A research exploration of the relationship between personality dimensions and emotional intelligence of international medical students of Malaysia

In the present day medical world it is very much essential to research and understand the personality dimensions and its relationship with Emotional Intelligence. This study will try to explore and identify the personality dimensions which are essential for the medical professionals during the early medical school years and understand the significance of emotional intelligence in relation with personality dimensions. Personality is a sum total of emotions. A particular interest here is to find the correlation between emotional intelligence and its aspects with the personality factors of extroversion and neuroticism. It is widely recognized that emotional intelligence is a key determent in development of personality. In the present research Emotional Intelligence and personality dimensions of extroversion and neuroticism of second year medical students of academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 are included from USM-KLE (Universiti Sains Malaysia- Karnataka Lingayat Education) International Medical Programme Belagavi, Karnataka, India. The total sample for the study includes 130 second year medical students. The main objective of the research is to find out which of the personality dimension has a greater correlation with Emotional Intelligence. Further it has been hypothesises that neuroticism significantly has negative correlation with Emotional Intelligence. And secondly it is hypothesised that, Extroversion significantly has positive correlation with Emotional Intelligence. The statistical analysis reveals that there is positive correlation (0.037) between extroversion personality dimension of personality and Emotional Intelligence and negative correlation (-0.33) between personality dimension of neuroticism and Emotional Intelligence. The implication of the study was to develop an understanding of significance of emotional intelligence and its vital relationship with the two dimensions extroversion and neuroticism personality traits so that it will be helpful to plan out various intervention strategies for students having problems in managing emotions (breathing exercises and meditation etc).