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Correlational analysis of Emotional Intelligence and Psychological Well-being

Article in Indian Journal of Positive Psychology · March 2023

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Indian Journal of Positive Psychology © 2023 Indian Association of Health, Research and Welfare
2023, 14(1), 39-42 ISSN-p-2229-4937,e-2321-368X
https://iahrw.org/our-services/journals/indian-journal-of-positive-psychology/ NAAS Rating 4.38

Correlational Analysis of Emotional Intelligence and

Psychological Well-being
Jui Pimple
Department of Clinical Psychology, B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane, Maharashtra

Psychological well-being (PWB) is the presence of positive emotions, life satisfaction, and lack of negative
emotions (Myers & Diener, 1995). It is affected by factors like resilience, social support, mindfulness, yoga,
psychical health, etc. Emotional intelligence (EI) is one of those factors that can impact psychological well-being.
Hence, the objective of the present research was to find a correlation between the emotional intelligence and
psychological well-being of undergraduate students and to assess gender differences in the context of Emotional
Intelligence and PWB. EI is measured by the Emotional Intelligence Scale by Dhar, Hyde, and Pethe while PWB is
measured by using the PGI General Well-being Measure developed by Verma and Verma. The sample group and
size for the present study were 45 males and 75 females studying in undergraduate colleges. The data was collected
using a non-probabilistic purposive sampling technique and the research design followed is a quasi-experimental
separate group design. Results were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Pearson product-moment correlation shows a
positive significant correlation between EI and PWB. T-test analysis shows a significant gender difference for
emotional intelligence as males have high EI than females but no significant gender difference was found for PWB.
Thus, it is concluded that people's emotional intelligence does predict psychological well-being but that is not the
only factor leading to PWB.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, psychological well-being, students, emotional stability, positive emotions

Student life is as stressful and demanding as happening and pleasant Psychological Well-being is affected by various factors like
as it seems. College students are usually loaded with expectations resilience, social support, mindfulness, yoga, physical health, etc.
from parents, peers, and themselves, they have stress to meet these Emotional intelligence is one of those factors that can impact
expectations, be it about academics, becoming independent or psychological well-being. Mayer and Salovey (1997) have defined
relationships. Previous studies have shown that there is a high rate of emotional intelligence as the knack to perceive emotions, access and
depression, anxiety, and stress in students all over the world produce emotions to assist thought, understanding emotions, and
(Adewuya, Ola, Olutayo, Mapayi, & Oginni, 2006; Nerdrum, emotional knowledge, and to introspectively regulating emotions to
Rustøen, & Rønnestad, 2006; Ovuga, Boardman, & Wasserman, promote emotional and intellectual growth. Goleman (1995)
2006; Stewart-Brown, Evans, Patterson, Doll, Balding, & Regis, describes emotional intelligence as a combination of five aspects
2000; Wong, Cheung, Chan, Ma, & Tang, 2006; Voelker, 2003, namely, managing emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing
Demirbatir et al., 2013). With the presence of these negative aspects, emotions in others, and handling relationships. According to
it is important to assess the psychological well-being of college Goleman first component of emotional intelligence is Self-
students. Psychological well-being, in simple terms, is a happy, awareness, i.e., knowing one's emotions- it is being able to identify
satisfied mental state of an individual. Psychological well-being and label specific feelings in oneself. It is the ability to manage and
is the presence of positive emotions, life satisfaction, and lack of take responsibility for one's emotions, especially the responsibility
negative emotions (Myers & Diener, 1995). Those individuals for self-motivation and personal happiness. The second Component
who show high PWB report being happy and satisfied with life as is mood management or managing emotions which means handling
compared to those who show low PWB (Iqbal & Nishad, 2017). emotions in the context of the situation and giving a relevant
Verma and Verma's explanation of general well-being, "the reaction. The third is self-motivation, i.e., being more responsible,
subjective feeling of contentment, happiness, satisfaction with self-controlled, better able to focus on the task at hand, and less
life's experiences and one's role in the world of work, sense of impulsive. Fourth is empathy-it means recognizing others' feelings
achievement, utility, belongingness, and no distress, able to understand them from their viewpoint and being sensitive to
dissatisfaction or worry, etc" is also close to an understanding of them. And the fifth component is managing relationships which
psychological well-being. means handling interpersonal interaction, increased ability to
analyze and understand relationships, being more assertive, and
better at conflict resolution in relationships.
Author Note
Singh (2003) defines emotional intelligence as the skill of an
Jui Pimple, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology
individual to aptly and effectively respond to a diversity of
B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane, Maharashtra
emotional provocations stimulated by the inner self and direct
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose
surroundings. According to him, Emotional intelligence comprises
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
three psychological dimensions emotional competency, emotional
Jui Pimple, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology
maturity, and emotional sensitivity.
B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane, Maharashtra
High emotionally intelligent people tend to have clarity
E-mail: pimplejui19@gmail.com
 PIMPLE/ CORRELATIONAL ANALYSIS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 40

