Emotional understanding as a predictor of socio-emotional functioning and school achievement in adolescence

Abstract

The main goal of our research was to investigate whether the ability of emotional understanding can predict students? school achievement over and above fluid intelligence and the Big Five personality factors. A sample of 493 pupils (45% girls) participated in this study (Mage = 12.61, SD = 1.12). According to our results, girls were slightly better than boys in understanding emotions. Girls also had a slightly higher GPA than boys, and reported engaging in more altruistic and prosocial behavior than boys. As expected, boys reported more aggressive behaviors than girls. Understanding emotions had a weak but significant effect on the prediction of aggressive behavior. It also accounted for an additional 5% (for boys) and 9% (for girls) of the variance of GPA, after controlling for fluid intelligence and personality factors. A better understanding of emotions is important for academic achievement, as well as for well-being and adjustment in the educational environment.