Promoting emotional intelligence in preschool education : a review of programs

This paper compares four selected social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula that have empirical support for preschool students (Preschools PATHS, Incredible Years, Al’s Pals, and Preschool RULER). First, meta-analytic studies of SEL programs in schools and research on emotional intelligence (EI) of preschool children are reviewed as a background for understanding the four programs. Preschool EI research is examined as it relates to outcome variables such as school engagement, social adjustment, emotion regulation and academics. The programs are critiqued and compared on the particular SEL areas of focus, context of delivery, structure of delivery, and intervention strategies. Research on cross cultural adaptation of programs is also examined. Areas for future directions in EI preschool curricula research are identified.peer-reviewe

Trait emotional intelligence predicts selfesteem and trait anxiety in adolescents

Trait anxiety and self-esteem, as indicators of well-being, have been understudied in the literature that examines the relationship between emotional intelligence and well-being in adolescent development. Anxiety and self-esteem are emotion-based factors in adolescent personality and are expected to be related to Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) as an adaptive emotion-based capacity. The objective of the study is to examine the unique contributions of TEI on trait anxiety and self-esteem in adolescents in the context of personality. The study involved 807 adolescents ages 16-19 from central Slovakia and examined the predictive relationship of TEI (as measured by the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, TEIQue-ASF) separately on self-esteem and on trait anxiety after considering broad based personality (as measured by the Freiburger´s Personality Inventory, FPI) and cognitive abilities (assessed by Amthauer´s Intelligence Structure Test, IST). The results showed that TEI has strong bivariate correlations with both trait anxiety (r =-.65) and self-esteem (r = .62) that maintained significance in the regression analyses. With trait anxiety as a dependent variable the explained variance by TEIQue-ASF factors above personality traits was 6%. With self-esteem as the dependent variable TEIQue-ASF factors explained a greater amount of variance (9%) with none of the personality traits as significant. The overall findings suggest that TEI is an important factor in adolescent well-being through its associations with lower trait anxiety and higher self-esteemLa inteligencia emocional de rasgo predice la autoestima y rasgo de ansiedad en adolescentes. La ansiedad de rasgo y la autoestima, como indicadores del bienestar, han sido poco estudiadas en la literatura que examina la relación entre la inteligencia emocional y el bienestar en el desarrollo adolescente. La ansiedad y la autoestima son factores emocionales que contribuyen a la personalidad adolescente y se espera que estén relacionadas con la Inteligencia Emocional de Rasgo (IER), siendo ésta una capacidad adaptativa basada en las emociones. El objetivo de este estudio fue examinar las contribuciones únicas de la IER en la ansiedad de rasgo y la autoestima en adolescentes en el contexto de la personalidad. El estudio involucró a 807 adolescentes de entre 16 y 19 años de edad de la región central de Eslovaquia, y examinó la relación predictiva de la IER (medida por el Cuestionario de Inteligencia Emocional de Rasgo, TEIQue), en la autoestima, por un lado, y la ansiedad de rasgo, por el otro, después de considerar la personalidad de base amplia (medida por el Inventario de Personalidad de Freiburger, FPI). Los resultados mostraron que la IER correlaciona de manera robusta y bivariada tanto con la ansiedad de rasgo (r = -.65) como con la autoestima (r = .62), manteniendo su significancia en los análisis de regresión. Considerando a la ansiedad de rasgo como variable dependiente, la varianza explicada, a partir de los componentes del TEIQue y por encima de los factores de personalidad, fue del 6%. Con la autoestima como variable dependiente, los componentes de TEIQue explicaron una mayor cantidad de varianza (9%) sin que ninguno de los factores de personalidad fuera significativo. En general, los hallazgos sugieren que la IER es un factor importante en el bienestar adolescente a través de sus asociaciones con una menor ansiedad de rasgo y una mayor autoestim

The Effects of Short-Term Emotional Intelligence Training on Preschool Teachers in Poland

The development of emotional intelligence (EI) in preschool teachers is important because of the influence on classroom environment, student engagement and child development. This cluster sample experimental study included teachers (all female) in public and private nursey and preschools in Warsaw, Poland. The treatment group (N = 60) interventions included three monthly workshop training in EI that was supported by daily exercises for four weeks following the training in contrast to the control group (N = 44) that did not receive any intervention. Pretest-posttest comparisons as measured by the Polish Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) indicated treatment group increases in three of the four EI abilities (facilitation, knowledge and regulation) as well as the MSCEIT Strategic area. In posttest comparisons the treatment group was significantly higher than controls on the facilitation and regulation abilities and the strategic area. Results suggest that targeted interventions for teachers can improve EI abilities with short term training and hold promise for improved teacher development

