LA METODOLOGÍA A APLICAR

Psychological flexibility is the ability to mindfully attend to the present moment and respond appropriately within the situation to achieve valued goals, despite challenging internal processes that may interfere with effective functioning (Bond et al., 2013; Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda & Lillis, 2006). For example, an employee seeking promotion may need to overcome public speaking anxieties to demonstrate work-related capabilities. The essence of psychological flexibility is a commitment to act and achieve that goal, overcoming negative internal processes such as anticipatory rumination, negative emotion or anxiety- driven physiological sensations that may otherwise foster avoidance (Bond et al., 2013; Hayes et al., 2006). Instead, internal experiences are accepted and focus is diverted to the outward affordances enabling an individual the attentional and cognitive resources to act consistently with their goals. This adaptive ability, to reconfigure mental resources and activate approach behaviours towards growth opportunities, is an individual strength that may be related to emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility have demonstrated positive correlations in research collecting concurrent data, particularly when flexibility is

operationalised using the revised Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II; e.g., Foster, Pammer, Schutte, & Brinker, 2016; Donaldson-Feilder, & Bond, 2004). A number of theories explain these findings. For example, the mindful awareness of internal experiences that underpins traditional definitions of psychological flexibility, also referred to as psychological acceptance (e.g., Bond et al., 2013), is synonymous with awareness of emotional states and physiological sensations associated with their experience. This perception and understanding

80 of emotions underlying psychological flexibility are emotional intelligence competencies. Further, the strategies individuals with high emotional intelligence employ to cope with emotional labour in the workplace involve redeployment of attention and cognitive shifting or reappraisal (Mikolajczak, 2007), which reflect features of psychological flexibility such as attentional control and the ability to shift mindsets (Kashdan and Rottenberg, 2010).

Another mechanism by which emotional intelligence could foster psychological flexibility and work engagement involves positive affect. Kashdan and Rottenberg (2010) identified positive affect as a fundamental building block for psychological flexibility. Studies have shown that individuals with high emotional intelligence are more adept at regulating positive affect than individuals with low emotional intelligence. Highly

emotionally intelligent individuals may be more capable of deriving greater levels of positive affect from a variety of situations as well as being able to maintain positive affective states in the face of negative stimuli (Schutte, Malouff, Simunek, & Hollander, 2002). The broadening effect of positive affect engendered through emotional intelligence could enhance

psychological flexibility as well as work engagement, either in combination with flexibility or independently through more general broadening effects (broaden-and-build theory; Fredrickson, 2001). Positive affect inductions have increased attentional span and thought- action repertoires (Fredrickson, 2005), indicators of enhanced psychological flexibility. Supporting this idea, the study undertaken in Chapter 4, examining psychological flexibility and emotional intelligence in a decision context, showed that positive affect mediated the effects of emotional intelligence on psychological flexibility. Therefore, enhancing emotional intelligence could provide a foundation for the development of psychological flexibility through positive affect, which may further enhance work engagement or workplace flourishing.

81 A range of findings support the proposition that psychological flexibility promotes effective workplace functioning. General measures of characteristic psychological flexibility, such as the AAQ-II, have predicted numerous work-related outcomes, including mental health, performance, job satisfaction, absenteeism and work engagement (e.g., Bond & Bunce, 2003; Bond et al., 2013). The Work-related Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (WAAQ; Bond et al., 2013), developed for increased context sensitivity, predicts work- related variables more strongly than the AAQ-II, including the three dimensions of work engagement operationalized in the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: vigour, dedication and absorption (Schaufeli, Bakker & Salanova, 2006). As noted previously, emotional

intelligence also predicts work engagement through mediating variables, such as satisfaction with workplace social support and perception of power in the workplace (Schutte & Loi, 2014). Given these findings, it is possible that psychological flexibility represents another mediator between emotional intelligence and work engagement, especially considering the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility supported in the literature. It is therefore proposed that emotional intelligence, as a growth platform for positive workplace characteristics, may promote the development of psychological flexibility and thereby contribute to flourishing individuals and organisations.

The positive psychology framework, which focuses on the individual in context, provides a strong theoretical approach for examining the relationships between context- dependent variables like emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility. Given work engagement is an indicator of workplace flourishing that has demonstrated associations with both psychological flexibility and emotional intelligence, it offers a valuable criterion measure for evaluating the hypothesised causation relationship; that emotional intelligence builds psychological flexibility and thereby fosters positive work outcomes, as indicated by increased work engagement. Administering an experimental intervention to test the causation

82 relationships will address the methodological reliance on concurrent data collection evident in the previous research assessing the effects of emotional intelligence on workplace

flourishing. Schutte and Loi (2011) suggested a number of empirically-tested emotional intelligence interventions as future research directions, including the application of an expressive writing paradigm within the workplace.