Emotional Intelligence Across the Life Span: The Mediating Effects of Personality and Perceived Social Support

Abstract

Emotional intelligence has been the subject of much attention in the past as well as in the present when it comes to managing, regulating, and understanding one’s own and others emotions and how EI can have a significant impact over successful performances on various domains of life such as mental health, academic and work place performances even on the roles that we play as a teacher, student, researcher etc. The purpose of the study was to examine the age group differences i.e., late adolescents, young adult, middle adult, and elderly with respect to emotional intelligence despite of having controlled ones personality and perceived social support. The participants (n= 200) were age ranged from 18 to 71 years from the state of Sikkim.  The findings of the study revealed that there was a significant age group differences with respect to overall perceived emotional intelligence. Preceding age group participants scored significantly higher than the lower age groups. The correlation analysis demonstrated the results that overall perceived social support and some dimensions of personality had a significant positive and negative correlation with EI. Further results indicated that age group differences with respect to overall EI remained statistically significant even after controlling for perceived social support, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.