Trait emotional intelligence as a predictor of loneliness during the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Due to the restrictions imposed on social life during the COVID-19 pandemic, people of different profiles experienced higher levels of loneliness. According to pre-pandemic research, individual levels of loneliness are partly related to differences in personality, including both basic traits and trait emotional intelligence (EI). The present study sought to examine whether trait EI also predicts loneliness among university students in times of the pandemic, while also controlling for the basic personality factors. Study participants were 301 university students (Nf = 278, Nm = 23) who completed the TEIQue, as a measure of trait EI and its four factors (i.e., Well-Being, Self-Control, Emotionality, and Sociability); the HEXACO PI-R, which assesses six major dimensions of personality (i.e., Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience); and the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, measuring general loneliness. The data were collected during a strict pandemic-related lockdown in Serbia in the spring of 2020. A hierarchical regression model including the HEXACO personality factors (entered in Step 1) and trait EI factors (entered in Step 2) as predictors, and loneliness as the criterion was tested. The HEXACO personality set explained 41% of variance (F(6, 294) = 36.202, Adj.R2 = .413, p<.001) with Honesty-Humility (β = –.165, p<.001), Emotionality (β = –.177, p<.001), Extraversion (β = –.643, p<.001), Conscientiousness (β = .105, p<.05) and Oppeness (β = .113, p<.05) surfacing as significant predictors. In the second step, a further 9.7% of the variance in the criterion was explained (F(10, 290) = 31.683, Adj.R2 = .506, p<.001), and it was the trait EI factors of Well-Being (β = –.397, p<.001) and Sociability (β = –.134, p<.05) that contributed to the prediction. Apart from confirming the incremental predictive power of trait EI in predicting loneliness over the six personality dimensions of the HEXACO model, the present findings suggest that trait EI retained its role as a protective factor against loneliness during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.