The role of trait emotional intelligence in academic performance and deviant behavior at school

Abstract This paper examines the role of trait emotional intelligence (‘trait EI') in academic performance and in deviant behavior at school on a sample of 650 pupils in British secondary education (mean age ≈16.5 years). Trait EI moderated the relationship between cognitive ability and academic performance. In addition, pupils with high trait EI scores were less likely to have had unauthorized absences and less likely to have been excluded from school. Most trait EI effects persisted even after controlling for personality variance. It is concluded that the constellation of emotion-related self-perceived abilities and dispositions that the construct of trait EI encompasses is implicated in academic performance and deviant behavior, with effects that are particularly relevant to vulnerable or disadvantaged adolescents.

[1]  H. Gardner,et al.  Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences , 1983 .

[2]  D. Goleman.  Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ , 1995 .

[3]  Hans J. Eysenck,et al.  Personality and intelligence: Psychometric and experimental approaches. , 1994 .

[4]  James W. Pennebaker,et al.  Emotion, Disclosure, and Health , 1995 .

[5]  A. Day,et al.  Assessing the predictive validity of emotional intelligence , 2000 .

[6]  Daniel O. Segall,et al.  Understanding and Assessing Nonverbal Expressiveness: The Affective Communication Test. , 1980 .

[7]  J. Strayer,et al.  Empathy in Conduct-Disordered and Comparison Youth. , 1996 .

[8]  Adrian Furnham,et al.  On the dimensional structure of emotional intelligence , 2000 .

[9]  Thomas C. Gibbon,et al.  The Relation of LD and Gender with Emotional Intelligence in College Students , 2001, Journal of learning disabilities.

[10]  A. Furnham.  Trait Emotional Intelligence , 2004 .

[11]  Adrian Furnham,et al.  Gender Differences in Measured and Self-Estimated Trait Emotional Intelligence , 2000 .

[12]  Sybil B. G. Eysenck,et al.  The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire: an examination of the factorial similarity of P, E, N, and L across 34 countries , 1998 .

[13]  K. I. van der Zee,et al.  The relationship of emotional intelligence with academic intelligence and the Big Five , 2002 .

[14]  A. Mehrabian,et al.  A measure of emotional empathy. , 1972, Journal of personality.

[15]  N. Eisenberg.  Emotion, regulation, and moral development. , 2000, Annual review of psychology.

[16]  Raymond B. Cattell,et al.  Models and Paradigms in Personality and Intelligence Research , 1995 .

[17]  Katie Witkiewitz,et al.  Reliability of Scores from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire: A Reliability Generalization Study , 2001 .

[18]  R. Friedrich.  In Defense of Multiplicative Terms In Multiple Regression Equations , 1982 .

[19]  Suzanne M. Miller,et al.  Handbook of developmental psychopathology, 2nd ed. , 2000 .

[20]  B Leuner,et al.  [Emotional intelligence and emancipation. A psychodynamic study on women]. , 1966, Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie.

[21]  Charles D. Spielberger,et al.  CHAPTER 14 – The Effects of Anxiety on Complex Learning and Academic Achievement , 1966 .

[22]  M. Zeidner.  Personality Trait Correlates of Intelligence , 1995 .

[23]  S. Stewart,et al.  A prospective analysis of stress and academic performance in the first two years of medical school , 1999, Medical education.

[24]  Adelheid A. M. Nicol,et al.  Emotional intelligence and leadership in adolescents , 2002 .

[25]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables. , 2002, Psychological methods.

[26]  Bettina Seipp.  Anxiety and academic performance: A meta-analysis of findings , 1991 .

[27]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Handbook of human intelligence , 1984 .

[28]  F. Deane,et al.  Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between stress and mental health , 2002 .

[29]  I. Kramer,et al.  Does a self-report measure for emotional intelligence assess something different than general intelligence? , 2002 .

[30]  Adrian Furnham,et al.  Personality correlates of academic seminar behaviour: A study of four instruments , 1995 .

[31]  B. de Raad,et al.  Personality in learning and education: a review , 1996 .

[32]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. , 1996 .

[33]  A. Jensen,et al.  Psychometric G and Achievement , 1993 .

[34]  E. Thorndike.  Intelligence and its uses. , 1920 .

[35]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Personality and intelligence , 1994 .

[36]  M. Boekaerts,et al.  Being Concerned With Well-Being and With Learning , 1993 .

[37]  H. Eysenck.  Personality and experimental psychology: The unification of psychology and the possibility of a paradigm. , 1997 .

[38]  J. Strayer,et al.  Empathy, emotional expressiveness, and prosocial behavior , 1996 .

[39]  A. Jensen,et al.  The g factor , 1996, Nature.

[40]  C. Allen.  Dimensions of Personality , 1947, Nature.

[41]  Denise C. Gottfredson,et al.  Schools and Delinquency , 2000 .

[42]  I. Williamson,et al.  Adolescent Alienation: its correlates and consequences , 1998 .

[43]  G. Matthews,et al.  Does emotional intelligence meet traditional standards for an intelligence? Some new data and conclusions. , 2001, Emotion.

[44]  Amy Y. C. Chan,et al.  Measuring emotional intelligence in adolescents. , 2001 .

[45]  J. Malouff,et al.  Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. , 1998 .

[46]  B. O'Connor,et al.  SIMPLE: All-in-One Programs for Exploring Interactions in Moderated Multiple Regression , 1998 .

[47]  Larry E. Toothaker,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions , 1991 .

[48]  T. Palfai,et al.  Emotional attention, clarity, and repair : Exploring emotional intelligence using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale , 1995 .

[49]  E. Austin,et al.  Factor structure and validity of a trait emotional intelligence measure , 2003 .

[50]  Robert R. McCrae,et al.  Openness to Experience as a Basic Dimension of Personality , 1993 .

[51]  J. Eccles,et al.  Schooling and Mental Health , 2000 .

[52]  H. Eysenck.  Personality and the experimental study of education , 1996 .

[53]  S. Svanum,et al.  Psychopathology and college grades. , 2001 .

[54]  A. Furnham,et al.  Trait emotional intelligence: psychometric investigation with reference to established trait taxonomies , 2001 .

[55]  Con Stough,et al.  Emotional intelligence and life satisfaction , 2002 .

[56]  Charles D. Spielberger,et al.  Anxiety and behavior , 1966 .

[57]  R. Bagby,et al.  The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale--I. Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. , 1994, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[58]  R. Darlington,et al.  Regression and Linear Models , 1990 .

[59]  A. Furnham,et al.  Trait emotional intelligence: behavioural validation in two studies of emotion recognition and reactivity to mood induction , 2003 .

[60]  Karl G. Jöreskog,et al.  Lisrel 8: User's Reference Guide , 1997 .

[61]  B. Cohler,et al.  Learning and Education: Psychoanalytic Perspectives , 1990 .