EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE AND SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

Emotional competence can be described as ones ability to identify, understand, express and release the positive and negative emotions that one experiences throughout the day, effectively, meaning that, it is an individuals ability to release his or her identified emotions constructively. Social Intelligence, on the other hand, can be defined as the ability to develop a relationship with others, ones intrapersonal knowledge, his/ her ability to judge others feelings, temperaments and, their ability to be effective in social performance/function, sympathize, and being skilled in decoding nonverbal-signs. For the purpose of this study, the researcher randomly selected a sample of undergraduate students, aged between 17-22 years, from various courses such as engineering, law, etc. The researcher studied the Emotional Competence and Social Intelligence of 80 individuals, 40 Males and 40 Females, using the Emotional Competence Scale developed by Dr. H. C. Sharma and Dr. R. L. Bhardwaj to measure the Emotional Competence and Social Intelligence, respectively of the selected sample. The objective of this study was to understand the relationship between Emotional Competence and Social Intelligence among College Students. The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between the Social Intelligence and Emotional Competence of undergraduate College Students. It was also observed that there exists no significant gender difference between the Social Intelligence and Emotional Competence of College Students. Although, slight gender differences have been found. The researcher also stated that there is a significant linkage between some dimensions of Emotional Competence with certain areas of Social Intelligence among College Students.