Short Communication Ability emotional intelligence and mental health: Social support as a mediator Moshe Zeidner a, ⁎, Gerald Matthews b a University of Haifa, Israel b University of Central Florida, United States abstract article info Article history: Received 1 March 2016 Received in revised form 2 May 2016 Accepted 4 May 2016 Available online xxxx The mediating role of perceived social support availability is examined in the observed association between abil- ity emotional intelligence (EI) and psychological distress. 185 Israeli undergraduate students completed mea- sures of ability EI, social support, and distress. As predicted, path analyses demonstrated that social support was a significant mediator of the effects of EI on distress. These data suggest that the adaptive benefits of high EI should be understood from a social perspective. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Emotional intelligence Ability Social support Wellbeing Distress Mediation model 1. Introduction Broadly defined, EI represents a set of hierarchically organized core competencies for identifying, processing, and regulating emotions– both in self and others (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002). EI predicts a wide array of affective outcomes (Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2012), but the mediating factors in the EI-adaptive outcome nexus need clarification. Recent studies (Kong, Zhao, & You, 2012a, 2012b; Zeidner, Matthews, & Olenick-Shemesh, 2015) suggest that the benefits of being emotionally intelligent partly reside in greater perceived social support. This paper examines the mediating role of perceived social support in the association between ability-based EI and adaptive outcomes. EI is robustly associated with lower stress and higher well-being (Zeidner et al., 2012). Research has used scales for both ability EI, con- ceptualized as a form of intelligence, and trait EI, which is assigned to the personality sphere (Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2009). Two meta-analyses (Martins, Ramalho, & Morin, 2010; Sánchez-Álvarez, Extremera, & Fernández-Berrocal, 2015) estimated adaptive outcomes to correlate at 0.17–0.22 with ability EI and at 0.32–0.36 with trait EI. Both forms of EI may contribute to mental health, but ability and trait EI scales do not correlate strongly, and their impacts on adaptive out- comes may reflect different mechanisms (Zeidner et al., 2009). Our focus here is on ability EI, as measured by the MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2012; Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2003). Zeidner et al. (2015) discriminate two broad perspectives on the adaptive benefits of high EI. The individual perspective emphasizes the person's ability to process emotive events accurately and constructively, and to implement effective coping. It is supported by evidence linking EI to stress processes such as appraisal, coping and emotion regulation (e.g., Matthews et al., 2006). The social perspective emphasizes the ben- efits of supportive relationships with others, consistent with evidence that the MSCEIT is associated with a variety of measures of social com- petence and interpersonal functioning (Rivers, Brackett, Salovey, & Mayer, 2007; Zeidner, Kloda, & Matthews, 2013). The two perspectives are not exclusive – effective emotion-regulation may smooth social in- teraction, for example – but they do suggest different research strategies for identifying mediators of EI effects on wellbeing. Social support is a promising candidate for a mediator variable. It is defined as the extent of the person's social integration, including various forms of functional support, including emotional and instrumental sup- port (Taylor, 2011). Both actual and perceived supports enhance wellbeing beyond stress-buffering effects (Taylor, 2011). Social support mediates associations between trait EI and life satisfaction, together with self-esteem (Kong et al., 2012a, 2012b), but it is unknown whether support plays a similar role for ability EI. Several studies link ability EI to higher levels of social support. The MSCEIT predicts the self-perceived quality of interpersonal relation- ships (Rivers et al., 2007), as well as external measures of social interac- tion quality provided by rating (Lopes et al., 2004) and observational Personality and Individual Differences 99 (2016) 196–199 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Laboratory for Research on Emotions and Personality, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel 31905, Israel. E-mail address: Zeidner@edu.haifa.ac.il (M. Zeidner). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.05.008 0191-8869/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid