Emotional Intelligence and Self-Perception in Adolescents

Emotional intelligence includes self-perception regarding attention to feelings, clarity of feelings and mood repair. The aim of this work is to study the relationship between emotional intelligence, self-concept, and self-esteem. The sample included 137 adolescents from Buenos Aires City, that attended middle school, with a mean age of 13.12 years old (SD = 1.79). Correlation analysis and linear regression analysis were performed. Results showed significant positive correlations between self-esteem and clarity of feelings on the complete sample and the female subsample, and between mood repair and self-esteem on the male subsample. The linear regression analyses showed results on the same line. It´s concluded that positive self-evaluation regarding emotions, emotion comprehension and recovery can minimize the effect of negative experiences.

The aim of the present study is to study the relationship between emotional intelligence with self-concept and self-esteem in adolescents. On the other hand, it is sought to explore if any of the aspects of emotional intelligence has a predictive effect on global self-worth, that is, self-esteem. In addition, it is proposed to explore if there are differences in the relationship of emotional intelligence and self-esteem in both genders.

Method Participants
The sample consisted of 399 adolescents (263 women -69.9%-and 136 males -34.1%-), with a mean age of 15.16 years (SD = 1.79), attending a high school in Buenos Aires City, Argentina. The subjects participated with the informed consent of their parents and were assured anonymity of the participation and the confidentiality of the information.

Procedure
The administration of the instruments was done in a single session during class hours. All the instruments were delivered in closed envelope and once the instruments were completed, returned to the evaluators also in a sealed envelope.
Teachers or staff of the educational institution were prevented from attending during the administration.

Materials Trait Meta-Mood Scale
Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Calero, 2013) assesses the perceived emotional intelligence through three dimensions: attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, and mood repair. The scale incudes 21 items (seven of each dimension), with five response options (from "totally agree" to "totally disagree"). A score of each of the components of perceived emotional intelligence is obtained from the sum of each item responses. Higher scores reflect higher rates of perceived emotional intelligence. The scale shows adequate reliability indexes by internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha): .81 (attention to feelings), .86 (clarity of feelings), and .85 (mood repair). Likewise, adequate indicators of validity were found (see Calero, 2013).

Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents
Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA, Harter, 1988;Adaptation: Facio et al., 2006) is a scale that evaluates global self-esteem and self-concept across different specific domains. It consists of eight subscales of five items each (physical appearance, romantic appeal, close friendship, social competence, behavioral conduct, scholastic competence, athletic competence, and global self-worth or self-esteem). Physical appearance assesses to what extent the adolescent is satisfied with his or her appearance; romantic appeal assesses the Emotional Intelligence During Adolescence 634 extent to which the adolescent is considered attractive to people with whom he would be interested in having a love relationship; close friendship assesses the perception of your ability to make close friends; social competence evaluates to what extent the adolescent feels accepted by his peers; behavioral conduct assesses to what extent you are satisfied with your behavior, you believe you are doing the right thing and you avoid getting into trouble; scholastic competence evaluates how adolescents perceive their academic ability; athletic competence evaluates how the adolescent perceives his ability in sports; job competence, evaluates how the adolescent perceives himself in his ability to carry out a job; and global self-worth assesses the extent to which the adolescent likes his or her person, is happy with how he/she lives and how he/she is. It is a global value judgment. In each item, there are two contrary statements and the adolescent must choose one and then establish the degree of agreement with the chosen option. The scores of the items are summed and a score is obtained in each domain evaluated, the higher scores reflect a better self-perception.  Facio et al., 2006).

Data Analysis
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicates that distribution values deviate significantly from the theoretical percentiles of an asymptotic normal distribution (see Table 1). For this reason, it was decided to use statistics that have as reference non-normal parameters. To carry out the correlation analysis between the perceived emotional intelligence and the levels of self-concept and self-esteem, Spearman's Rho test was used. To evaluate the predictive power of emotional intelligence factors (attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, mood repair) on self-esteem a multiple linear regression was performed with the method of least squares estimation, having previously checked the assumptions of normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and independence of residues. First, a correlation analysis between the components of emotional intelligence and self-perception will be carried out. Then a linear regression analysis will be conducted in order to analyze the predictive power of emotional intelligence factors on self-esteem.
The regression analysis in females showed that the model tested was also significant [F(3, 259) = 16.98, p < .01, R2 = .15]. When analyzing the effects of each of the predictor variables, it is observed that clarity of feelings (β = .20) and mood repair (β = .21) had a significant effect on self-esteem. Finally, the regression analysis in the male group equally showed that the model tested was significant [F(3, 132) = 16.98, p < .01, R2 = .13]. When analyzing the effects of each of the predictor variables, clarity of feelings (β = .13) and mood repair (β = .20) showed a significant effect on self-esteem (see Table 3).

Discussion
The aim of this work was to study the relationship between perceived emotional intelligence and self-concept and self-esteem in adolescents. Furthermore, by considering the supramodal level that the self-esteem has on the domains of self-concept, we studied if any of the factors of emotional intelligence had a predictive effect on self-esteem. To this end, we performed a correlation analysis finding significant positive relationships between the aspects of emotional intelligence and the components of self-esteem, and the domains of self-concept.
Then, through a linear regression analysis, we observed that clarity of feelings and mood repair predicted the functioning of self-esteem in the general sample, as well as in women and in men.
The findings showed that the clarity of feelings and mood repair associate to self-esteem and various domains of self-concept, while attention to feelings was only associated with close friendship. These results appear to be in line with the findings in previous works. On the one hand, several studies found relationships between levels of clarity of feelings and mood repair, and variables associated with personal well-being (Fernández-Berrocal, Palomera et al., 2011;Rey, Extremera, & Pena, 2011;Salguero et al., 2011). On the other hand, in the case of attention to feelings, the findings of the previous research are not univocal (Extremera, Durán, & Rey, 2007), and even this factor had an association with poor psychological adjustment indexes . The positive relationship found in this study between attention to feelings and the close friendship domain of self-concept could be since adolescents who are more attentive to their emotions also attend the other's emotions. This allows an increase in the perception about the intimacy of relationships, which may lead to positive evaluation in the close friendship domain. Following this line, Salovey, Stroud, Woolery, and Epel (2002) found that attention to feelings positively correlated with greater empathy.
In addition, the relationships found between clarity of feelings and mood repair with self-concept domains linked to social relations (social competence and close friendship) are like those found in previous research where positive emotional intelligence had an association with different social abilities (Jiménez & López-Zafra, 2011;Salguero et al., 2011). Moreover, people who are emotionally intelligent are also more able to extrapolate their perception, understanding and managing skills to other's emotions, which would lead to more satisfying interpersonal relationships (Extremera & Fernández-Berrocal, 2004). Since we cannot establish the directionality of the relationship from a correlation analysis, two possible interpretations arise: that the adolescents' perception of having higher levels of mood repair and clarity of feelings allows them to have a good self-perception in social nature domains of self-concept, thanks to the transfer of these skills to their performance in social relations, Calero,Barreyro, or, considering the fact that is the perception of their emotional intelligence is what is under evaluation, that a good self-perception in social domains could affect the perception of higher levels of clarity of feelings and mood repair.
Regarding the observed relationships between mood repair and behavioral conduct in the total sample and in the group of males, we hypothesize that adolescents who perceived themselves with more capacity to regulate their states of mind can have a better adjustment to the image of a balanced teenager who does not let himself be dragged by his negative moods. That is to say, if they fit the stereotype of a more emotionally stable adolescent, so does self-perception in relation to one's own behavior. Perhaps is due to gender differentiation that this relationship does appear in the group of women since they have a greater social license to show negative feelings.
In the group of males, we found that those who perceived themselves with better mood repair also had a better self-concept in the scholastic competence domain. Perhaps this is a result of the fact that their negative moods do not interfere with their performance as presented by Otero Martínez et al. (2009), although it would be necessary to investigate if there is also an association between the scores obtained and the reported level of mood repair to confirm this assumption.
The same interpretation could be valid for the relationship between clarity of feelings and athletic competence, which indicates that adolescents that perceived themselves with greater ability to catalog their emotions also reported a greater sports self-concept. That is, having a self-perception of a better ability to identify emotions may allow them to dedicate a greater share of attention focused on sports activity without having to focus on breaking down their emotions, which reflects in a better self-perception in this domain. The fact that adolescents who have a clearer self-perception in identifying emotions and a greater ability to repair negative moods report higher self-esteem may be since the positive self-assessment of clarity and regulation of emotions allows them to minimize the effect of negative experiences (Schutte et al., 2002). According to Schutte et al. (2002), people with greater emotional intelligence will be able to face in a more adaptive way the negative events that provoke negative affections that could affect their value as a person.
Both the ability that adolescents perceive to have to catalog their emotions and the ability to repair their moods is related to central constructs during this life cycle for positive development. The positive relationships found to support the importance of emotional education, understanding that it would respond to social-emotional needs that are not being addressed in formal education (Bisquerra Alzina, 2003).
This work is not exempt from limitations, the sample corresponds to a population of adolescents from the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. Is necessary to expand the population to increase the external validity of research. Finally, although the instruments are adapted for the local adolescent population, in particular the SPPA presents some items that would not work as expected, affecting the Alphas of some of the domains that make up the instrument.
Likewise, the possibility of analyzing the relationship between self-perception and measures that assess emotional intelligence along with measures of psychosocial adjustment would expand the conclusions found in the present work.