Emotional Intelligence and Personality as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being

Colin James*, Miles Bore, Susanna Zito

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Research studies have reported elevated rates of psychological distress (e.g., depression) in practicing lawyers yet little research has examined predictors of such problems in law students. Specific personality traits have been shown to be predictors of a range of psychological problems. We administered a battery of tests to a cohort of 1st-year law students (n = 150) and measured the Big Five personality traits and emotional intelligence (EI) to examine their relationships to psychological well-being as indicated by coping styles, satisfaction with life, performance-based self-esteem (PBSE), Global Severity Index (GSI) scores from the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), depression, and alcohol use. We found that whereas EI was significantly related to three of the five well-being variables, the Big Five personality factor of neuroticism was found to be a stronger predictor of well-being. The findings suggest that EI does not account for additional variance in well-being over personality.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)425-438
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Psychoeducational Assessment
Volume30
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2012
Externally publishedYes

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