Emotional Intelligence and Gaming Disorder Symptomatology: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The increasing prevalence of the Internet gaming disorder has created an interest in identifying the factors associated with its development, including emotional intelligence, which has been negatively associated with many addictions. This work aimed to provide a narrative and quantitative synthesis of the association between emotional intelligence and Internet gaming disorder symptomatology. An online search of four electronic databases and an additional manual search identified 49 studies that met the inclusion criteria provided 54 independent samples (N = 43,289) and a total of 166 correlation coefficients. The selected studies used different definitions of emotional intelligence (i.e., emotional regulation, social-emotional competence, ability and trait). Random-effect models were used to estimate the pooled correlation coefficient between emotional intelligence and Internet gaming disorder symptomatology. The results revealed a small-to-moderate negative association between any measure of emotional intelligence and Internet gaming disorder symptomatology. However, the various characteristics involved in its study, such as methodological quality, research design, geographical location and the means of assessing emotional intelligence, could modify the association between both variables. In short, any deficits in emotional regulation or social competence could be a risk factor for developing Internet gaming disorder.