Abstract
Emotional intelligence involves a person’s ability to attend to and understand their own and others’ emotions, and regulate their own emotions and behaviors accordingly (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Motivation to regulate one’s emotions is affected by stage of life and perspective about time left to live (Carstensen, 1992). Building upon this research, the current study aimed to (1) identify emotional intelligence-based profile groups, and (2) compare those groups on mental and physical health outcomes. Participants included 340 older adults with confirmed knee osteoarthritis. A latent profile analysis was conducted to create emotional intelligence profiles based on the three Trait Meta Mood Scale subscales: mood clarity, attention to emotions, and emotion regulation. To determine the optimal number of profiles, classes were added iteratively and analyzed statistically using model fit indices and substantively using conditional response means and latent class percentages. A three-profile solution was the best fit. The profiles included 234 (69.02%) participants, 78 (23.01%) participants, and 27 (7.97%) participants, respectively. The first two profiles had the highest means in emotion regulation followed by clarity then attention; the third group had the highest mean in attention followed by emotion regulation and clarity. Controlling income, education and number of health conditions, significant group differences were found in pain catastrophizing, depression, life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, pain and fatigue. The third group with the lowest emotion regulation consistently fared worst in mental and physical health outcomes. Implications for coping with chronic pain are discussed.