‘With a Little Help from My Friends’: Emotional Intelligence, Social Support, and Distress during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Dorota Kornas-Biela, Klaudia Martynowska and Leehu Zysberg ()
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Dorota Kornas-Biela: Institute of Pedagogy, The John Paul Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Klaudia Martynowska: Institute of Pedagogy, The John Paul Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Leehu Zysberg: The Graduate School, Gordon College of Education, Haifa 3465415, Israel

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic presented a global existential social and health challenge, with individuals suffering mentally and psychologically. College and university students are young adults, typically away from their natural support systems; with pandemic-imposed measures such as isolation, they may have been at higher risk of experiencing negative psychological outcomes. The study tested a model in which social support mediated the association between emotional intelligence (EI) and a latent factor representing general mental distress at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in Poland. One hundred and fifty-nine young adults filled in measures of trait EI, psychological and instrumental social support, three distress measures (depression, anxiety, and stress), and demographics. The results supported a model in which psychological social support (but not instrumental social support) mediated the association between trait EI and a factor representing all three distress measures. The results shed light on how individual and social resources work together to help maintain psychological integrity in times of crisis. They add to recent results on the differential effects of psychological-emotional and instrumental social support on distress and well-being.

Keywords: emotional intelligence; COVID-19; depression; stress; anxiety; social support; students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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