Emotional intelligence is associated with more accurate affective forecasts. Since affective forecasts are an important piece of the decision making process, the current study examines the role that the two domains of ability emotional intelligence (emotion management & emotional understanding) have on affective forecasting accuracy. Affective forecasting accuracy was measured in three different ways (emotional valence, specific emotions experienced, and intensity of emotions experienced) in three types of events (positive events, negative events, and complex events). Results revealed that the domain of emotional understanding is significantly associated with affective forecasting accuracy related to identifying the intensity of emotions experienced and the emotional valence of the event in the positive event condition only. When affective forecasting accuracy scores were averaged across the three types of events, emotional understanding was found to be associated with affective forecasting accuracy related to identifying the emotional valence of an event. Further research is needed to examine the potential explanations for these results.
