RT journal article
T1 Facing Anxiety, Growing Up. Trait Emotional Intelligence as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Self-Esteem and University Anxiety
A1 Guil Bozal, Rocío
A1 Gómez Molinero, Rocío
A1 Merchán Clavellino, Ana
A1 Gil-Olarte Márquez, Paloma
A1 Zayas García, Antonio
A2 Psicología
K1 trait emotional intelligence
K1 state anxiety
K1 trait anxiety
K1 self-esteem
K1 emotion regulation
AB The current study analyzed how trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) mediates therelationship between self-esteem and state anxiety and trait anxiety. The samplewas composed of 153 undergraduate students from the University of Cádiz, Spain(71.9% women and 28.1% men). Students completed measures of self-esteem, stateanxiety, trait anxiety, and trait EI. Mediation analyses were completed with three trait EIdimensions (EA, emotional attention; EC, emotional clarity; and MR, mood repair) asmediating variables, self-esteem as the independent variable, and state anxiety andtrait anxiety as the dependent ones. Our results confirmed that self-esteem scoresexplained and predicted both, state and trait anxiety values (13% for state and 21%for trait anxiety). This explanatory capacity is increased by 8% when accounting for alltrait EI dimensions. Considering state anxiety, the results of the direct effects showedthat a decrease in their levels is predicted through the increases in the levels of both,self-esteem and MR. Regarding trait anxiety, the results of the direct effects showedthat a decrease in their levels is predicted, in addition to an increment of self-esteemand MR values, by an increase of EC and a decrease of EA. Conversely, indirect effectsrevealed that higher levels of self-esteem were associated with worse scores in EA andworse MR, which in turn would enhance both state and trait anxiety levels. Moreover,regarding trait anxiety higher levels of self-esteem were associated with worse scoresin EA and worse EC, therefore increasing trait anxiety levels. As shown, the negativeassociation found between self-esteem and EA becomes a key element. The effect ofself-esteem on EA and the influence that the latter had on EC and MR exerts an indirectmediated effect with the power to invert the influence that self-esteem wields on bothtypes of anxiety. In this sense, the apparent protective role of self-esteem changed,turning into a risk factor that promotes higher anxiety values.
PB Frontiers Media SA
SN 1664-1078
YR 2019
FD 2019-03
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/21179
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/21179
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 07-nov-2026