Emotional Intelligence, Coping and Psychological Distress: A Partial Least Squares Approach to Developing a Predictive Model

Abstract

Partial Least Squares analysis is an alternative way of modeling data which is relatively new to the Social Sciences. The current study, reported here, investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence, coping styles and the experience of psychological distress in adolescents. Although there has been quite a lot of research in this area there are few predictive models in the literature relating to adolescents. Participants were 85 Australian high school students. It was predicted that higher emotional intelligence would be related to decreased levels of psychological distress and to more adaptive coping but to less maladaptive coping. The results showed no direct association between emotional intelligence and psychological distress. However, there appeared to be an indirect relationship with psychological distress being predicted by coping style and coping style predicted by emotional intelligence. The implications of these findings for interventions with adolescents are discussed.