Do Trait Emotional Intelligence and Dispositional Mindfulness Have a Complementary Effect on the Children's and Adolescents' Emotional States?

Jose M Mestre,Maria García-Gómez,Joan Guerra,Gabriel G De La Torre,Victor M Lopez-Ramos,Jorge Turanzas,Jose R Cordon

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02817

Abstract

Mindfulness is both a non-judgmental and present-centered awareness, which has been applied to reduce negative emotions. On the other hand, Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) is the way of how good people perceive their emotional intelligence abilities (perceiving, expressing, understanding, and regulating emotions), which are involved in people’s social functioning. This empirical study was designed to analyze whether dispositional mindfulness (DM) and TEI have a potential combined role for children and adolescent’s emotional states. In a sample of primary school students (N = 318), age ranged from 8 to 16 years old (M = 11.25, SD = 2.20), participants filled a TEI measure (ESCQ, Emotional skills and competence questionnaire) and two measures of DM (CAMM, Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure and AFQ-Y, Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth). Measures selected included: PANAS (Positive affect and negative affect schedule), White Bear Suppression Inventory (a thought suppression inventory), and STAIC (State-Trait Anxiety for Children). Findings pointed out that TEI measures (labeling and expression, understanding, and managing emotions) were positively and significantly related to positive emotional states (especially, positive affect and balance) and negatively with a lower association with state anxiety. However, DM measures were both negatively and strongly associated with negative emotional states (thought suppression, negative affect, and anxiety). Conclusions indicate that a combined effect of both TEI skills and DM based interventions would be more complete than each one separately for better social functioning of children and teenagers.

Highlights

The mental and emotional health of both primary and secondary students is a growing concern
Our main purpose was to study potential significant relations that both Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) and the dispositional mindfulness (DM) may have with diverse criteria of the affective sphere, anxiety, psychological inflexibility, and suppression and intrusion of thoughts
As it was noted earlier, we expected that TEI were more related to positive affect rather than with negative affect and suppression and intrusion of thoughts

Summary

Introduction

The mental and emotional health of both primary and secondary students is a growing concern. There is a relationship between the low-level adaptive-emotional states and serious outcomes regarding both academic (Jayalakshmi and Magdalin, 2015; Frajo-Apor et al, 2016) and social adaptation to school (Mestre et al, 2006). When a person reaches adolescence, social-emotional development begins to have an important impact with several relevant outcomes in their lives. This may have an effect on having an adequate social identity (Van Tilburg and Igou, 2011), good social functioning with peers (Lopes et al, 2012), better possibilities of school adaptation (Nathanson et al, 2016), and better mental health and well-being (Afzal et al, 2016). According to the accumulated empirical evidence, two factors seem to have positive impacts on the emotional states at the beginning of adolescence: emotional intelligence (f. i., Mavroveli et al, 2008; Laborde et al, 2014; Perera, 2016) and dispositional mindfulness (f. i., Cullen, 2011; Hinterman et al, 2012; MacBeth and Gumley, 2012)

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Results

Conclusion