Does training emotional intelligence make a difference over emotional self-regulation? a quai-experimental trial in secondary school

Abstract

Emotional self-regulation (E-SR) is considered as a core skill for personal and interpersonal wellbeing, especially for current youths’ challenges such as social media, mental health issues, or increasing peer conflicts. Nevertheless, self-regulation is not naturally developed and requires a conscious effort through frequent experiences to be acquired. The present study aims to analyze the effects of a training program in emotional intelligence on secondary education students E-SR and conflicting behavior. To this aim, we used the Service-Learning (SL) methodology with Psychology degree students to apply the content of the INTEMO program (Aranda et al., 2013) based on training emotional skills. The sample consists of 87 students in 8th grade from a secondary center in Salamanca (Spain). To measure the program impact, we assessed emotional skills through the INTEMO program self-reported items and part of the emotional problem-solving situations from the Spanish adaptation of the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2023). Finally, we plan to retrieve the students’ amount of conflict episodes at school. The preliminary results show no differences between groups or across time. Further analysis and more nuanced conclusions will be presented at the conference.

Keywords

• self-regulation
• emotional intelligence
• secondary education