Emotional–Social Intelligence Profiles and Adaptive Professional Functioning Among Teachers: A Person-Centered Analysis of School Climate Perception and Conflict Handling

Abstract

Research exploring the relationship between emotional intelligence and workplace outcomes is predominantly variable-centered and treats the dimensions of emotional–social competencies as separate from one another, thereby losing sight of the intra-individual interplay of these competencies and the potential heterogeneity of their effects. This study examines teachers’ emotional–social intelligence using a person-centered approach. Using a sample of 587 Hungarian teachers from 26 public education institutions, we conducted latent profile analysis based on Bar-On’s five composites and then used unbiased three-step procedures (BCH; categorical BCH) to examine the antecedents of profile membership, as well as perceptions of school organizational climate and dominant conflict management style. Four distinct profiles emerged, primarily differing at the global level—a uniformly low profile (12%), a medium-low profile (25%), a dominant, balanced medium-high profile (53%), and a uniformly high profile (9%). Participants with higher profiles perceived the school’s organizational climate as more supportive (η2 = 0.07) and exhibited more adaptive conflict management patterns (less avoidance, more problem-solving; χ2(12) = 37.24, p < .001). A compositional (log-ratio) reanalysis of the complete conflict-mode profiles, reported as the primary conflict analysis, showed that the relative weight of problem-solving rises across profiles and plateaus between the modal and the highest profile, that avoidance declines with profile elevation, and that an apparent surplus of accommodating in the highest profile was an artifact of dominant-style coding rather than an indication of a broader repertoire. At the same time, profile membership was essentially independent of job position, career stage, and gender, and the relationships with outcomes were of modest to moderate strength. The results extend person-centered, profile-based intelligence research to the emotional–social domain and identify promising directions for research on teacher professional development.