The relationship between Trait Emotional Intelligence and emotion recognition in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic is severely impacting worldwide. A line of research warned that facial occlusion may impair facial emotion recognition, whilst prior research highlighted the role of Trait Emotional Intelligence in the recognition of non-verbal social stimuli. The sample consisted of 102 emerging adults, aged 18-24 (M = 20.76; SD = 2.10; 84% females, 16% males) and were asked to recognize four different emotions (happiness, fear, anger, and sadness) in fully visible faces and in faces wearing a mask and to complete a questionnaire assessing Trait Emotional Intelligence. Results highlighted that individuals displayed lower accuracy in detecting happiness and fear in covered faces, while also being more inaccurate in reporting correct answers. The results show that subjects provide more correct answers when the photos show people without a mask than when they are wearing it. In addition, participants give more wrong answers when there are subjects wearing masks in the photos than when they are not wearing it. In addition, participants provide more correct answers regarding happiness and sadness when in the photos the subjects are not wearing the mask, compared to when they are wearing it. Implications are discussed.