Journal club

Association between frontal EEG asymmetries and emotional

intelligence among adults
Outline

• Title and paper’s information

• Background and research question
• Methodology
• Result
• Critique
Title and paper’s information

• Title: Association between frontal EEG asymmetries and emotional

intelligence among adults
• Authors: Moïra Mikolajczak, Kerrin Bodarwé, Olivier Laloyaux, Michel
Hansenne, Delphine Nelis
• Published: 2010, from Personality and Individual Differences
Background and research questions

• Background: Frontal asymmetries were one of the determinants of

emotion dispositions and behaviors

• Questions: Determined the association between Emotional

Intelligence (EI) and the level of left-frontal asymmetry in a small
sample of adults pre-screened on the level of trait EI
Methodology

• Participants: 31 (25 females and 6 males) preselected on the level of

trait EI

• Trait EI: complete the French version of the Trait Emotional

Intelligence Questionnaire (153 items - 7-point scale). The reliability
of the global score is 0.93
Methodology

• EEG assymetries:
• The EEG was recorded using the program EEmagine and 10 frontal electrodes
(Fp1, Fp2, F7, F8, F3, F4, FC5, FC6, FC1 and FC2).
• EEG was recorded during eight 1-min trials, four eyes open and four eyes
closed (in counter-balanced order).
• EEG was amplified (60 Hz notch filter), bandpass filtered (.1–100 Hz) and
digitized at 500 Hz.
• Mean frontal asymmetry: subtracting the natural logarithm of the right site
from the left site for each of the five electrodes, then taking the average value
of these result.
Result

• Higher trait EI scores were

associated with greater relative
left frontal activation
• This association was mainly
attributable to the factors
sociability (r = 0.43, p < .01) and
self-control (r = 0.38, p < .05)
Result
Result
Result

• When the weight of the other TEIQue factors are controlled, the most
significant predictors were sociability (p < .05), well-being (p < .07) and self-
control (p < .10).

• The direction of the correlation reverses for the factor Well-being when the
other predictors are partially out.
Critique

• The present results provide an insight into the neurobiological

correlates of the psychometric construct and explain some results.

• Show that frontal asymmetries had the largest impact on sociability