Prediction of Perception of Home environment of Indian Adolescents basic of their Emotional Intelligence

The major objectives of the study were to find out whether adolescents’ perception of 10 dimensions of home environment could be predicted by their emotional intelligence and gender difference, if any, in the said prediction. The sample comprised 600 adolescents (300 girls; 300 boys) aged 12 through 15 years of Kolkata. Area, stratified and multi-stage random sampling were used to select the sample. Standardized tools viz., Home Environment Inventory, Mangal Emotional Intelligence Inventory, Socio-Economic Status Scale were administered for data collection. Multiple Regression Analyses revealed:i) adolescents’ perception of most dimensions of home environment could be significantly predicted by their emotional intelligence ii) gender difference in the said predictions did not emerge.

The term adolescence as we know it today has a broader meaning. It encompasses not only physical maturity but also mental (cognitive), emotional. Adolescence spans from 12 through 19 years of age and is marked by rapid changes (Morgan et al., 1993). With enhancement of cognitive abilities in adolescence, the perception of parents, parenting behaviors and home/family environments of adolescents become clearer, mature and more nuanced (Youniss and Smollar, 1985). Such perceptions of adolescents are also associated closely with their socioemotional development (Hurlock, 2007). The aspects of emotional intelligence viz., accurate perception and expression of emotions, ability to access and generate emotions; understanding emotions and emotional meanings; emotional regulation (Mayer and Salovey, 1997;Mayer et al., 2000) generally show remarkable improvement during adolescence (Hurlock, 2007). Just as adolescents show individual differences in emotional intelligence so does their accuracy of perception of home (family) environment.
Onset of adolescence marks the emergence of more insightful perception of home (family) contexts (Youniss and Smollar, 1985). Although the importance of peers increases in adolescence parents continue to remain significant people in adolescents' lives (Mussen et al., 1990). Thus clearer perception of home environment virtually means more accurate perception of parents in adolescence.
to say emotional intelligence both defines adolescents' own development and maturity and also adolescents' relationships with others (Akkoc, 2007).
Emotional Intelligence is the measurement of four areas namely intra-personal awareness, inter-personal awareness, intra-personal management and inter-personal management among Hindi & English knowing 16+ years age of school, college and university students ).
In the present context, however, the definition put forward by Mangal and Mangal (2009) regarding emotional intelligence will be adhered to.

Researches on the Relation between Perception of Home Environment and Emotional
Intelligence in Adolescence: Singh (1982) studied the causes of children's behavior disorder and found that the affected children present no clinical neurological signs but unfavorable home, school and social environment precipitate the aggressive behavior mainly by the way of loss of temper. Aremu et al. (2004) carried out a study on a sample of 500 senior secondary Nigerian school students aged 14 to 18 years and found that both emotional intelligence and parental involvement(as perceived by the students) could together predict their academic achievement. However, Weinstein et al. (2006) conducted an investigation on samples of high schoolers (8 th -9 th grade, N=268 and 10 th -11 th grade, N=240) and did not find significant impact of family support on positive and negative moods. Sharma and Vaid (2005) found in a study on a sample of 100 adolescents' that parental approval does not correlate highly with emotional maturity or self-actualization of the adolescents.

Researches on Prediction of Perception of Home Environment of Adolescents based on their Emotional Intelligence:
Researches on the prediction of adolescents' perception of family (home) environment on the basic of their emotional intelligence are scarce. Perceived family environment has frequently been considered as a predictor (e.g., Hauser et al., 1985; Matherne and Thomas, 2001; and Mohanraj and Latha, 2005). In a few investigations (e.g., Murch and Cohen, 1989) it has emerged as a moderator variable. Only some studies (e.g., Brinson, 1992; and Lubenko and Sebre, 2010) have treated the perception of family environment as dependent variable. So it is obvious that more investigations on the predictions of perception of family environment especially of adolescents are required.
Gender difference has frequently emerged in the relationships among perceived home environment, emotional intelligence. Colarossi and Eccles (2000) found supportive relations between parents influenced adolescent girls' self-esteem and depression; perceived parental support impacted girls' peer support. For boys parents' spousal relationships influenced their depression which impacted perceived peer support. Thus predictive models for the genders differed. that girls reported more positive self-images than boys; favorable self-images were associated with secure ratings of parental attachment.

Stewart et al. (2000)
found that in Bangladesh, parenting was warm for girls and dominating/controlling for boys. Girls' (but not boys) perceptions of parents predicted academic achievement and were mediated by self-esteem. This is because perception of family (home) environment is important in the familial adjustment of adolescents. Distorted perceptions seem to be the roots of frequent conflicts between adolescents and their families. The nature of such perceptions can not be completely explained on the bases of cognitive factors. Emotional factors seem to substantially influence the perception of family environment. Therefore, to what extent emotional intelligence of adolescents account for the perception of their family (home) environment needs to be investigated. Such a study is crucial in the Indian milieu where researches on the perception of family environment are limited in number. If indeed emotional intelligence of adolescents is found to predict their perception of family environment then training programmes to develop these attributes of adolescents would be beneficial in improving the quality of their perception of family (home) environment. It may in turn help improve the family relations of adolescents.

