About

Maria-Jose Sanchez-Ruiz

Research Faculty

Dr. Maria-Jose Sanchez-Ruiz completed her BA and MA in clinical psychology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and her PhD in differential psychology was conducted mainly at the Institute of Education and the University College of London (UCL), and presented at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. She graduated with unanimous Summa Cum Laude with European mention.

Dr. Sanchez-Ruiz is a research faculty at the Lebanese American University. She has worked extensively with the trait emotional intelligence program at UCL, where she was recently appointed as an Honorary Senior Research Associate for her sabbatical year. More recently, she has been the recipient of the Research Excellent Award (LAU, 2020).

The focus of Maria-Jose’s work is in the area of personality and individual differences. She has published empirical work in reputable and indexed journals in psychology, as well as chapters on creativity, and particularly trait emotional intelligence. Her work has received more than 1600 citations in Google Scholar, and some of her papers have been widely cited (e.g., “Developments in trait emotional intelligence research” published in Emotion Review, Q1). In addition, she is an associate editor of Frontiers in psychology, a regular peer-reviewer of reputable journals in psychology, and consistently disseminates her research findings at conferences such as the ones organized by the International Study of Individual Differences (ISSID).

She continues to work with her long-term collaborators at LAU, and internationally at the UCL, Imperial College of London, (UK), University of Louvain (Belgium), and UNED (Spain). She has recently expanding her collaborations to CUNY University in the US (in a publication in Autism, Q1), and the Universidad de Almeria, with a team associated with the Meaning-Centered Counselling Institute (Canada), with whom she has co-authored a paper involving 30 countries focused on meaning-centered coping with the pandemic for wellbeing, recently published in the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology (Q1).

Research Interests and Projects

Dr. Sanchez-Ruiz has recently been interested in predicting mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and has published two papers so far on the topic in top journals (see first two publications). In addition, she has received an international grant from Grand Challenges Canada to implement an evidence-based training program on emotional intelligence for youth in public schools in Lebanon. She is also interested in the study of positive psychology and character strengths and is working on several manuscripts for publication in these areas.

Selected publications

  • Pérez-González, J. C., Filella, G., Soldevila, A., Faiad, Y., & Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J. (2022). Integrating self-regulated learning and individual differences in the prediction of university academic achievement across a three-year-long degree. Metacognition and Learning, 1-25.
  • Eisenbeck, N., Carreno, D. F., Wong, P. T., Hicks, J. A., García, A. M. R. R., Puga, J. L., … Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J.,…& García-Montes, J. M. (2021). An international study on psychological coping during COVID-19: Towards a meaning-centered coping style. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 100256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2021.100256
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., Tadros, N., Khalaf, T., Ego, V., Eisenbeck, N., Carreno, D. F., Nassar, E. (2021). Trait Emotional Intelligence and wellbeing during the pandemic: The mediating role of Meaning-Centered Coping. Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 13-15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648401.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., El Ahmad, P., Karam, M., & Saliba, M. A. (2021). Rape myth acceptance in Lebanon: The role of sexual assault experience/familiarity, sexism, honor beliefs, and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 170, 110403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110403.
  • Sanchez‐Ruiz, M. J., Mavroveli, S., & Petrides, K. V. (2020). The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire in Lebanon and the UK: A comparison of the psychometric properties in each country. International Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12711
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J. (2020). Creativity. In A. Di Fabio, D. H. Saklofske, & C. Stough (Eds.), The Wiley encyclopedia of personality and individual differences: Vol. 3. Personality processes and individual differences (pp. 89-94). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9781118970744.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M., Merhi, R., & Nicolaou, M. (2020). The role of trait emotional intelligence in appearance perception. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25(1), 932-944. doi:10.1080/02673843.2020.1781216.
  • Chiesi, F., Lau, C., Marunic, G., Sanchez-Ruiz, M., Plouffe, R. A., Topa, G., … Saklofske, D. H. (2020). Emotional intelligence in young women from five cultures: A TEIQue-SF invariance study using the omnicultural composite approach inside the IRT framework. Personality and Individual Differences, 164, 110128. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2020.110128.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., & El-Khoury, J. (2019). A Model of Academic, Personality and Emotion-Related Predictors of University Academic Performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2435. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02435.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., El-Jor, C., Kharma, J. A., Bassil, M., & Zeeni, N. (2019). Personality, emotion-related variables, and media pressure predict eating disorders via disordered eating in Lebanese university students. Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 24(2), 313-322. DOI: 10.1007/s40519-017-0387-8.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., & Baaklini, A. (2018). Individual and social correlates of aggressive behavior in Lebanese undergraduates: The role of trait emotional intelligence. The Journal of Social Psychology, 158(3), 350-360. DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2017.1353476.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J. (2017). Stress and Creativity. In Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology. Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.06281-7.
  • Ayyash-Abdo, H., Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., & Barbari, M. L. (2016). Resiliency predicts academic performance of Lebanese adolescents over demographic variables and hope. Learning and Individual Differences, 48, 9-16. DOI: 10.1016/j.pse.2016.01.005.
  • Petrides, K. V., Mikolajczak, M., Mavroveli, S., Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., Furnham, A., & Pérez-González, J. C. (2016). Developments in trait emotional intelligence research. Emotion Review, 8(4), 335-341. DOI: 1754073916650493.
  • Sanchez-Ruiz M. J., Khoury J.E., Saadé G., Salkhanian M. (2016). Non-Cognitive Variables and Academic Achievement. In: Khine, M.S., Areepattamannil, S. (eds) Non-cognitive Skills and Factors in Educational Attainment. Contemporary Approaches to Research in learning Innovations. Sense Publishers; Rotterdam.

Click here for a full list of publications. 

Academic degrees

  • PhD in Psychology (Europeus Mention), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
  • MA in Clinical Psychology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.
  • BA in Psychology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.