Measuring emotional intelligence in adolescents

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Abstract

Can emotional intelligence (EI) be reliably and validly measured in adolescents? One-hundred and thirty-one students (aged 13 to 15) completed a self-report measure of emotional intelligence (SEI) [Schutte, N., Malouff, J., Hall, L., Haggerty, D., Cooper, J., Golden, C., & Dornheim, L. (1998). Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 167–177.] and a number of other, theoretically relevant measures. They were then induced into either a positive, negative, or neutral mood and asked to complete a task that assessed mood management behaviour. We found that EI was reliably measured in adolescents, was higher for females than males, and was positively associated with skill at identifying emotional expressions, amount of social support, extent of satisfaction with social support, and mood management behaviour. These relationships held even after controlling for two constructs that potentially overlap with EI, namely self-esteem and trait anxiety. This study offers evidence that the SEI is a distinctive and useful measure.

Section snippets

Self-report measures of EI

A number of researchers have attempted to develop self-report measures of EI or EI-related constructs (Bar-On, 1997, Goleman, 1995, Nemiah et al., 1976, Roger & Najarioan, 1989, Salovey & Mayer, 1990, Schutte et al., 1998). While the definitions of EI are often varied, they nevertheless tend to be complementary rather than contradictory. In general, the various measures cover, to more or less extent, four distinct areas: emotion perception, regulation, understanding, and utilization.

One of the

Emotion perception

Emotion perception is defined as the ability to discern one's own and others' emotions based on “situational and expressive cues that have some degree of cultural consensus as to their emotional meaning” (Saarni, 1999). A number of studies have examined the role of emotion perception in children's everyday social life (Barth & Bastiani, 1997, Cassidy et al., 1992, Custrini & Feldman, 1989, Saarni, 1999, Cassidy et al., 1992). In one study, Cassidy et al. measured emotion perception and

Skill at managing other's emotions

This skill includes the ability to arrange events others enjoy, hide negative emotions in order to avoid hurting another person's feelings, and make others feel better when they are down. For example, Saarni (1984) conducted a study that examined children's (aged 6 to 11) ability to look agreeable when someone gave them a gift they did not like. Children received a dull and inappropriate baby toy and were videotaped unwrapping the toy and interacting with a market researcher. Saarni (1984)

Skill at managing self-relevant emotions

This skill involves the capacity for adaptively coping with aversive or distressing emotions by using self-regulatory strategies that ameliorate the intensity or duration of such emotional states (Saarni, 1999). A substantial amount of work has examined how young people cope with stressful life events (Aldwin, 1994, Compas, 1987, Saarni, 1984, Spirito et al., 1991). Much of this work has focused on the style of coping (e.g. “problem versus emotion focused coping”) and effectiveness of

Overview

Our primary goal was to establish whether a self-report measure of EI could be used reliably and validly with adolescents. If the SEI is a valid measure, then it ought to relate to a number of criterion measures: First, we expected EI to relate to the amount and quality of social support. Specifically, people who are high in EI should be better at establishing and maintaining close relationships; and, to reverse this logic, people with highly supportive, close relationships should have higher

Subjects and procedure

One-hundred and thirty-one adolescents (73 males, 58 females; aged 13 to 15; Mage=13.8, S.D.=0.74) from Years 8 and 9 of three different Catholic schools volunteered to participate in the study. We found no differences in effects across schools or age groups, so all data were collapsed across these categories. Participants were conducted in groups of 4 to 7 through the protocol, which involved first measuring all the personality and criterion variables and then administering the mood management

Preliminary analyses

We examined whether EI could be reliably measured in adolescents. The reliabilities were satisfactory for overall EI (α=0.84) and perception (α=0.76), were satisfactory but somewhat lower than is desirable for Managing Others' Emotions (α=0.66) and Managing Self-Relevant Emotions (α=0.63). Reliability was too low for utilizing emotions (α=0.55). These reliabilities are similar to those obtained in an adult sample (Ciarrochi, Deane et al. 2000), with the exception that Managing Self-Relevant

Discussion

The results of the present study support the proposition that adolescents can reliably and validly report their own levels of EI. The overall EI measure was highly reliable, and the perception and managing emotions subscales achieved adequate (though not ideal) levels of reliability. As expected, EI was related to sex, facial expression recognition, family warmth, amount of social support, and satisfaction with social support. EI, and Managing Self-Relevant Emotions in particular, was also

Conclusions

It has been clear for a number of decades that children face serious peer relationship and mental health problems (Asher & Rose, 1997, Salovey & Sluyter, 1997). There is now some hope among educators and mental health practitioners that skills related to EI can be identified and possibly taught to adolescents, and that such skills may help to protect them from the emotional difficulties of everyday life (Ciarrochi & Forgas, in press, Salovey & Sluyter, 1997). However, before investing

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Gayle Davies, Lynda Mill, Julie Taylor, and Marion Truman for their assistance in collecting the data. We would also like to thank the Catholic Education Office of the Wollongong Diocese for their assistance with this research.

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