We often assume that how we respond to a rude comment says something stable about us: our personality, our culture, even the language we are speaking. If someone reacts calmly, we presume they are a patient person. If they snap back, we might assume they are short-tempered.

But our research suggests something more immediate is at work. In tense moments, several factors interact, and how we feel “right now” often shapes our reply as much as – and sometimes more than – who we are in general.

In our 2025 study, published in the Journal of Pragmatics, we explored how bilingual people respond to workplace impoliteness. Our findings challenge a common assumption: that stable traits such as emotional intelligence can reliably predict how people will manage difficult interactions.

Instead, we found that momentary mood has a measurable effect on how people respond to rudeness, while stable traits have more influence over the decision to engage. Emotional intelligence, as a general trait, did not predict these responses in the way we might expect.

We worked with 104 Spanish-English bilinguals. Participants first completed a questionnaire measuring emotional intelligence. They were then placed in either a positive or negative mood, induced through videos designed to elicit emotional responses. Finally, they responded to ten workplace scenarios involving impoliteness, in both Spanish (their first language) and English (their second language).

The scenarios included direct criticism, sarcastic remarks, and more subtle forms of impoliteness, such as not thanking someone for a gift or failing to give feedback after a presentation.

This design allowed us to ask three key questions:

Does emotional intelligence influence how we respond to rudeness?

Does emotional intelligence influence how we respond to rudeness?

Does our current mood influence our linguistic choices?

Does our current mood influence our linguistic choices?

Do we react differently in our first and second languages?

Do we react differently in our........

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