OBJECTIVES: TO FIND OUT WHETHER ADOLESCENTS'
i. Perceptions of dimensions of home environment, emotional intelligence influenced by gender. ii.
Whether adolescents' perception of dimensions of home environment can be predicted by their emotional intelligence. iii.
The gender difference, if any, in predictions of perceptions of dimensions of home environment of adolescents on the basic of their emotional intelligence.

HYPOTHESES:
i. There is influence of gender on perceptions of dimensions of home environment, emotional intelligence of adolescents. ii. Perceptions of dimensions of home environment of adolescents can be predicted by their emotional intelligence. iii. There is gender difference in prediction of perceptions of home environment of adolescents on the basic of their emotional intelligence.

SAMPLE SELECTION AND COMPOSITION:
i. Stratified random sampling technique was used for sample selection. The strata are based on gender. Lottery technique was used for selection of individuals.
ii. Size of the sample is 600. The sample includes equal numbers of early adolescents (12 to 15 years) girls and boys i.e. 300 each. iii. The sample comprises of girls and boys studying in reputed English medium schools of Kolkata. iv.
The subjects belong to middle socio-economic status, urban and nuclear families. v. Approximately equal numbers of subjects are selected for inclusion in each stratum from different parts of Kolkata-east, west, north, south and central.

Design of the Study:
The study would be Co-relational Procedure of Analysis of the Data: After scoring the standardized tests, the raw scores were obtained. For this, the procedures prescribed in the manuals of the tests were adhered to. However the authors' norms were not consulted in any case. The raw scores of all the subjects were tabulated. Then the computerized statistical analysis of the tabulated data was conducted. For computation of means, S.D., One-Way Analysis of variance and Multiple Regression Analysis, SPSS 16 was used on Windows XP.
First the mean and S.D. values were calculated. The mean and S.D. value were found out not only for the entire sample (N=600) but also separately for the two gender-groups with respect to the three variables under study viz., perceptions of dimensions of environment, emotional intelligence. Then One-Way ANOVA was conducted to study the effects of gender on the above mentioned variables for the entire sample.
After that this was followed by Multiple Regression Analyses which were conducted in order to find out whether the subjects scores on the dependent variable i.e. perceptions of dimensions of home environment could be predicted on the basic of their scores on the predictor i.e. , emotional intelligence. Again, the Multiple Regression Analyses were carried out not only for the entire sample but also for each of the two gender-groups. Finally, Multiple Regression Analyses were conducted for the entire sample with the variable of gender being included as a predictor along with emotional intelligence. This was done to find out whether gender influenced the predictions of perceptions of dimensions of home environment of sampled adolescents basic on their emotional intelligence.

PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION:
An appropriate topic was selected for the present research work. The purpose of the study was decided upon after carrying out the review of the literature. The objectives of the study were clarified and hypotheses were formulated. Specific schools and persons were contacted, their permission sought and obtained for data collection. A sample of 600 subjects (300 girls and 300 boys) aged 12 to 15 years belonging to middle socioeconomic status families were selected. The technique of stratified random sampling was followed. three standardized tools were used for data collection. Among these the socioeconomic status scale was used for assessment of socioeconomic status of subjects for the purpose of control. Data were collected from about 25 to 30 students in groups. The venues of data collection were schools. After data collection and scoring, Mean, S.D. and Correlation coefficients were calculated. One-Way ANOVA and Multiple Regression Analysis were conducted. SPSS 16 was used. The obtained results were discussed taking into account the outcomes of the previous studies and conclusions were drawn based on findings.   Table 1) it seems that these values do not differ much for the two genders as well as the pooled sample. The S.D. values show moderate homogeneity of variance. It indicates that intra group variability is not high.

