Assessment of Emotional Intelligence and Prosocial Behavior in Youth

This study assessed the emotional intelligence (EI) and prosocial behavior (PSB) in youth. The tools that were employed for the data collection were Helping Attitude Scale (HAS) by Gary S. Nickell (1998), Assessing Emotions Scale (AES) by Nicola Schutte (2009). A total of 100 college students aged from 18 to 25 both through physical method (60%), and through google forms (40%) completed a survey measuring the Emotional Intelligence Scale and Prosocial Tendencies. It was taken care of that 50% of the population was male and the rest 50% was female population to control any extraneous variable that may result when only one gender is investigated. The results showed that there is not much difference between the emotional intelligence of young adult males and females in either of the dimensions of EI, except for in the dimension of managing one’s own emotions, where females scored higher than males. Other than that, a significant difference can be seen in males and females where prosocial behavior is concerned. Females (M=71.26, SD=5.59) are seen to be more prosocial than males (M=69.70, SD=7.42). Out of the four dimensions of emotional intelligence, only managing one’s own emotions (t= 0.407) shows a significant association between the two variables. The rest of the dimensions don’t show any noticeable association of any kind (positive or negative) with prosocial behaviour. Therefore, our results suggested that under the influence of both internal and external factors, there is an indirect effect of EI on PSB. This finding may potentially provide a theoretical basis for designing college students’ mental health courses and cultivating PSB in college.