Abstract
Emotional intelligence and subjective well-being may contribute to preventing perceived and physiological stress in adolescents. To provide an overall picture of the relations of emotional intelligence and well-being, both the traditional monotonic effects and the non-monotonic effects of emotional attention on well-being were explored in relation to stress prediction. The purpose was to develop an accurate understanding of the different emotional conditions and states of well-being that may be associated with adolescents’ stress. The participants included 132 adolescents (mean = 12.73 years, standard deviation = 0.72, 51.5% girls) who completed the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences, and the Perceived Stress Scale-4. Hair samples were collected to assess physiological stress. Emotional intelligence and well-being explained between 36% and 39% of the variance in perceived and physiological stress. Emotional attention seems to operate in the same way regardless of its conceptualisation as monotonic or non-monotonic. In general, decreased attention and increased clarity and well-being should be the aim of adolescent interventions to achieve better health.
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Data Availability
The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
The research reported in this article was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI2013–43943-R) as well as a research fellowship granted by the Regional Government of Valencia and the European Social Fund (ACIF/2018/033).
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De la Barrera, Usue: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Writing – original draft; Visualization.
Villanueva, Lidón: Conceptualization; Supervision; Validation; Writing – original draft; Investigation.
Prado-Gascó, Vicente: Supervision; Formal analysis; Methodology; Investigation; Writing – review & editing; Visualization.
Montoya-Castilla, Inmaculada: Data curation; Funding acquisition; Project administration; Resources; Supervision; Writing – review & editing.
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All procedures performed in this study involving participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the ethics committee of the university (code H1385330676977) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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De la Barrera, U., Villanueva, L., Montoya-Castilla, I. et al. How much emotional attention is appropriate? The influence of emotional intelligence and subjective well-being on adolescents’ stress. Curr Psychol 42, 5131–5143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01763-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01763-y