Fig. 3 Partition of Total Variance: Effect of Gender on Perceived Punishment
All the F values (Table 2) are non-significant at .05 level of significance except that for punishment (a dimension of perceived home environment). So it seems that the sampled boys and girls differ somewhat in the perception of extent of being punished by parents. Boys' mean value for punishment appears to be slightly more than that of girls (Table 1). This may because boys tend to perceive being punished more often than girls who are socialized to be less assertive. However, overall, the 1 st hypothesis is rejected. The influences of gender on perceptions of dimensions of home environment, emotional intelligence of adolescents have been found to be largely non-significant. This may be because the sampled adolescents belonged to urban, middle socio-economic status families where gender-differentiated socialization is generally not pronounced. However, since significant influence of gender has been reported for the dimension of punishment so the correlations and regressions will be computed separately for the gender-groups.  Results of multiple regression analyses with emotional intelligence of adolescents as predictor and the separate dimensions of home environment as dependent variables for the entire sample are presented in Table 3. It shows that except for the dimensions of social isolation and deprivation of privilege, the adolescents' scores in the other dimensions viz., control, protectiveness, punishment, conformity, reward, nurturance, rejection and permissiveness can be significantly be predicted by the predictor-emotional intelligence. This is evident from the significant F values. The 2 nd hypothesis is accepted for the entire sample except for the dimensions of social isolation and deprivation of privileges. However the R 2 values are low. The highest R 2 value reported is for conformity. It is 0.07 indicating that only 7% of the variance in adolescents' scores on perceived parental expectation for conformity can be accounted for by adolescents' emotional intelligence.   Table 4 reveals that(except for the dimensions of punishment, reward, nurturance, rejection and permissiveness) girls' scores in the other dimensions viz., control, protectiveness, conformity, social isolation and deprivation of privileges can be significantly predicted by the predictoremotional intelligence of girls. This is apparent from the significant F values for these dimensions. So the 2 nd hypothesis is accepted for the dimension of control, protectiveness, conformity, social isolation and deprivation of privileges of the girls. But the R 2 values are low. Highest R 2 values are reported for protectiveness and conformity. These are 0.05 showing that only 5% of variance in girls' perception of parental protectiveness and expectation of conformity can be explained on the bases of girls' emotional intelligence scores.  Table 5 shows that(except for the dimension of social isolation, deprivation of privileges and rejection ) boys' scores in the other dimensions viz., control, protectiveness, punishment, conformity, reward, nurturance and permissiveness can be significantly predicted by their scores on the predictor-emotional intelligence. This is clear from the significant F values for these dimensions. Thus the 2 nd hypothesis is accepted for the dimensions of control, protectiveness, punishment, conformity, reward, nurturance and permissiveness of the boys. However, R 2 values are low. The highest R 2 value has been reported for reward. It is 0.13 indicating that only 13% of variance in boys' perception of rewards from parents can be accounted for by the boys' scores on emotional intelligence.

Sum of Squares
Results (Tables 3 to 5) have largely revealed significant predictions of dimensions of home environment as perceived by adolescents.
In view of the small contributions of emotional intelligence of sampled adolescents to the predictions of adolescents' scores on the dimensions of home environment, it seems that inclusion of other relevant variables could enhance the magnitude of the predictions.  Table 6 presents the results of multiple regression analyses for the entire sample with gender being included as a predictor alongside emotional intelligence. This was done to test the significance of gender difference in predictions of perceptions of dimensions of home environment of adolescents based on their emotional intelligence. Comparison of Table 3 & 6 showed that inclusion of gender as a predictor (Table 6) did not increase the magnitude of the R 2 and F values in comparison to those reported in Table 3 where the predictors were emotional intelligence. Gender did not feature as a predictor in Table 3. In fact comparison of R 2 and F values reported for corresponding dependent variables in Table 3 & 6 reveal that the magnitudes of these values have actually decreased in several cases. Like Table 3, Table 6 also reports nonsignificant F values only for the dimensions of social isolation and deprivation of privileges. Thus the pattern of results is similar for Table 3 & 6. Moreover, inclusion of gender has actually diminished the predictions. This is corroborated by the comparison of Tables 4 & 5 where the results of predictions for the gender-groups are separately presented. The overviews of predictions are not radically different for the two groups. So the 3 rd hypothesis regarding gender difference in predictions of perceptions of dimensions of home environment of adolescents based on their emotional intelligence is rejected. This may be because the sampled adolescents belonged to urban, middle socio-economic status families and studied in reputed schools where egalitarian socialization (with respect to gender) is practised as far as possible.

CONCLUSION:
The findings of the research have indicated that gender of the participating young adolescents do not play significant roles in the perceptions of dimensions of their home environment viz., control, protectiveness, conformity, social isolation, reward, deprivation of privileges, nurturance, rejection and permissiveness. This means that these adolescents do not differ by gender in the extent of their perceived parental control over them; parents' safeguarding them; parents' isolating them from beloved persons as punitive measure; parents' rewarding of "good" behaviour; withholding affection and care by parents for disciplining them (adolescents) ; strong physical and emotional bond between parents and offspring; parents' denial of autonomy to the adolescents ; and parents' allowing of freedom to the offspring. This may be a reflection of the largely non-gendered socialization practiced in urban, educated middle socio-economic status families to which the sampled adolescents belong and reputed English-medium schools in which these adolescents study. So it appears that the participating adolescents view their home environment (in terms of the dimensions of experienced control, protectiveness, conformity, social isolation, reward, deprivation of privileges, nurturance, rejection and permissiveness) similarly across the gender divide. There may be inter-individual differences within each gendergroup. But the differences between the two gender-groups in respect of the perceptions of these dimensions of home environment are not much.
The results reveal that adolescents' perception of home environment can be significantly predicted by their emotional intelligence scores. It has been also found that the said prediction does not differ by gender. Thus it is suggested that the emotional development of boys and girls be fostered in similar ways right from infancy so that their perception of home environment remains free from distortions.
Finally, it appears that holistic development of young people is of paramount importance in a country like India where a large proportion of the populations i.e., 41.1% are below 18 years of age. Early adolescents comprise roughly 12.1% of the population in India (Census of India, 2001). In comparison with cognitive development, emotional development of young people lack emphasis in today's achievement-driven society. The present study has however highlighted the pivotal role played by emotional intelligence in the nature of perception of home environment of early adolescents. It advocates proper development of emotional intelligence of early adolescents for accurate perception of home environment and better parent-adolescent relations.