The Efficacy of Emotional Intelligence Training for the Emotion Regulation of Bullying Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Studies have shown that 80% of people's success relates to skills that are in some way related to emotional intelligence. So, the present study aims to determine the impact of a 5-week emotional intelligence training on regulated negative emotion and perceived empathy among bullying students (n = 40). We randomly assigned participants to an experimental group (n = 20) and a control group (n = 20). Participants in the experimental group received an emotional intelligence training program. Pretest and posttest evaluating regulated negative emotion and perceived empathy were administrated to the experimental and control groups. Although regulated negative emotion and perceived empathy improved over the 5 weeks of the study for participants in the experimental group, the training program evaluated in this randomized controlled trial did not result in a meaningful improvement in regulated negative emotion dimensions and perceived empathy when post training changes are compared between both groups. This finding concludes that an appropriate control group plays an important role in studies evaluating interventions to survey emotional intelligence on the emotion regulation of bullying students.