Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 818–822

WCPCG-2010

Emotional intelligence and coping styles with stress

Seyedeh Najmeh Noorbakhsha *, Mohammad Ali Besharata, Jamileh Zareia
a
Department of Psychology, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 14155-6456, Tehran, Iran

Received January 4, 2010; revised January 20, 2010; accepted March 17, 2010

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and coping styles with stress in a
sample of students. Four hundred and thirteen students (140 boys, 273 girls) were included in this study. All participants
completed the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) and the Tehran Coping Styles Scale (TCSS). The results revealed that EI was
positively associated with problem-focused and positive emotional focused coping styles, and negatively associated with negative
emotional focused coping style. EI is supposed to influence coping strrategies through management and regulation of emotions,
utilization and facilitation of emotions, and apprisal of emotions.

Keywords: Emotional inteligence, stress, coping, emotion regulation, student.

1. Introduction

The concept of emotional intelligence proposed by Salovey and Mayer (1990) was defined as ‘‘the ability to
monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to
guide one’s thinking and actions (p. 189).’’ Mayer and Salovey (1997) identified four components of emotional
intelligence, involving emotional perception, emotional facilitation, emotional understanding, and emotional
management. emotional perception refers to the ability to perceive and to express feelings. Emotional facilitation
refers to the ability to use emotion to facilitate cognitive activities. emotional understanding concerns the ability to
label emotions with words and to understand how emotions can change. emotional management refers to the ability
to manage emotions for both emotional and personal growth (Mayer & Salovey,1997).
There is increasing interest in the associations of EI with health and well-being. EI covers individual differences
in emotional capabilities, both intrapersonal (e.g. stress management) and interpersonal (e.g. perceiving emotions).
Several ways in which EI might be associated with health behaviors can be identified. Interpersonal EI would be
expected to lead to better interactions with health professionals and thus to a greater tendency to seek help and
follow advice (Ciarrochi & Deane, 2001).

* Seyedeh Najmeh Noorbakhsh. Tel.: +98 919 212 3893.

E-mail address: najme2007@gmail.com.

1877-0428 © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.191
 Seyedeh Najmeh Noorbakhsh et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 818–822 819

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that EI correlates robustly with a variety of outcomes that signal
social-emotional success, including more frequent positive affect, higher self esteem, greater life satisfaction, social
engagement, academic performance, job satisfaction, self efficacy and well-being (Kafetsios, & Zampetakis, 2008;
Song, peng, law, wong, & chen, 2010; Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2009; Zeidner & shemesh , 2010).
EI has been linked to coping (Schutte, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Bhullar, & Rooke, 2007), particularly
rational/problem focused coping (Saklofske, Austin, Galloway, & Davidson, 2007). The link between EI and stress
is also well established in the academic literature (see Ciarrochi, Dean, & Anderson, 2002; Gohm, Corser, & Dalsky,
2005).
Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts, both behavioral and psychological, that people employ to master,
tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events. Two general coping strategies have been distinguished: problem-
solving strategies are efforts to do something active to alleviate stressful circumstances, whereas emotion-focused
coping strategies involve efforts to regulate the emotional consequences of stressful or potentially stressful events.
(Folkman & Lazarus, 1980).
The primary approaches toward the process of coping differentiates three major styles: the problem-focused
coping which its difference is direct function to reduce pressures or increase stress management skills; avoidant-
focused coping style which its main characteristic is to confront stress factor; and emotional-focused coping which
its difference is cognitive strategies that delay solving or removing stress factor by giving a new name and meaning
(Billings & Moos, 1981; Zeidner & Endler, 1996). Newer classifications of four coping styles include logical,
detached, emotional and avoidant styles. (Roger, Jarvis, & Najarian,1993). Logical coping as a problem-focused
strategy and detached coping as an approach based on which the individual gets far away from the problem to face it
and reduce the potential influence of emotional. Logical and detached coping is generally regarded as efficient styles
and emotional and avoidant styles as inefficient styles (Roger et al., 1993).
Is the individual’s coping style different from stress conditions based on his emotional intelligence? It is foreseen
that increasing EI helps the individual so as to use more efficient strategies to fight stress conditions and in the
contrary, reducing EI helps the individual to employ more inefficient strategies to control stress conditions. The
main objective of this research is to study the relationship between EI and the coping styles with stress.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Statistical population of this research was all students of bachelor’s degree in Tehran University. 413 students
(140 male and 273 female) of various fields of study voluntarily participated in this research. After encouraging the
subjects, Persian version of emotional intelligence scale (EIS) and the Tehran Coping Styles Scale (TCSS) about
students in team work in class. Total mean age of subjects was 20.77 years with standard deviation of 2.70, the mean
age of male students was 21.53 years with standard deviation of 3.27 and mean age of female students was 20.38
years with standard deviation of 2.26. The present research is a descriptive study of correlation type, and to analyze
its data statistical indices and methods including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, multi-variable
variance analysis, correlation coefficient and regression analysis were used.

