Abstract:
Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays an essential role in an individual‘s academic achievement, mental health, and emotional stability. The sociocultural context of Pakistan has created a need for effective Emotional Intelligence coping and stress management training programs, especially for adolescents, due to the growing recognition of EI. This research focuses on the impact of an Emotional Intelligence Training Program (EIT) on improving Emotional Quotient (EQ) and reducing psychopathological symptoms like anxiety, depression, and stress among students aged 13 to 16 years. The main goals were to create and culturally contextualize an EI training manual, evaluate the improvement attained after implementation, determine the reduction of the psychopathological symptoms, and analyze the psychosocial changes in relation to improvements of EI. The study employed a quasi-experimental design involving two groups, one receiving EI training (n=78) and the other serving as the control group (n=78). After training the first group, the authors conducted eight weekly, mindfulness-integrated role-play sessions on emotion regulation and group discussions. The Emotions and Feelings Questionnaire for Young Children, Emotions & Self-Report Checklist & SA-45, Ryff‘s Scale of Psychological Well-being were used as the primary instruments for evaluation. The analysis proved the hypothesis that the experimental group had higher outcomes than the control group.Comparisons of pre- and post-data analyses on Emotional Intelligence (EQ) levels indicated an average rise of 15.3% in the experimental group (t = 5.6, p < 0.01). For psychopathological symptoms, members of the experimental group demonstrated a 20.4% reduction in anxiety (t = 4.8, p < 0.01), a 22.7% reduction in depression (t = 5.1, p < 0.01), and a 17.5% reduction in stress (t = 4.3, p < 0.01).Other Psychological well-being scores in the experimental group also improved significantly by 12.8% (t=4.2, p<0.01). The correlation between the improvements in Emotional Intelligence and the reduction of the Psychopathological symptoms was notable (r=-0.75, p<0.001). This indicates that higher Emotional Intelligence had a considerable impact on the mental health and well-being of the participants. The study emphasizes the significance of including EI training programs in the educational system to cultivate the students‘ emotional competence and improve their mental health.
