Interaction between Trait Emotional Intelligence, Age and Gender - Lab Report Example

INTERACTION BETWEEN TRAIT EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, AGE AND GENDER: A REPORT OF THE FINDINGS By Presented to The study aimed at establishing whether gender and age have significant effect on the emotional intelligence of individuals. In addition, the key research aim was established as seeking whether the interaction between gender and age could have significant effect on emotional intelligence. 17 males and 23 females were selected from a group of scholars to take part in the survey. The results showed that females performed poorer than males, while participants beyond the age of 35 had predominantly higher scores than those between 18 and 35 years. The interaction between age and gender did not have significant effect on the participants’ emotional intelligence scores. Due to the contradicting nature of results, further division of participants into more cohesive, smaller age groups is recommended. Introduction Emotional intelligence is the ability to check own and other people’s emotions, identify an emotion as it props and use one’s own strength to guide thinking and behaviour patterns under different situations (Hosseini and Rao, 2013). Studies show that it is a combination of both cognitive ability and an aspect of personality. In support of this view, Shipley, Jackson and Segrest (2010) noted that individuals with higher emotional intelligence have better approach to many social issues, are more perseverant, and make better managerial decisions. The personality perspective to the definition is established through the notion that certain individuals cannot get as good as others in controlling their emotions, while the ability perspective emerges from the notion that individuals’ emotional intelligence becomes better as they age (Petrides and Furnham, 2006; Shipley, Jackson and Segrest, 2010). In establishing the place of age as a determinant of emotional intelligence, Mavroveli, Petrides, Rieffe and Bakker (2007) sought to use a youthful sample to relate the variable to peer-rated social competence and psychological well-being. The results cemented the place of emotional intelligence as a measure of psychological well-being. In essence, age remains one of the few factors that can hardly be isolated from the studies on varying levels of emotional intelligence. Shipley, Jackson and Segrest (2010) found that age and work experience are highly correlated, implying that emotional intelligence firms up with more exposure to work experience. Gender also takes centre stage in the study on varying levels of emotional intelligence. Sanchez-Nunez, Fernandez-Berrocal, Montanes and Latorre (2008) argued in favour of the assertion that females have higher emotional intelligence than men, further opening a gallery of criticism on this notion from later articles, such as Hosseini and Rao (2013) and Ahmetoglu, Leutner and Chamorro-Premuzic (2011) whose findings and approach encouraged caution to the perception. Several studies have gone beyond the common comparison of males and females in terms of their emotional intelligence to focus on how these two factors can moderate more advanced relationships. For instance, Noor-Azniza, Malek, Ibrahim and Farid (2011) sought to find the moderating effect of age and gender on the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic intelligence. The study highlights the growing importance of emotional intelligence as a measure of psychological strength to handle complex situations. However, there is little research on the effect of the interaction between age and gender on emotional intelligence. In remarking the importance to focus more on this topic, Hosseini and Rao noted that the interaction term of the relationship is likely to follow a pattern different from that observed of the parent variables. Emotional intelligence is basically measured using several of its components, including those established under the TEIQue scale. The scale measures various facets of the trait, including emotional expression, assertiveness, emotional management, optimism, adaptability, and emotional perception, among others (Ahmetoglu, Leutner and Chamorro-Premuzic, 2011). The present research sought to answer three questions: 1) Are there gender differences in the way individuals express emotional intelligence? 2) Are there age differences in the way individuals express emotional intelligence? And finally, 3) Does the interaction between gender and age result in significant effect on the emotional intelligence of individuals? Consequently, three research hypotheses were developed in line with the stated research questions. H1: Gender does not affect the emotional intelligence scores for participants. H2: Age does not affect the emotional intelligence scores for participants. H3: The interaction between age and gender does not significantly affect the emotional intelligence of participants. Method Design Method Quantitative techniques were used to collect and analyse the data. The selection of participants was done on a random basis. The data collected included demographic, non-identifying data, including age and gender. The analysis sought to establish whether significant differences existed based on these two aspects. The 26 items of the TEIQue scale used were averaged to obtain an overall score for each participant. A test of reliability of the data was carried out, followed by descriptive and inferential (univariate analysis) analysis. Design The study design employed for the research is analytic. The participants filled data regarding themselves on the TEIQue scale. The data was used to get the average scale responses for the participants. Participants The sample comprised 40 participants drawn from the university population. Each of the participants was required to be at least 18 years of age. Materials The materials used for the study included the printed questionnaire forms that were used to collect data from the participants. The data was fed into the SPSS software for computation of the various statistics of interest. Procedure and Ethics Each participant was issued with an ethics’ form to sign, which showed that they had read and understood the instructions and provisions of the questionnaire. The participants were instructed to desist from providing personal information to the interviewer. This included information on their addresses and names, including those of their relatives. Similarly, the data was to be filled based on the participants and not other persons. The channel of returning the forms was communicated at the time the forms were issued. Once the forms were returned, the participants could not withdraw their data. Results Each of the 26 items of trait emotional intelligence were tested for reliability using the Cronbach’s alpha. Technically, any items that fail to meet the 0.7 threshold are considered unreliable or of low level of reliability. All items met this threshold, with the item recording the lowest level of reliability scoring 0.854 on this scale. Due to the noted high levels of alpha, the items were considered to have high reliability/ consistency. The sample comprised 17 males and 23 females. 