2.2. Measures

Emotional Intelligence Scale(EIS)- The EIS is a 33- question test which has been made by Schutte et al (1998)
based on Salovey and Mayer 1990; Mayer and Salovey, 1997, emotional intelligence. The questions of test assess
three subjects of emotional intelligence including regulation of emotion, utilization of emotion and apprisal of
emotion in Likert –degree scale from score 1 (quite opposing) to score 5 (quite agreeing). internal consistency of test
questionsased on Chronbach alpha from 0.84 to 0.90 (Austin, Saklofske, Huang, & McKenney, 2004; Saklofske,
Austin, & Minski, 2003; Schutte et al., 1998). test-retest reliability coefficient of scale in a 28-individual sample of
students was calculated with a time interval of two weeks at 0.78 (Schutte et al., 1998). Reliability of emotional
intelligence scale has been reported sufficient through its correlation with relevant structures (Austin et al., 2004). In
Farsi form of this scale (Besharat, 2007) Chronbach alpha of scale questions in a 135-individual sample of students
was calculated 0.88 which shows good internal consistency of test. Correlation coefficients of the scores of 42
820 Seyedeh Najmeh Noorbakhsh et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 818–822

individuals of the said scale was calculated 0.83 with an interval of 0.83, which showed reliability of satisfactory
retesting.

Tehran Coping Styles Scale (TCSS)- The TCSS (Besharat, 2006) is a 60-question test and assess three styles of
problem-focused coping style, positive Emotional-focused coping and negative Emotional-focused coping in a 4-
degree Likert scale from 1 to 4. Minimum and maximum score of subject in each of the test subscales will be
relatively 20 and 80. Carver, Scheier, and Weintrub (1989) studied reliability and validity of this scale within three
researches. Retesting reliability coefficients were confirmed from r=0.42 to r= 0.67 for various scales (Carver et al.,
1989) was implemented for comparison of TCSS a sample of 457 students of Tehran university and Chronbach
alpha coefficients of problem-focused coping style, positive Emotional-focused coping and negative Emotional-
focused coping were respectively calculated at 0.93, 0.91 and 0.89 which show good internal consistency of the
scale. Correlation coefficients were calculated for assessing retesting reliability in two turns with distance of 2 to 4
weeks. These coefficients were meaningful for problem-focused coping style, positive Emotional-focused coping
and negative emotional-focused coping at respectively r=0.71, r= 0.65, r= 0.59 in the meaningful level of P<.001
which showed satisfactory retesting reliability of scale.

3. Results

Table 1 shows statistical indices of subjects about the scores on EI and coping styles.

Table 1. Means and standard deviation

Variable males (140) M (SD) Females (273) M (SD) Total(413) M (SD)

EI (total) 119.72 (14.27) 119.92(13.59) 119.85(13.80)
RE 33.42(4.61) 33.17(4.86) 33.29(4.77)
UE 18.64(3.20) 18.77(2.84) 18.73(2.96)
AE 25.19(4.05) 25.02(4.32) 25.08(4.23)
P-FC 41.52(8.45) 40.72(8.61) 41.00(8.56)
PE-FC 34.10(6.75) 34.20(6.68) 34.17(6.70)
NE-FC 21.03(7.75) 20.77(6.80) 20.53(7.14)
RE = Regulation of Emotions; UE = Utilization of Emotions; AE = Appraisal of Emotions; P-FC= Problem-Focused Coping; PE-FC= Positive
Emotional -Focused Coping; NE-FC= Negative Emotional-Focused Coping.

