Emotional Intelligence and Social Desirability Among Late Adolescents; A Study Across Gender and Academic Level

Salovey and Mayer defined emotional intelligence as a type of intelligence that allows people to understand and manage emotions. Social desirability is the tendency for people to present themselves in a generally favorable fashion. The goal of this study is to determine the differences and relationship between social desirability and emotional intelligence levels among late adolescents across gender and postgraduate and undergraduate academic levels. The study was conducted on 84 late adolescents aged 18 to 25 who were asked to complete the emotional intelligence scale by Hyde, Pethe, and Dhar and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). Data analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics of as ANOVA and Pearson’s product-moment correlation. The findings suggest that gender and academic level do not play a significant role in determining emotional intelligence or social desirability among late adolescents and also positive correlation between emotional intelligence and social desirability, indicating that individuals who possess higher emotional intelligence are more likely to display socially desirable behaviors.