24 of the participants were between 18 and 35 years, while 16 were over 35 years. Out of the 17 male participants, the 11 who were between 18 and 35 years had an average emotional intelligence score of 5.15 (std. dev. = 0.693) while the 6 above 35 years had a higher average score of 5.43 (std. dev. = 0.680). The average total scores for males were slightly higher (5.25, std. dev. = 0.681) than those of the female participants (mean = 5.02, std. dev. = 0.746). The 13 females aged between 18 and 35 years scored an average 4.82 (std. dev. = 0.770) on emotional intelligence, while the 10 above 35 years of age scored an average 5.28 (std. dev. = 6.580). Notably, the average scores for males were higher under both age categories, which occasioned the males’ higher average rating. Based on a combined score for both males and females, participants aged between 18 and 35 years scored lower (mean = 4.97, std. dev. = 0.739) than those beyond 35 years (mean = 5.34, std. dev. = 0.719). From these results, it is clear that persons aged between 18 and 35 years performed poorer on average than those beyond 35 years, irrespective of their gender. The plot of the interaction between age and gender showed a distant tendency for the two lines representing each variable to cross at some point. The lines were not parallel to each other. As a result, it was deduced that the two variables had an interaction effect. To further confirm the hypotheses, the variables were checked against their respective levels of significance against the default 0.05 level. The first hypothesis was denoted as follows: H0: Gender does not affect the emotional intelligence scores for participants, against: H1: Gender significantly affects the emotional intelligence scores for participants. From the table of between subjects’ effects, gender did not significantly impact the intelligence scores (F = 1.004, p = 0.323). The null hypothesis was not rejected. That implies that the inter-gender differences in average emotional intelligence scores were not statistically significant. Despite scoring slightly higher across the two age groups, males’ scores were not statistically different from those of females. The second hypothesis was denoted as indicated below: H0: Age does not significantly affect the emotional intelligence scores for participants, against: H1: Age significantly affects the emotional intelligence scores for participants. Just like gender, age did not significantly affect the emotional intelligence scores (F = 2.541, p = 0.120). Again, the null hypothesis was not rejected. Despite the observed higher average scores for participants beyond 35 years, their emotional intelligence was not statistically different from that of those between 18 and 35 years. Finally, the two variables, gender and age, were tested for interaction. The third hypothesis was noted as: H0: There is no significant interaction between age and gender. H1: There is significant interaction between age and gender. Based on the results, the interaction between age and gender did not significantly impact emotional intelligence (F = 0.150, p = 0.701). Consequently, the null hypothesis was not rejected. The interaction between gender and age did not have a statistically significant effect on the dependent variable, the emotional intelligence. Discussion The results indicated that males performed better than females across the two age groups (18-35 and above 35). However, persons above the age of 35 had higher emotional intelligence scores than those below them, regardless of gender differences. The three null hypotheses tested in the results’ section were not rejected: the difference in emotional intelligence scores based on gender, age, and the interaction between age and gender were not statistically significant. The twenty six items used to measure emotional intelligence had high internal reliability, underscoring a high level of confidence in the results. The first highlight of the results was the finding that males had predominantly higher emotional intelligence scores than females. This contravenes the general assertion that females are more emotionally intelligent than men, as noted by Fernandez-Berrocal, Cabello, Castillo and Extremera (2012). Despite the hyped superiority of females, the mentioned study did not find statistically significant differences between males and females. These results fall in line with the findings of the present study. On the contrary, Atta, Ather and Bano (2013) and Petrides and Furnham (2006) found that women performed significantly better than males on the emotional intelligence measure, but the difference was not statistically significant. Yet the results are in contravention of the assertion by Sanchez-Nunez et al. (2008) that supports the notion that women have higher emotional intelligence than men. Based on the above results, it is indeed impossible to dispute the counter-notion that men have higher emotional intelligence than women. This is reinforced by the performance of male participants across the two age groups, which essentially reinforced their dominance. However, studies supporting this notion are not common. Furthermore, the results in this study did not appear significant, which indicates that the dominance is merely slight (statistically). Clearly, the lack of adequate evidence or even a substantial amount of it supporting the present findings indicates that there is a high likelihood that the study’s findings could be flawed. Without paying attention to the procedural differences between the ways data was collected in the present sand other studies it is difficult to imagine any sources of weakness in the entire process. However, it must be pointed out that the very idea of allowing participants to fill in the forms without direct supervision could cost the study credibility since some participants may opt to provide misleading information or fail to understand some questions properly. The researcher recommends that the participants get enough guidance when filling a technical form such as the TEIQue, wherever there is room for direct cooperation between the investigator and the respondents. This could help minimize the chances of obtaining results that are contextually misplaced. 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