Resilience as a Mediator of Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress: A Cross-Country Study

Abstract

Existing literature provides evidence of the connection between emotional intelligence and resilience, both concepts being adversely related to perceived stress. Nevertheless, there is little evidence from cross-cultural and/or cross-country studies of the simultaneous relationship between these psychological variables. The objective of this study was to address this lack of research, examining the associations between emotional intelligence, resilience and perceived stress in a cross-country context. A total sample of 696 undergraduate students from two universities in the United States and the Basque Country (an autonomous community in northern Spain) participated in the study. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the effects of emotional intelligence and resilience that may affect students’ perceived stress. The results revealed that emotional intelligence functions as a negative predictor of perceived stress through the mediating variable resilience for the American and Basque students. The findings suggest that university students with better emotional intelligence and resilience present lower perceived stress. Thus, improving emotional intelligence and resilience could prevent students from suffering perceived stress in higher education. Implications and directions for further research are discussed; in particular, it is highlighted that intervention programs that improve both EI and resilience could be helpful in reducing perceived stress.

Are Psychological Distress and Resilience Associated with Dietary Intake Among Australian University Students?

“…AUDIT and DUDIT are screening tools to identify and grade alcohol and drug abuse or risk of. The cut points for the AUDIT include abstinence/low risk (0-7), moderate risk (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15), harmful/hazardous use (16)(17)(18)(19), or dependence . The cut points for the DUDIT are sex specific and include no drug related problems (males 0-5, females 0-1), drug related problems (males 6-24, females 2-24), or heavily dependent on drugs (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44).…”

“…Psychological distress among university students may also be associated with resilience; a measure of the ability to recover from stress [7]. Cross-sectional studies have identified that a low level of resilience pre-dates and predisposes university students to psychological distress [8][9][10][11], consistent with a theoretical model of resilience, coping or regulatory strategies and academic performance posited by Johnson et al [10]. The model proposes that higher resilience leads to greater use of adaptive regulatory strategies in the face of stress (including time management, effort regulation and self-regulation, including healthy behaviors), which then influences higher academic achievement [10].…”

“…Of the studies among university students, only one has explored the association between diet and psychological distress [27] and none have explored diet and resilience. These are therefore significant gaps in the evidence, and worthy of further investigation given the high rates of both psychological distress and unhealthy diets among university students [1,5,[28][29][30], as well as the proposed link between psychological distress and resilience [8][9][10][11]. Further, only two studies have been conducted in Australian university students exploring diet and mental health [31,32].…”

Trait Emotional Intelligence and School Burnout: The Mediating Role of Resilience and Academic Anxiety in High School

“…In contrast, Mavroveli and colleagues [17] have found that adolescents with a high level of TEI are generally less predisposed to developing depressive or somatic symptoms, and are more likely to successfully cope with difficult events [18]. Moreover, previous research has found that people with high TEI show a positive attitude towards stressful events, namely resilience [19][20][21][22]. Further, research findings have supported the link between personal resilience and TEI [23].…”

Preventing Stress Among Undergraduate Learners: The Importance of Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, and Emotion Regulation

“…There is little disagreement that individuals are often required to cope with feelings of stress following maladaptive appraisals of internal and external stimuli (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984;Folkman and Moskowitz, 2004). The prevailing view of coping views stress as a specific misbalance between an individuals' assessment of situational demands and the resources-both external and internal-available to manage the demands (Hodzic et al, 2016). Stated another way, stress occurs when individuals appraise situations as having the potential to overload coping resources and interfere with the attainment of goals of high personal importance (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984).…”