Emotional Intelligence and Prefrontal Cortex: a Comparative Study Based on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a set of competencies that enable us to engage in sophisticated information processing of emotions and emotion-relevant stimuli and to use this information as a guide for thinking and behavior. Prefrontal cortexes (PFC) of brain and related regions have an important role in emotion and emotional regulation. Accordingly, we conducted a study to investigate the relation between EI and performance in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) (a neuropsychological test, used to evaluate some of the frontal lobe functions).

In this quasi-experimental study, 250 volunteers from BS and BA students of universities of Tehran were recruited using available sampling method. Bar-on EI, general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) and Raven's Progressive Matrices were completed by the participants. They were categorized into two groups; each group contained 40 students with high and low EI, whose performance in WCST were evaluated thereafter individually. Data was analyzed by MANOVA.

Our results showed that the high EI group had a better performance in WCST than the low EI group.

It can be concluded that people with better EI may have better PFC functions.