Date of Award:

5-2003

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Human Development and Family Studies

Department name when degree awarded

Family and Human Development

Committee Chair(s)

Randall M. Jones

Committee

Randall M. Jones

Committee

Kathy Piercy

Committee

Shelley Lindauer

Abstract

This thesis summarizes a study conducted to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence and adolescent deviancy. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the relation between 1) overall emotional intelligence plus its subscales and overall normative deviant behavior, and 2) emotional intelligence subscales and subscales of a deviancy measure. Tapia's Emotional Intelligence Inventory (EII) and Vazsonyi's Normative Deviancy Scale (NDS) were used to measure the two variables of this study. Subjects included 152 high school students, aged 14-18, from a small city in Northern Utah. One hundred seventeen students came from a local high school comprising grades 10-12 and a junior high school comprising grade 9. The remaining 35 students attended an alternative high school, which comprised grades 9-12. Findings reveal that overall emotional intelligence was not correlated with overall deviant behavior. Two subscales of EII, handling relationships and self-control, were statistically significant in relation to the vandalism, general deviance, and assault subscales of the NDS. Results may be contingent on the type of sample obtained and testing procedures. Further research is needed to validate these findings.

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