The Effect of Emotional Intelligence Training on Mental Skills of Athlete Teenagers

Abstract

The aim of the present research was to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence training on mental skills in athlete teenagers. For this purpose, 80 volunteer students (40 boys and 40 girls, mean age of 15±0.53 years) were selected with simple random sampling method and divided into two experimental and control groups. Bradberry and Greaves emotional intelligence questionnaire was used to measure emotional intelligence and Ottawa Mental States Assessment Tool (OMSAT 3) to measure mental skills. Also, the questionnaires used in Iran were reliable and valid. The program of emotional intelligence skill training to teenager athletes lasted 10 sessions. Data were analyzed using consistency of variances, Kolmogorov Smirnov test and independent t test (the mean comparisons of the two groups based on the difference of scores between pretest and posttest) at P<0.05. Results showed a significant difference between posttest means in the two groups in four components of emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management) and mental skills (P˂0.05). Thus, it seems that the training of emotional intelligence skills is one of the important parts of mental preparation that is necessary to achieve optimum athletic performance.

Keywords

• emotional intelligence
• self-awareness
• self-management
• social awareness
• relationship management
• mental skills
• teenager
• athlete