Emotional intelligence moderates the stress-depression link in college students before and during COVID

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated college students’ normative experiences of stress, leading to a mental health crisis. One factor that may protect against the consequences of stress is emotional intelligence (EI), which is associated with a wide range of social, mental health, and academic outcomes. The present study aims to determine whether EI might buffer the effects of life, recent, spillover, and pandemic stress on students’ depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. A secondary aim is to assess whether the hypothesized EI-buffering effect is unique to stress experienced during the pandemic. In 2013, 90 undergraduate students completed measures of EI, recent and life stress, spillover stress, and depression. Another 382 students completed the same survey in 2021, with an additional measure of pandemic stress. Regression analyses investigated the moderating effects of EI on the impact of stress on depression. As hypothesized, EI significantly moderated associations between combined recent and life stress [F(1, 460) = 16.11, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.020], as well as spillover stress [F(1,460) = 6.43, p = 0.012, η2 = 0.008], and depression symptoms for both samples. Also as predicted, EI significantly moderated COVID-related stress and depression symptoms [F(1,373) = 7.44, p = 0.007, η2 = 0.011]. Findings indicate that EI serves as a stress buffer for college students during normatively stressful times as well as during the heightened stress of a global pandemic, although its benefit may differ by type of stress. Future research should explore the possible specificity of EI’s buffering effects on the relationship between different types of stress experienced by college students and depression.