British Journal of Psychology (2015), 106, 217–234 © 2014 The British Psychological Society www.wileyonlinelibrary.com The magic of collective emotional intelligence in learning groups: No guys needed for the spell! Petru L. Curs ßeu 1 *, Helen Pluut 1 , Smaranda Boros ß 2 and Nicoleta Meslec 1 1 Department of Organisation Studies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands 2 Vlerick Business School, Brussels, Belgium Using a cross-lagged design, the present study tests an integrative model of emergent collective emotions in learning groups. Our results indicate that the percentage of women in the group fosters the emergence of collective emotional intelligence, which in turn stimulates social integration within groups (increases group cohesion and reduces relationship conflict) and the associated affective similarity, with beneficial effects for group effectiveness. Groups are social systems with cognitive and emotional emergent properties. Although traditionally emotions have been conceptualized as a hallmark of individuals (Frijda, 1986; Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008), during the last decades substantial conceptual work has been devoted to understanding group emotionality as an emergent group-level property (Barsade & Gibson, 1998; Walter & Bruch, 2008). In the group emotions literature, of particular importance are the emergence of collective emotions (i.e., affective similarity) and collective emotional competencies (i.e., collective emotional intelligence [CEI]). Group cognition research shows that gender diversity is conducive for the emergence of group rationality (Curs ßeu, Jansen, & Chappin, 2013) and group cognitive complexity (Curs ßeu, Schruijer, & Boros ß, 2007), while the percentage of women in the group is positively correlated with collective intelligence (Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi, & Malone, 2010). In this context, as group scholars devoted substantial conceptual work to explore emotional intelligence as an emergent group-level competence (Ayoko, Callan, & H€ artel, 2008; Druskat & Wolff, 2001; Jordan & Troth, 2004; Koman & Wolff, 2008), it becomes important to better understand the role of gender differences in groups for the emergence of CEI. Collective emotional intelligence is defined as the ability of a group to develop a set of norms that promote awareness and regulation of member and group emotions (Druskat & Wolff, 2001). Therefore, CEI is a group-level competence that emerges from the integration of individual competencies through interpersonal interac- tions. Due to their higher social sensitivity and relational orientation, women promote the emergence of collective competencies by facilitating the coordination of individual competencies during social interactions (Curs ßeu et al., 2013; Woolley et al., 2010). Thus, the first aim of our study is to test the relation between the percentage of women group members and the emergent CEI in a group. *Correspondence should be addressed to Petru L. Curs ßeu, Department of Organisation Studies, Tilburg University, Room 2.105, Warandelaan 2, PO box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands (email: p.l.curseu@uvt.nl). DOI:10.1111/bjop.12075 217