Psychology and its Contexts (Nov 2016)
Emotional intelligence and prosocial behaviour in dispositional paradigm
Abstract
This study briefly refers to the basic theoretical aspects of emotional intelligence and pro-social behaviour. It focuses on the description of the concept of emotional intelligence elaborate by K. V. Petrides, and on the concept of prosocial personality proposed by L. A. Penner. With particular differences, the empirical research mentioned in this study is a replication of the study carried out by Indian authors L. K. Jena, P. Bhattacharya, L. Hati, D. Ghosh and M. Panda in 2014. The aim of this study is to verify, whether there are significant positive connections and valid causal relations between trait emotional intelligence and prosocial personality and its facets. In contrast to the full versions of psychology diagnostic methods used in the original study, its short versions were applied in this study. Unlike with the group of Engineering students in Indian study, the test of 30-items Prosocial personality and the Questionnaire of 30-items Trait Emotional Intelligence for Adolescents and Adults were used with the group of Czech students of Psychology of Faculty of Arts at University of Ostrava (N = 116). The research findings suggest many similar links between the trait dimensions of emotional intelligence and the dispositional dimensions of prosocial personality in both the original and the national study. The national study has proved that not only students of Engineering tend to have higher level of prosocial personality, but also do the psychology students with higher level of trait emotional intelligence tend to have it. In addition it was found in the national study that the level of trait emotional intelligence significantly predicts both factors of prosocial personality, i. e. empathy focused on others and charity. These preliminary findings are necessary to validate by further methodical research into both representative samples of respondents and other specific samples of respondents, e.g. helping professions.
