Trait emotional intelligence and happiness

Participants completed measures of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI), happiness, personality, and cognitive ability. Neuroticism was negatively related to happiness, whereas Extraversion and Openness to Experience were positively related to it. Cognitive ability was not related either to happiness or to trait EI. A 3-step hierarchical regression showed that trait EI explained over 50% of the total variance in happiness. The positive relationship between trait EI and happiness persisted in the presence of the Big Five. In contrast, the Big Five did not account for a significant amount of happiness variance when trait EI was partialled out.