To analyze data and test of research hypotheses, first the results of multi-variable variance analysis test for
comparison of male and female students about EI and coping styles were studied. results of variance analysis
showed that male and female students were not meaningfully different in any of the subscales of EI and coping
styles. For this reason correlation coefficient between research variables for male and female students were made
altogether. Results of pierson correlation showed that EI has positive relation with problem-focused coping, positive
emotional-focused coping style and negative relation with negative emotional-focused coping style (table 2).

dĂďůe 2͘Pierson correlation between EI and coping style

Variable PFC PE-FC NE-FC

EI 0.53** 0.32** -0.33**
RE 0.46** 0.27** -0.32**
UE 0.47** 0.24** -0.33**
AE 0.29** 0.11* -0.22**
** Į=.01; * Į=.05; RE = Regulation of Emotions; UE = Utilization of Emotions; AE = Appraisal of Emotions; P-FC= Problem-Focused Coping;
PE-FC= Positive Emotional -Focused Coping; NE-FC= Negative Emotional-Focused Coping.

Then to determine the influence of each of variables of EI on the variance of coping styles, emotional intelligence
subscales were analyzed as foreseeing variables and problem-focused coping style, positive emotional-focused
coping and negative emotional-focused coping as standard variable in regression equation. The results of variance
and regression analysis showed F= 53.88 between the scores of problem-focused coping style with emotional
intelligence subscales which is meaningful in P<.001 and (R= 0.532) was obtained. Therefore 28% of the variance
related to problem-focused coping style is determined by emotional intelligence subscales. Regression coefficients
 Seyedeh Najmeh Noorbakhsh et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 818–822 821

show that the three subscales of regulation of emotion (B= 0.458, t= 4.823), utilization of emotion (t= 5.453, B=
0.822) and appraisal of emotion (t= 2.276, B= 0.211) could determine the style of problem- focused meaningfully.
The direction of variables correlation shows that the more EI. the individual uses more problem-focused coping
strategies in confronting stress.
Variance analysis and regression among the score of positive emotional-focused coping with the subscales of
emotional intelligence resulted in F= 12.74 and it was meaningful in P<.001 and (R= 0.292) was obtained. therefore
08% of variance related to positive emotional-focused coping is determined by emotional intelligence subscales
regression coefficients show that only the following two subscales of regulation of emotion (B= 0.275 and t= 3.280)
and utilization of emotion (t= 2.226, B= 0.297) may explain meaningfully the variance of emotional-focused coping
style. The direction of variables correlation shows that the more EI. the individual will use more strategies of
positive emotional-focused coping strategies in facing the stress.
Variance analysis and regression statistical indices showed the following results among the average of negative
emotional-focused coping style with emotional intelligence scales (P<0.001, F= 22.42) and (R= 0.376). then 14% of
the variance related to negative emotional-focused coping is determined by emotional intelligence scales.
Regression coefficients show that only two subscales regulation of emotion (t= -3.1010, B= -0.296) and utilization
of emotion (t= -3.355, B= -0.269) could determine the variance of negative emotional-focused coping style in a
meaningful way. The direction of variables correlation shows that the more EI. the individual will employ less
negative emotional-focused coping strategies in facing stress.

4. Discusstion

The results of research showed that EI has positive relationship with problem-focused coping and positive
emotional-focused coping and negative emotional-focused coping style are negatively correlated. These results
which confirm the foresees of the present research and conforms to the results and necessities of findings of
previous research in relation with EI (Elias, Tobias, & Friedlander, 1999; Goleman, 1995, 1998; Mayer & Salovey,
1997; Petrides & Furnham, 2000; Saarni, 1997; Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Salovey, Mayer, & Caruso, 2002;
Saklofske et al., 2003; Saklofske et al, 2007; Zins, Travis, & Freppon, 1997). Increase emotional intelligence
through components of adjusting and managing emotional productivity or facilitating emotional and evaluation and
perception of emotional, using the problem- focused coping styles and positive emotional-focused coping and
reduce using negative emotional-focused coping style.
In summary, the results of research showed that EI foresee changes related to the strategies of stress control. The
constraints related to research statistical population (students) and the type of research (correlation) study constraints
in generalizing, interpreting and cognitive causes of studied variables which should be considered. In addition,
probable problems related to reliability of the tools used in this research should not be ignored.

