Thinking style and emotional intelligence: An empirical investigation

The purpose of this paper was to empirically examine the conceptual links between thinking styles and emotional intelligence. The paper reviews pertinent literature about thinking styles and emotional intelligence. Findings from the literature review suggest that thinking styles can be conceptualized as right-brained, left-brained, or whole-brained and can be measured with the subscales of the MBTI. Findings also revealed that although emotional intelligence has been measured a number of ways in the extant literature; the key processes of management and awareness are most closely related to thinking styles. Based on the review of literature, a number of specific hypotheses about the pattern of relationships between thinking styles and emotional intelligence concepts were tested. Analytical findings revealed that both left and right-brained thinking styles are related to emotional intelligence variables in conceptually expected directions.