Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Social Support among Service Sector Employees

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to determine whether perceived social support affects Emotional Intelligence. The hypothesis that is intended to be proven here is that Emotional Intelligence can be used to measure mental wellness in individuals. Emotional intelligence is said to have two main dimensions that is one of personal competence and the other that of social competence. Perceived social support has been accepted as support from family, friends, and significant others. Emotional Intelligence is important because it helps individuals regulate the overflow of emotional energy welling within oneself and helps others around them cope with those overflowing emotions; hence, this study is perceived as beneficial. This study targets the service sector employees as the sector faces a diverse variety of challenges emanating from the global pandemic. 536 responses were taken, and PLS-SEM was used and applied to analyze and test out the hypotheses. The results showed that social support affects both personal and social competencies. However, in the final analysis, perceived social support turned out to have a stronger influence on personal competency. Keywords: emotional intelligence; social support; personal competence; social competence; service sector eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI8.3914