A study of the relationship between emotional intelligence and stress management in the Irish workforce

1 Acknowledgements The researcher would like to thank all those who participated in this research, and also Anne Davis for her patience and guidance during the study. In addition appreciation is forwarded to Esri Ireland who granted access to a subset of their customers already known to the researcher. 5 2 Abstract In the midst of recession, this paper examines previous research which indicated that perceived stress may be moderated by emotional intelligence (" EI "), the emotional dimensions of the Big Five personality measures (extraversion and emotional stability), and personality hardiness, and whether EI is a construct distinct from personality. Across 81 participants from a multitude of work domains, significant correlations in the expected direction were found between EI and perceived stress, with EI accepted as a unique entity despite strong relationships with the emotional dimensions of personality. The hypothesis that perceived stress is negatively correlated with both personality hardiness and the emotional dimensions of personality was rejected. Therefore EI was found to be predictive of better stress management, with potential impacts discussed. 6 3 Introduction The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between stress and a number of moderators of stress, in particular emotional intelligence (" EI ") but also personality hardiness and personality. Participants were drawn from a convenience sample drawn from organisations accessible to the researcher, with the study conducted in the context of local and global recession. EI was first proposed in the psychological press by Salovey and Mayer (1990) as " the ability to monitor one " s own and others " feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one " s thinking and actions ". The study of stress covers a wide area of research study from health psychology to organisational psychology. Although there is limited research in this area there are indications that stress can be moderated by EI (Cheng-Ping although other studies have indicated that EI does not moderate stress (Matthews et al., 2006). Similarly there is much discussion as to whether EI is a concept distinct from IQ or personality: those who think it is Thijs, and Schakel (2002) positively correlated EI with the 5 personality factors known as the " Big Five " , especially extraversion and emotional stability (essentially emotions being minimally disturbed by the environment, also referred to as levels of neuroticism) but also the remaining personality …