References

Austin, E. J., Saklofske, D. H., Huang, S. H. S., & McKenney, D. (2004). Measurement of trait emotional intelligence: testine and cross
validating a modified version of Schutte et al.’s (1998) measure. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 555-562.
Besharat, M. A. (2006) Psychometric properties of the Tehran Coping Styles Scale. Unpublished research report. Tehran: University of Tehran.
[Farsi]
Besharat, M. A. (2007). Psychometric properties of Farsi version of the Emotional Intelligence Scale-41 (FEIS-41). Personality and Individual
Differences, 43, 991-1000.
Billings, A. G., & Moos, R. H. (1981). The role of coping responses and social resources in attenuating the stress of life events. Journal of
Behavioural Medicine, 4, 139-157.
Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintrub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: a theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 56, 267-283.
Ciarrochi, J. V., & Deane, F. P. (2001). Emotional competence and willingness to seek help from professional and nonprofessional sources.
British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 29, 233–246.
Ciarrochi, J., Dean, F. P., & Anderson, S. (2002). Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between stress and mental health. Personality
and Individual Differences, 32, 197–209.
Elias, M., Tobias, S., & Friedlander, B. (1999). Emotionally intelligent parenting> New York: Harmony Books.
Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1980). An analysis of coping in a middle-aged community sample. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 21,
219-239.
Gohm, C. L., Corser, G. C., & Dalsky, D. J. (2005). Emotional intelligence under stress: Useful, unnecessary, or irrelevant? Personality and
Individual Differences, 39, 1017–1028.
822 Seyedeh Najmeh Noorbakhsh et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 818–822

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.

Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.
Kafetsiose, K., zampetakis, L. A. (2008). Emotional intelligence and job satisfaction: Testing the mediatory role of positive and negative affect at
work. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 712-722.
Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & J. D. Mayer (Eds.), emotional development and emotional
intelligence (pp. 3-31). New York: Basic Books.
Petrides, K. V., & Furnham, A. (2000). On the dimensional structure of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 313-
320.
Roger, D., Jarvis, P., & Najarian, B. (1993). Datachment and coping: The construction and validation of a new scale for measuring coping
strategies. Personality and Individual Differences, 15, 619-626.
Saarni, C. (1997). Emotional competence and self-regulation in children. In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds.), emotional development and
emotional intelligence (pp. 35-66). New York: Basic Books.
Saklofske, D. H., Austin, E. J., & Minski, P. (2003). Factor structure and validity of a trait emotional intelligence measure. Personality and
Individual Differences, 34, 707-721.
Saklofske, D. H., Austin, E. J., Galloway, J., & Davidson, K. (2007). Individual difference correlates of health-related behaviours: Preliminary
evidence for links between emotional intelligence and coping. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 491–502.
Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9, 185-211.
Salovey, P., Mayer, J. D., & Caruso, D. (2002). The positive psychology of emotional intelligence. In C. R. Snyder, & S. J. Lopez (Eds.),
handbook of positive psychology (pp. 159-171). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., Hall, L. E., Haggerty, D. J., Cooper, J. T., Golden, C. J., & Dornheim, L. (1998). Development and validation of a
measure of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 167-177.
Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., Thorsteinsson, E. B., Bhullar, N., & Rooke, S. (2007). A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between
emotional intelligence and health. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 921–933.
Song, L. J., huang, G. H., peng, K. Z., law, K. S., wong, C. S., & chen, Z. (2010). The differential effects of general mental ability and emotional
intelligence on academic performance and social interactions. Intelligence, 38, 137-143.
Zeidner, M., & Endler, N. S. (1996). Handbook of coping: theory, research, application. Willey and Son Publisher.
Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., & Roberts, R. (2009). What we know about emotional intelligence. How it affects learning, work, relationships, and
our mental health. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zeidner, M., & shemesh, D. O. (2010). Emotional intelligence and subjective well-being revisited. Personality and Individual Differences, 48,
431-435.
Zins, J., Travis, L., & Freppon, P. (1997). Linking research and educational programming to promote social and emotional learning. In P. Salovey
& D. Sluyter (Eds.), emotional development and emotional intelligence (pp. 257-274). New York: Basic Books.