Pathways Into Psychosocial Adjustment in Children: Modeling the Effects of Trait Emotional Intelligence, Social-Emotional Problems, and Gender

Abstract

Trait Emotional intelligence (Trait EI) can be understood as a personality trait related to individual differences in recognition, processing, and the regulation of emotionally charged information. Trait EI has been considered a variable of great importance in determining psychosocial adjustment. However, most research on Trait EI has focused on adult and adolescent populations, while very few studies have explored its influence on children. The aim of this study was to analyze possible pathways into psychosocial adjustment in children by examining the combined effects of Trait EI and emotional and social problems. It also aimed to assess the possible mediating role of gender in this relationship. A total of 268 Spanish children participated in this study, ranging in age from 8 to 12 years (mean age = 10.09, SD = 1.32, 45.10% male). Selected measures were applied through a web-based survey called DetectaWeb. The regression and mediation/moderation analyses confirmed that psychosocial adjustment in children was determined by Trait EI directly and by emotional and social problems in an indirect way. Together, the three variables explained 46% of the variance in psychosocial adjustment, although Trait EI was the most powerful predictor (44%), demonstrating incremental validity over and above social and emotional problems. In addition, gender was shown to be a moderating variable between Trait EI and psychosocial adjustment; for girls specifically, lower Trait EI scores were a determinant of lower levels of psychosocial adjustment, regardless of emotional and social problems. It can be concluded that the identified pathways provide keys for emotional education interventions aimed at promoting psychosocial adjustment, well-being, and good mental health among children. Our findings support the buffer role of Trait EI against maladjustment risk in children, but more clearly in girls.

Academic Achievement, Self-Concept, Personality and Emotional Intelligence in Primary Education. Analysis by Gender and Cultural Group

“…In general, scientific literature shows that academic achievement is related to self-concept (Susperreguy et al, 2018;Wolff et al, 2018;Sewasew and Schroeders, 2019), personality (Perret et al, 2019;Smith-Woolley et al, 2019), and EI (Corcoran et al, 2018;Deighton et al, 2019;Piqueras et al, 2019). Also, that within these construct, academic self-concept (Ferla et al, 2009;Guay et al, 2010;Chen et al, 2013;Marsh et al, 2014), intellect/imagination (Poropat, 2009;Smith-Woolley et al, 2019), and adaptability (MacCann et al, 2011;Szczygieł and Mikolajczak, 2017) correlate significantly with academic achievement.…”

“…A review of the scientific literature has shown that many studies have analyzed the relationship between academic achievement and different psychological constructs such as self-concept (Susperreguy et al, 2018;Wolff et al, 2018;Sewasew and Schroeders, 2019), personality (Janošević and Petrović, 2019;Perret et al, 2019;Smith-Woolley et al, 2019), and emotional intelligence (Corcoran et al, 2018;Deighton et al, 2019;Piqueras et al, 2019). In this work, these psychological constructs are analyzed together with primary school children by gender and cultural group.…”

Educación Emocional en la Educación para la Salud: Cuestión de Salud Pública

“…Esta se ha conceptualizado y operacionalizado de dos formas distintas que han derivado en dos constructos complementarios: la IE como capacidad [ability] y la IE como rasgo [trait]. Si bien ambos constructos han mostrado asociaciones positivas con diversos indicadores de salud (Fernández-Berrocal y Extremera, 2016), la evidencia disponible indica que es la conceptualización de la IE rasgo la que cuenta con mayor evidencia de constituir un factor personal promotor de salud en niños, jóvenes y adultos (Petrides et al, 2017;Piqueras et al, 2019;Sarrionandia y Mikolajczak, 2019). El metaanálisis de Schutte et al(2007) confirmó que hay una asociación positiva entre IE y una mejor salud, mientras el metaanálisis acumulativo posterior de Martins et al (2010) ratificó esta conclusión haciéndola extensiva no sólo a salud mental sino también a salud psicosomática y física.…”

Parental Socialization, Social Anxiety, and School Victimization: A Mediation Model

“…Previous research has shown the negative consequences that social anxiety has for the life of an adolescent; for example, low acceptance among peers [17,18], a negative perception of the adolescent about himself/herself [19,20], and his/her social skills [21,22]. These consequences, in turn, involve risk factors for adolescent victimization in the school context [23,24].…”