Parental Influence on Children's Social and Emotional Intelligence: A Gender-Differentiated Analysis
The social and emotional intelligence of children, although it also assumes an innate component, is mainly formed in the family context, this being shaped by the behaviour of the parents and the parenting style. This aspect is relevant for a better understanding of how parents and the family can contribute to the development of this ability among children, which has proven to be vital in many areas of their quality of life. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationship between the social and emotional intelligence of parents and that of children, both at a general level and differentiated by gender, respectively of mothers and fathers. The research sample consisted of 575 subjects, respectively 214 mothers, 166 fathers and 195 children. We used the IPIP social-emotional intelligence scale for adults and Bar-On Youth Social-Emotional Intelligence Inventory for children. The results indicate a negative correlation (r=-0.01), but insignificant, between the level of socio-emotional intelligence of parents and children, but a positive and significant correlation between the level of socio-emotional intelligence of mothers and that of children (r=0.52, and p=0.002). As for fathers, we obtained a positive, but insignificant correlation between the two variables (r=0.21, p=0.30>0.002).
Article’s history:
Received 21st of October, 2023; Received in revised form 15th of November, 2023; Accepted 21st of November, 2023; Published as article in Volume I, Issue 1, 2023.
Copyright© 2023 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the license CC-BY 4.0., which permits any further distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: social intelligence, emotional intelligence, parent-child relationship, gender differences, family context, psychosocial development.
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