The predictive effect of emotional intelligence on empathic tendency and emotion regulation in adolescence

In this study, it was aimed to examine the predictive effect of emotional intelligence dimensions on empathic tendency and emotion regulation skills of adolescents aged 14-18. Relational survey design, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The study group consists of 606 adolescents studying in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades of public high schools in the central district of Kırklareli. Emotional Intelligence Scale, Ka-Si Empathic Tendency Scale Adolescent Form, Emotion Regulation Scale for Adolescents and Personal Information Form were used as data collection tools. "Mann Whitney U Test", "Kruskal Wallis Test", "Spearman Correlation Coefficient", "Simple Regression Analysis" and "Multiple Regression Analysis" were used to analyze the data. According to the findings of the study, when adolescents' emotional identification/understanding, emotional and cognitive empathy, internal and external dysfunctional emotion regulation subscale scores were examined according to gender, the mean scores were in favor of girls. According to the number of siblings, the emotional identification/understanding subscale scores of adolescents who were the only child and the last child according to the order of children were higher (p<0.05), but no significant relationship was found between empathic tendency and emotion regulation skills (p>0.05). According to the age variable, as the age of adolescents increased, emotional identification/understanding subscale scores increased, emotional regulation subscale scores decreased (p<0.05), and internal and external dysfunctional emotion regulation subscale scores increased (p<0.05). However, no significant relationship was found between age variable and empathic tendency (p>0.05). As the internal and external functional emotion regulation subscale scores of adolescents increase, emotional identification/understanding and emotional regulation subscale scores increase. However, as internal and external dysfunctional emotion regulation subscale scores increased, emotional identification/understanding subscale scores increased, while emotional regulation subscale scores decreased. In addition, as emotional and cognitive empathy scores increase, emotional identification/comprehension and emotional regulation subscale scores also increase (p<0.05). As a result of regression analyses, it was seen that emotional intelligence dimensions of adolescents predicted empathic tendency and emotion regulation skills.