The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Empathy among Iranian Teachers of the Institute of English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This study attempted to assess the relationship between EI and emotional empathy (a factor known to affect teachers’ performance) among Iranian institute EFL teachers. It was hypothesized that an augmentation in EI would lead to a higher level of emotional empathy and vice versa. Furthermore, the relationship between EI and emotional empathy was assessed with regard to gender, age, and the years of experience of the participants. The instruments of data collection were the two questionnaires of Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998), and Multi- Dimensional Emotional Empathy Scale (Caruso & Mayer, 1998). A Pearson Product-Moment Correlation was conducted to assess the result of the questionnaires. The correlation showed that there was a positive significant correlation between EI and emotional empathy (r = 0.76). Conducting a T-Test, there appeared to be no significant difference among Iranian institute EFL teachers with different genders regarding their EI and emotional empathy. Using Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, there came to be no significant differences among Iranian institute EFL teachers with different ages concerning their EI and emotional empathy. Regarding years of experience and EI no relations were found, however, this study showed that teachers with lower years of experience were more emotionally empathetic.