Stress, Emotional Intelligence, and Life Satisfaction in College Students

The article has three main hypotheses. The first two are based on prior research and the research aimed at supporting the findings of the previous researchers. The first hypothesis was stress in college students is negatively correlated to overall life satisfaction. The second hypothesis was that there would be a positive correlation between life satisfaction and emotional intelligence.

The third hypothesis was that life satisfaction would be predicted by interaction of emotional intelligence and stress, in that if stress were high and emotional intelligence low, the life satisfaction of the student would be low. It is predicted that when emotional intelligence is high and stress is low, life satisfaction would be highest (Holinka, 2015, p. 304). The variables of the study were life satisfaction, stress levels, and emotional intelligence amongst college students.

The researchers aimed to study the effect and correlation between the stress levels of students in an attempt to establish if there was any correlation between the three variables. From the first hypothesis, the researchers would be interested in establishing if there is a positive or negative correlation between stress levels and life satisfaction. The second hypothesis would establish if there is a correlation between life satisfaction and emotional intelligence. Finally, the researchers would determine if there was a correlation between the three variables.

The researchers utilized the correlational research method. This is because they were testing to see if an increase in one variable would have an increase in another variable. For instance, the increase in stress and lowering of emotional intelligence would result in a low life satisfaction. Making use of the correlation method allows the researchers to manipulate the data by increasing one variable and lowering another variable to establish positive or negative correlation. Correlations only predict relationships and they cannot be used to predict cause and effect.

This was beneficial to this study in order to ensure there was a validity of the results. All participants were students who had enrolled in an Introduction to Psychology course. There were 144 students, but only 135 students completed all items on the online survey. Out of the 135 students, only 81 were selected to participate in the study who comprised of 61 females and 20 males (Holinka, 2015, p. 305). The results of the study were presented in tabular and graphical methods within the article.

From the study it was established that hypothesis one was supported, indicating there was a negative correlation between stress and life satisfaction (Holinka, 2015, p. 306). As the stress levels of a college student increase, their life satisfaction decreases and vice versa. There was no significant correlation between life satisfaction and total emotional intelligence quotient. Therefore, hypothesis two was not supported. There was no support for hypothesis three because no significant interaction was found between emotional intelligence and stress (Holinka, 2015, p. 307).

The first limitation of the study was the range of scores on the EQ-I:s. The standard mean of the EQ-I:s is 100, but the study had a range of 68-88, which indicates a severe range restriction (Holinka, 2015, p. 308). Therefore, there is need for further discussion in regards to the.