Emotional competences in the professional practice of mediation

Mediation can be defined as "a negotiation between adversarial parties in the presence of a third party, who is neutral, and has the role of facilitating the search for a solution to the conflict" (Touzard, 1977, p. 87). Since the eighties, mediation has been more widely used in North America and Europe. It encompasses both the public and private sectors in various fields such as family, neighbourhood, workplace, schools, and the commercial sector (Carnevale & Pruitt, 1992; Guillaume-Hofnung, 1995).
Several authors (Herrman, 2006) have addressed the role of mediators’ behaviour and techniques in the efficacy of mediation. It is generally admitted that mediators have to be neutral and impartial, possess communication skills, be able to address emotions (Jameson, Bodtker, & Linker, 2010), develop competencies in understanding their own emotions and those of the parties involved.
We therefore tested the hypothesis that mediators have better emotional competencies than people who are not mediators. We used the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) (Mikolajczak, et al., 2007) with 3 groups of persons: 36 mediators of all varieties of practice, 31 students in mediation, and 32 persons who have no link to mediation.
Results showed that mediators had a significantly higher score on the whole questionnaire than the two other groups (F(2,96) = 3.30 p< .05). However results were more differentiated if sub-scales were considered. Our communication will present and discuss the complete results in the light of professional practices of mediators, especially those aspects linked to emotional competencies.