about themselves, their needs, weaknesses, and strengths; they are being and components of emotional intelligence namely (self-
capable of having healthy and good relationships. They manage their awareness, empathy, self-motivation, emotional stability,
emotions as per situations and their surrounding; they maintain managing relations, integrity, self-development, value
balance in personal and professional life by adequate management of orientation, commitment, altruistic).
expression of emotions (Jayashree et al., 2018). Emotional H03: There is no significant difference in the emotional intelligence
Intelligence also predicts positive relations, perceived support from of males and females.
parents, and less negative communications with friends (Lopes, H04: There is no significant difference in the psychological well-
Salovey, & Straus, 2003). being of males and females.
A study conducted by Judge and Arora (2017) to find the impact of
emotional intelligence and psychological well-being on life Method
satisfaction among adolescents shows a positive correlation of
Participants
emotional intelligence and psychological well-being at 0.01
significance level. The results also showed emotional intelligence and The present study was conducted on 120 undergraduate college
psychological well-being as relevant predictors of Life satisfaction. students between the age range of 18-21 and studying in B.A., BBA
Makuloluwa and Arachchige also investigated the Relationship colleges of Gandhinagar, Gujarat out of which 75 were females and
between Emotional Intelligence and Psychological well-being of 45 were males.
undergraduate students. Their results also show a positive Research Design
association between emotional intelligence and psychological well-
being as well as psychological well-being factors like self- For the study, the non-probabilistic purposive sampling method was
acceptance, purpose in life, positive relations, personal growth, used and the research design adapted for the study was a quasi-
environmental mastery, and autonomy. experimental separate group design.
EI is also linked with self-esteem and depression which is reflected Measures
in the study by (Mehmood & Gulzar, 2014). Their results show that
In this study emotional intelligence was measured by the Emotional
high emotional intelligence among adolescents is associated with high
Intelligence Scale by Dhar, Hyde, and Pethe. The emotional
self-esteem and low level of depression while low emotional
Intelligence Scale is a 34-item scale with 5 points Likert response
intelligence is linked with low self-esteem and high depression.
pattern and has ten sub-components namely self-awareness,
A review study by Ramesh, Thavaraj, and Ramkumar (2016) after empathy, self-motivation, emotional stability, managing relations,
reviewing researches from peer-reviewed publications and Google integrity, self-development, value orientation, commitment, and
scholar concludes that emotional intelligence is also associated with altruistic behavior. The split-half reliability calculated for the scale
the academic achievements of students.
is 0.88 and content validity is also found to be high.
Although previous researches have studied these variables for
Psychological well-being was measured using the PGI General
different age groups, there is a research gap found as the direct
Well-being Measure developed by Verma and Verma. PGI General
relationship of emotional intelligence, its components and
Wellbeing Measure is a 20-item scale where the participant has to
psychological well-being is not studied in undergraduate students.
tick a statement that he/she agrees to. A total score is calculated by
Hence, the present study specifically focuses on measuring
counting the number of sentences ticked by the participant.
emotional intelligence and psychological well-being among
undergraduate students studying in BA, BBA colleges. Emotional Procedure
intelligence and psychological well-being both are also found to be The data was collected by circulating Google forms among
associated with academic performance which makes it more undergraduate students.
significant to assess them in college students which can aid in
designing programs for the development of emotional intelligence Statistical Analysis
and increasing the psychological well-being of students. Emotional The data was scored and analysed using SPSS version 21. The
intelligence development programs can be beneficial as unlike IQ or person correlation as well as t-test was done for analysis of the data.
other personality traits, emotional intelligence can be gradually
developed and learned from experiences, it can be developed and Results and Discussion
fostered even in adulthood and can have favorable results on one's health-
For the present study results were analyzed using SPSS version 21.
including mental health, relationships, and overall performance.
To measure the correlation between emotional intelligence and
Objective of the Study psychological well-being Pearson Correlation was used and a t-test
Hence, the major objective of the present research was to find a was used to find gender differences in emotional intelligence and
correlation between the Emotional Intelligence and Psychological psychological well-being.
Well-being of undergraduate students. Another objective was to Table 1
assess gender differences in the context of Emotional Intelligence
Table Showing Descriptive Statistics
and Psychological Well-being.
Variables Mean Std. Deviation
Hypotheses of the Study
Total Emotional Intelligence 130.43 13.37
H01: There is no significant correlation between emotional
Psychological Well-being 10.95 04.36
intelligence and psychological well-being.
Note. n=120; f=75, m=45
H02: There is no significant correlation between psychological well-
41 Indian Journal of Positive Psychology 2023, 14(1), 39-42

