Emotional competence and sociopragmatic competence: an integrative analysis and a heuristic model

In this article we present a multidisciplinary approach to the study of emotion, drawing from relevant theories coming from the fields of Psychology, Psychology of Behavioral Economics and Linguistic Sociopragmatics. A scoping review of the existing empirical literature on how a sociopragmatic approach to emotion intertwines with the Psychology of Emotion and Differential Psychology was carried out, the results of which showed that there is a great scarcity of studies integrating these approaches. Thus, considering the very few empirical studies on the topic, and partially drawing on Buck’s biosocial approach to emotions, we present an integration of Scherer’s Component Theory of Emotion, Gross’s Process Model of Emotion Regulation, Kahneman’s Dual-Process Thinking System Theory for economics and life decisions, Mayer & Salovey’s Ability model of Emotional Intelligence, and Petrides’s Trait model of Emotional Intelligence, together with the sociopragmatic approach to emotion (Alba-Juez and Haugh, 2025). In this way we present a transdisciplinary perspective to the study of discourse and emotional communication, to subsequently propose a heuristic model that integrates the main ideas of all these contributions, attending to touchstone sociopragmatic concepts such as evaluation/appraisal, (social) relationships and morality, all of which are considered relevant in some way or another within the theories explored. • Most notable theories on emotions and EC suggest a connection with sociopragmatics. • There is a lack of empirical studies combining emotional intelligence/competence and pragmatics. • Our heuristic model shows the synergy between EC and sociopragmatic competence.