Emotional intelligence and attachment in adulthood: A meta-analysis*

Attachment styles form during childhood emotional experiences. These experiences may be shaped by emotionrelated traits such as how children interpret and regulate their own and others' emotions. These emotion-related traits appear in many emotional intelligence (EI) models, such that EI may relate to attachment styles. We conduct a meta-analysis to estimate the association between EI and attachment styles (26 studies, N = 6914). We include only non-clinical adult samples and validated psychometric assessments. We examine EI type as a moderator, comparing ability EI versus EI rating-scales using subgroups analysis and meta-regression. We find that lower anxious attachment is significantly associated with EI rating-scales (r = -0.25, k = 26) and ability EI (r = -0.16, k = 45), lower avoidant attachment is significantly associated with EI rating-scales (r = -0.36, k = 21) and ability EI (r = -0.21, k = 40), but secure attachment is significantly associated with EI rating-scales only (r = 0.31, k = 30). EI type significantly moderated the EI/avoidant attachment association only (beta = -0.14, p = .01). We discuss possible mechanisms by which EI could influence early development of attachment styles (and vice-versa) while acknowledging that the causal direction underlying EI/attachment associations is unclear.