Emotional Intelligence and Big-Five Personality Factors in Female Student Sample

The aim of this study is to figure out possible connectedness between emotional intelligence and five big personality factors in female students selected from social sciences faculties.

The evaluated sample comprised 66 healthy students, of Macedonian nationality, mean age 18.9 ± 0.63 years. As psychometric instruments, we used the EI-test and NEO-PI-R, both with eligible metric characteristic and already used in the Republic of Macedonia. Statistical analysis was performed using Sta17, both descriptive and inferential statistics including medians, standard deviations, and two-tailed Pearson's correlation.

The obtained results for emotional intelligence showedn average anxiety level (M = 77.35), extraversion (M = 50.91) and a realistic outlook on life (M = 81.64), high self-confidence (M = 44.44) and generally satisfactory empathy (M = 85.39). Personality characteristics obtained with NEO-PI-R showed high extroversion (M = 123. 70), low agreeableness (M = 105.82) and consciousness (M = 104.67), as well as mild neuroticism (M = 91.33) and openness (M = 117.45). The results confirmed a high positive correlation between anxiety, optimism, and empathy; and between self-confidence and empathy within the EI test. Within NEO-PR-R there was a positive correlation between factors Extroversion and Openness to Experience and a negative correlation between the factors Extroversion and Agreeableness. However, just one negative correlation is noted, between Extroversion from EI and Openness to experience from NEO-PR-R (-0,25; p < 0.05).

We concluded that similar facets measured with different psychometric instruments have different basic concepts. The obtained results, although they figure out some support from other research, also differ from other studies. It is important for us to follow the obtained results and to provoke further research on a bigger and more diverse sample.