Emotional intelligence as a moderator between perfectionism and happiness

Abstract

Happiness plays a key role in influencing adolescent performance in a variety of contexts. The present study was designed to investigate the relationships between perfectionism, emotional intelligence, and happiness and to test the moderating role of emotional intelligence in the relationship between perfectionism and happiness among Malaysian adolescents. The participants were 412 Malaysian high-school students from Selangor, all of whom completed self-report questionnaires. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine whether students with high levels of personal standards perfectionism, low levels of evaluative concerns perfectionism, and high levels of emotional intelligence reported higher levels of happiness. Multigroup analyses showed that emotional intelligence emerged as a significant moderator in the link between evaluative concerns perfectionism and happiness. These findings highlight the importance of emotional intelligence in mitigating the devastating effects of evaluative concerns perfectionism on happiness.

Dispositional Empathy and Emotional Intelligence in terms of Perfectionistic Automatic Thoughts

“…The degree to which our own emotions are perceived positively affects the level of psychological and social adjustment (Palomera et al, 2012), and although concerns do not, high personal standards do help in solving problems (Gong et al, 2017). In addition, Emotional Intelligence acts as a moderator of perfectionism and happiness (Abdollahi et al, 2019) of perfectionism and loneliness (Kaya & Birol, 2018), of maladaptive perfectionism and anxiety (Abdollahi & Abu-Talib, 2015) as well as between Perfectionistic Strivings and Concerns and depression and anxiety (Smith et al, 2015).…”

How does emotional intelligence predict happiness, optimism, and pessimism in adolescence? Investigating the relationship from the bifactor model

“…First, the study of EI in adolescents faces the challenge of scarce investigation about its relationship with happiness, optimism, and pessimism. Few studies evaluated EI with SWB (Abdollahi et al, 2019;Lim et al, 2015;Sánchez-Álvarez et al, 2015;Serrano & Andreu, 2016); among them, only three examined specifically the three EI dimensions rather than the general construct of EI in relation to SWB (Extremera et al, 2007;Gascó et al, 2018;Serrano & Andreu, 2016), only one focused on the relationship of EI with happiness (Serrano & Andreu, 2016), and only one investigated EI with optimism and pessimism (Extremera et al, 2007).…”

“…Research accumulated evidences about the existing relationship between EI and SWB (Abdollahi et al, 2019;Abdollahi et al, 2015;Chamorro-Premuzic et al, 2007;Gascó et al, 2018), which is defined by a cognitive component (i.e., life satisfaction) and an affective component (i.e., happiness) (Tomlinson et al, 2017). Studies investigating happiness and its relationship with EI to promote greater psychological development are considered valuable, especially during adolescence (Abdollahi et al, 2019). In their longitudinal study, Sánchez-Álvarez et al (2015) showed that EI was positively associated to SWB over time.…”

“…In their longitudinal study, Sánchez-Álvarez et al (2015) showed that EI was positively associated to SWB over time. EI may act as a promoting and protective mechanism to boost happiness (Abdollahi et al, 2019), and buffer depressive and stressful symptoms (Abdollahi et al, 2015). A systematic review of the literature found that lower levels of EI were related to increased depression, anxiety, substance abuse or aggression during adolescence, which influenced negatively on the promotion of happiness (Resurrección et al, 2014).…”

“…Differences in the definition of EI can lead to misconceptions and misleading comparisons across studies. This distinction extends to the different instruments used for assessing aspects related to this construct (Abdollahi et al, 2019). For example, EI reports a greater relationship with health when measured as a trait than as an ability (Martins et al, 2010;Schutte et al, 2007).…”