Emotional intelligence dimensions in facets of aggressive behaviour among school adolescents

Abstract

This study investigated whether emotional intelligence (EI) dimensions influenced aggression self-perceptions in school adolescents. South African adolescents (N = 440; 49% males; mean age = 16.77 years, SD = 1.42 years) completed measures of EI (perception of emotion, managing own emotion, managing others’ emotions, and utilisation of emotion) and of aggression (verbal, physical, and emotional). We computed multivariate analysis of variance to predict aggression self-perceptions by EI dimensions. The results from multivariate analysis showed that adolescents with positive emotion self-perceptions reported lower levels of verbal, physical, and emotional aggression. Similarly, adolescents self-reporting to manage and utilise their own emotions well, were less likely to engage in verbal aggression. Our findings suggest that self-perceptions of emotion management capabilities could be helpful to counselling adolescents for risk of mood disorders.