Can an Emotional Intelligence Program Improve Adolescents' Psychosocial Adjustment? Results from the Intemo Project

Abstract

We analyzed the effects on a group of Spanish adolescents of an emotional intelligence (EI) education program based on Mayer and Salovey's (1997) model of adolescent psychosocial adjustment. Participants were 147 high school students aged between 13 and 16 years, of whom 69 were in the control group and 78 were in the training group. We conducted the research using a quasiexperimental pretest-intervention-posttest design during 2 academic years. This training program was conducted as part of the ongoing project known as INTEMO and was implemented during 10 weekly sessions of 1 hour. Students who participated in the EI program reported better psychosocial adjustment (e.g., lower levels of depression and anxiety, less atypicality, somatization, and social stress, and higher self-esteem) compared to students in the control group. Implications of these findings for educational curricula are discussed, and recommendations for future research are made.