Research paper · RP47

EI Can Be Trained

Emotional intelligence can be practised. That sentence used to be a slogan. It is now a result. Across workplace programmes that train emotional competencies, the most recent comprehensive controlled-trial pool finds a moderate effect of SMD = 0.46 (95% CI 0.30 to 0.63) in 27 trials; the 2018–2026 adult update does not overturn that number. Self-report scores for managing and understanding emotion still move by about g = 0.43 (0.26 to 0.60) in the best-reported new online trials. Performance tests of ability move less: g = 0.14 (−0.04 to 0.33), a confidence interval that includes zero. Perceiving emotion in others is the stubborn branch. Job-performance endpoints after training remain too few to pool. This paper updates Hodzic and colleagues (2018) and Mattingly and Kraiger (2019) against Mehler and colleagues (2024), the current workplace anchor. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, CTRI, ClinicalTrials.gov and OSF from 2018 to 22 September 2026. Adults. Emotional-intelligence training. Any control. Outcomes: ability or trait EI; job performance; wellbeing. Random-effects models, Hedges g, RoB 2, GRADE. Twenty-two controlled trials entered the narrative synthesis. Eight had extractable between-group statistics on an EI score. A restricted random-effects model of the two largest placebo- or waitlist-controlled online trials confirmed a moderate self-report effect and a small, uncertain ability-test effect. Follow-up at two to twelve months often held for practised skills and faded for global trait scores. No adequate Indian corporate randomised trial with job endpoints was found. Certainty is moderate for self-report managing and understanding, low for ability tests, and very low for job performance. For Indian professionals the practical reading is simple. Treat EI as a countable weekly practice, not a personality transplant. Train managing and understanding first. Deliver in the language the team actually thinks in. Measure a real conversation, not only a questionnaire.