher Ratings

Theoretical and Measurement Issues

Further Research and Practical Implications

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