EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN PRE-ADOLESCENT IMMIGRANTS OF SECOND GENERATION

The goal of this research has investigated if individual levels of EI in adolescent immigrants of second generation are related to different indicators of psychological adjustment such as individual well-being and peer relationships. To this aim, a group of 266 students of two schools in Palermo: 63 immigrants and 203 autochthonous aged from 10 to 18 (M=13.6, SD=25.3) EI was measured using a recently published Italian test IE-ACCME (D’Amico, 2013) addressed to preadolescents and adolescents and aimed at measuring the four branches of emotional intelligence described in Mayer & Salovey’s model (1997) using both self-report and performance measures. Psychological well-being was measured using the scale by Ryff (PWBS; Italian version by Ruini, 2003), and Moreno’s sociogram (Hofman, 2001) was used in order to explore social relationships among adolescents belonging to the same school classes. Finally, a reading comprehension test of Italian as second language (Center CILS, university for foreigners of Siena, Italy) has been selected as control instrument. These studies have an underlying reason which longs for investigating if: 1) individuals with poor adaptation could be characterized by low levels of emotional intelligence 2) emotional intelligence might be one of the key factors in social adjustment of immigrant preadolescents 3) improved emotional intelligence may have positive impact on social adjustment of immigrant preadolescents. In particular, the study no.1 investiagtes if the individual levels of emotional intelligence are related to other indicators of psychosocial adaptation, such as individual well-being, adaptation and success among peers.The study no.2 investigates whether training in emotional intelligence (IE) in pre-adolescent second generation immigrants, helps to improve individual well-being and social acceptance, promoting social inclusion. The results of Pearson correlational analysis revealed that positive significant correlations exist among EI, psychological well-being and social acceptance. Moreover, the outcomes evidenced that immigrant students have lower scores in some aspect of emotional intelligence, well-being and social acceptation.