| Abstract: |
Emotional intelligence (EI) has emerged as a critical determinant of adolescent adjustment, academic achievement, and interpersonal competence, yet its structural association with the Big Five personality traits among senior secondary school students remains underexplored in the Indian context. This empirical study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence and personality traits extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness among 400 senior secondary school students (classes XI and XII) drawn from government and private schools across science, commerce, and arts streams. A standardized Emotional Intelligence Scale and the NEO Five-Factor Personality Inventory were administered, and data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, independent-samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and multiple linear regression. Results reveal that emotional intelligence is significantly and positively correlated with extraversion (r = 0.457), openness (r = 0.334), agreeableness (r = 0.367), and conscientiousness (r = 0.366), and significantly negatively correlated with neuroticism (r = -0.452), all at p < 0.001. Multiple regression analysis indicates that the five personality traits jointly explain 42.9% of the variance in emotional intelligence (R² = 0.429, F = 59.32, p < 0.001), with neuroticism (β = -0.313) and extraversion (β = 0.293) emerging as the strongest predictors. No statistically significant differences were found in EI scores across gender, academic stream, or school type. |
