Personal Values, Moral Development, and Emotional Intelligence in the Regulation of Choice in Situations that Involve Interpersonal Interactions

Abstract

The paper summarizes the results of an empirical study of personality regulation of choice and decision-making in a sample of undergraduate students (total n=896). The study examined the interrelationships among different components of emotional intelligence, indices of the stages of moral development and acceptance/rejection of uncertainty, as well as readiness for risk, rationality and Machiavellianism. We used a set of verbal vignettes to obtain indices of decision making. The choice alternatives for the vignettes were designed to represent the outcomes where uncertainty was resolved vs. unresolved. In half of the vignettes, the choice alternatives were also focused on manipulating vs. not manipulating others, and in the other half on using vs. not using the emotional information provided by the vignette. We found that indices of moral development differentiated between different choices alternatives not only in situations where decision-making involved manipulating other people but also in situations that involved using emotional information.  Surprisingly, indices of the stages of moral development were stronger predictors of choice in situations involving other people than emotional intelligence. We also found that high (“Post-conventional”) levels of moral development are sometimes associated with the preference for the Machiavellian choice alternatives, suggesting that the role of values in decision can be conceptualized as dynamic.  «Tolerance» and «Intolerance for uncertainty» were also linked to choice variables, suggesting the necessity for including these traits in the comprehensive evaluation of the personality regulation of choice.