As observed in table 1 the mean score for total emotional intelligence Emotional Stability and managing relations respectively mean
is 130.43 which indicates high emotional intelligence as per the maintaining emotional balance in good and bad situations and the
norms of scale. Here, for the present sample, the mean of total ability to encourage others, able to see the brighter side of
emotional intelligence is high which signifies that the majority of everything.
participants have high emotional intelligence. This supports the One noticeable result is a negative correlation of integrity and
finding of Jayashree, Ram, and Das's study (2018) where 82.7% of psychological well-being here, integrity is measured by items like 'I
college students had an extremely high EQ. Present generation can stand up for my beliefs, 'I pursue goals beyond what is required
students have exposure to various situations at an early stage of life, of me'. Sometimes taking a stand for our beliefs or making efforts to
their participation in co-curricular activities, and school's efforts for achieve a challenging goal can be physically as well as mentally
emotional intelligence development through different modules could taxing which is why it is possible to have a negative relation between
result in high emotional intelligence in the majority of students. The integrity and psychological well-being.
mean score of psychological well-being is 10.95 which is close to the Hollander's study (2002) also found a positive correlation of
mean score (9.45) calculated by the authors of the scale. emotional intelligence, self-esteem, and positive mood state.
Table 2 Extemera and Berrocal's findings show a link between high
emotional intelligence and a low level of depression and anxiety
Relationship of PWB with Emotional Intelligence, and EI
while a low level of intelligence is linked to poor social adjustment
Components
and low mental health. Results of the present study are also
Variables Pearson (r) Sig. (2-tailed) supported by Abraham, Meyrav, and Jacob's research (2009). They
Emotional Intelligence -.339* 0.000 also concluded emotional intelligence as a strong predictor of
Altruistic Behaviour -.415** 0.000 psychological well-being, highly emotional and intellectual people
Value orientation -.100 .276 lead a happy life and have better mental health.
Self Awareness -.229* .012 Graph 1
Empathy -.193* .035
Gender Wise Difference of Mean Scores for EI and PWB
Self Motivation -.416** .000
Emotional Stability -.314** .000
Managing relations -.412** .000
Integrity -.117 .205
Self-development -.148 .106
Commitment -.161 .079
Note. Significance level 0.05, n=120; f=75, m=45

Observations from table two of Pearson correlation show a

significant (0.05 level) positive correlation between total emotional
intelligence and psychological well-being thus, null hypothesis one
stating that there is no significant relationship between emotional
Note. n=120; f=75, m=45
intelligence and psychological well-being is rejected. The current
findings are supported by Ugoani and Ewuzie 's research on the The above graph shows the mean score difference for emotional
positive relationship between emotional intelligence and the intelligence and psychological well-being in context to gender. It is
psychological well-being of adolescents. Among the components of seen in the graph that means of emotional intelligence for male
emotional intelligence; self-awareness, and empathy show a positive participants (135.93) is higher than the emotional intelligence of
correlation with psychological well-being at a 0.05 significance female participants (127.13). The mean scores of psychological
level, while altruistic behavior, self-motivation, emotional stability, well-being do not show much gender differences; males (11.53 and
and managing relations are positively correlated with psychological females (10.60) as observed from the graph.
well-being at 0.01 significance level. Value orientation, self- T-test results to find the gender difference for emotional
development, and commitment do not show a significant correlation intelligence and psychological well-being show a significant gender
with psychological well-being hence, hypothesis two stating there is difference (p<.01) for emotional intelligence of males and females
no relationship between emotional intelligence components and college students, therefore, hypothesis 3 stating no gender
psychological well-being is partially accepted. difference for emotional intelligence is rejected. While hypothesis
Here, self-awareness means knowing one's own emotions, and four is accepted as no significant gender difference is found for
feelings, the ability to identify and label emotions in oneself, able to scores of psychological well-being.
share and talk of those with clarity and empathy means the ability to Males have scored high on emotional intelligence as compared to
understand others' emotions and feelings from their perspective. A females. This varies from the general understanding that females are
high level of understanding of one's own as well as others' emotions more emotionally intelligent than males (King & Sutarso, 1999;
and feelings could result in positive, satisfying life experiences thus, Wing & Love, 2001; Singh, 2002; Sanjay, 2017).
enhancing overall psychological well-being. Altruistic behavior is But results similar to the current study are also established by
measured by items like 'I am able to encourage people to take Ahmad, Bangash, and Khan (2009) where males have scored high
initiative', self-motivation is being internally motivated, the ability to on Emotional Quotient than females. The possible reason for this
maintain focus, and having a belief that happiness is an attitude. could be men are generally better at self-awareness, motivation,
 PIMPLE/ CORRELATIONAL ANALYSIS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 42

managing relations, and many times conflict resolution as well. Results of emotional intelligence of males and females varies for different age groups,
another study by Singh and Asthana (2008) show no difference in male and educational, socio-economical, and regional backgrounds.
female adolescents' level of emotional intelligence. It is interpreted that the

Table 3
Gender Difference for EI and PWB Using the t-test
Independent Samples Test
t-test for Equality of Means
F t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference
PWB Equal variances assumed .284 -1.137 118 .258 -.933 .821
Equal variances not assumed -1.119 87.996 .266 -.933 .834
Total EI Equal variances assumed .100 -3.668 118 .000 -8.800 2.399
Equal variances not assumed -3.810 103.769 .000 -8.800 2.310
Note. n=120; f=75, m=45

Hyde, A., Pethe, S., & Dhar, U. (2011). Emotional Intelligence Scale. Agra: National
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psychological well-being, happiness and life satisfaction of music students. Received January 6, 2023
Scientific research. Doi 104236 4(11A) Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ Revision received February 8, 2023
psych.2013.411A004 Accepted February 10, 2023

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