GUEST EDITORS\u27 NOTE

This thematic issue of the journal Psychological Topics is dedicated to emotional intelligence. Twenty-five years after the concept of emotional intelligence was introduced, it still captures the attention of scholars, practitioners, educators, and the public alike. Questions regarding how EI should be defined and measured, with different approaches both to theory and measurement, are still relevant. Emotional intelligence is usually analysed from two different perspectives – the ability models or mixed models. While the ability models focus on an individual\u27s mental abilities to apply information provided by emotions for the improvement of cognitive processing, mixed models conceptualize EI as the combination of mental abilities, stable behavioural traits and personality variables. This volume presents theoretical and empirical papers that address a variety of topics. Two review papers cover new and important themes: the mechanisms of emotional intelligence using a computational approach, and the question on how to transversely develop emotional intelligence through school subjects. Research papers investigate several topics: the relationships between measures of EI and transformational leadership; the effect of the implicit theories of EI and of ability and trait EI on students’ academic achievement; the relationship between perceived emotional intelligence, burnout, work engagement, and job satisfaction in Italian schoolteachers; the developmental changes in EI abilities during early adolescence; and the effects of short-term emotional intelligence training on preschool teachers. Four papers are dedicated to methodological themes: dealing with an ongoing problem of EI measurement, especially its cross-cultural effects: comparing differential item functioning procedure in traditional back translation of the questionnaire with the native translator version; measurement invariance of the Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Emotional Competence Questionnaire across five different countries (Slovenia, Russia, Croatia, India, and the Czech Republic); the psychometric properties of the Vocabulary of Emotions Test (VET) in Serbian context; construction and validation of the Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire – Children’s form (ESCQ-C). We hope that this special issue will broaden knowledge in this field and raise further questions about emotional intelligence construct. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the authors who contributed to this thematic issue, and to academic reviewers. We also thank editor-in-chief and editorial board for their support and assistance

Promoting Emotional Intelligence in preschool education: A review of programs

This paper compares four selected social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula that have empirical support for preschool students (Preschools PATHS, Incredible Years, Al’s Pals, and Preschool RULER). First, meta-analytic studies of SEL programs in schools and research on emotional intelligence (EI) of preschool children are reviewed as a background for understanding the four programs. Preschool EI research is examined as it relates to outcome variables such as school engagement, social adjustment, emotion regulation and academics. The programs are critiqued and compared on the particular SEL areas of focus, context of delivery, structure of delivery, and intervention strategies. Research on cross cultural adaptation of programs is also examined. Areas for future directions in EI preschool curricula research are identified

GUEST EDITORS' NOTE

This thematic issue of the journal Psychological Topics is dedicated to emotional intelligence. Twenty-five years after the concept of emotional intelligence was introduced, it still captures the attention of scholars, practitioners, educators, and the public alike. Questions regarding how EI should be defined and measured, with different approaches both to theory and measurement, are still relevant. Emotional intelligence is usually analysed from two different perspectives – the ability models or mixed models. While the ability models focus on an individual's mental abilities to apply information provided by emotions for the improvement of cognitive processing, mixed models conceptualize EI as the combination of mental abilities, stable behavioural traits and personality variables

Trehalose Synthesis Contributes to Osmotic Stress Tolerance and Virulence of the Bacterial Wilt Pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum

The xylem-dwelling plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum changes the chemical composition of host xylem sap during bacterial wilt disease. The disaccharide trehalose, implicated in stress tolerance across all kingdoms of life, is enriched in sap from R. solanacearum–infected tomato plants. Trehalose in xylem sap could be synthesized by the bacterium, the plant, or both. To investigate the source and role of trehalose metabolism during wilt disease, we evaluated the effects of deleting the three trehalose synthesis pathways in the pathogen: TreYZ, TreS, and OtsAB, as well as its sole trehalase, TreA. A quadruple treY/treS/otsA/treA mutant produced 30-fold less intracellular trehalose than the wild-type strain missing the trehalase enzyme. This trehalose-nonproducing mutant had reduced tolerance to osmotic stress, which the bacterium likely experiences in plant xylem vessels. Following naturalistic soil-soak inoculation of tomato plants, this triple mutant did not cause disease as well as wild-type R. solanacearum. Further, the wild-type strain out-competed the trehalose-nonproducing mutant by over 600-fold when tomato plants were coinoculated with both strains, showing that trehalose biosynthesis helps R. solanacearum overcome environmental stresses during infection. An otsA (trehalose-6-phosphate synthase) single mutant behaved similarly to ΔtreY/treS/otsA in all experimental settings, suggesting that the OtsAB pathway is the dominant trehalose synthesis pathway in R. solanacearum

Planned neck dissection following chemoradiotherapy for advanced head and neck cancer: Is it necessary for all?

In the absence of large-scale randomized trials evaluating dissection versus observation of the involved neck after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, there is a need to collect data that will either support or ultimately refute a role for planned posttreatment neck dissection. A significant percentage of patients with extensive (N2 or N3) neck disease who demonstrate a complete response to chemoradiation therapy may harbor residual occult metastases, and identification of this subset of patients remains a clinical challenge. Because surgical salvage rates are greatly diminished when occult nodal disease becomes clinically manifest, planned posttreatment neck dissection is advocated but may not be necessary in all patients. The role of positron emission tomography chemoradiotherapy (PET-CT) in this scenario remains unproven but holds promise in being able to identify which patients may be harboring residual disease in the neck after chemoradiotherapy. The implementation of as yet unidentified molecular tumor markers in combination with PET-CT may ultimately prove to be effective in identifying patients who will best benefit from posttherapy neck dissection. Correlation of imaging results and pathologic node status will be important in determining the accuracy and, therefore, the value of this imaging modality for predicting the presence or absence of residual disease