The relationship between personality traits, emotional intelligence and happiness among university students

Background:  Happiness is a concept, which due to its role in mental health, has been taken account by the researchers recently. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between personality traits, emotional intelligence and feeling happiness among students of Tabriz University.

Methods: This study was a descriptive and analytical one. The statistical population of the research consisted of student of Tabriz University in fall 2010. A sample of 200(100 male and 100 female) students was selected using multistage random sampling to participate in the study. Research questionnaires such as Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO- PI-R), Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale, and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis.

Results: Finding showed that there is a positively significant relationship between happiness and personality traits such as extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that happiness had a negatively significant correlation with neuroticism (P<0/01). On the other hand, the results revealed a significant positive relationship between happiness and emotional intelligence (P<0/01). Finally, regression analysis showed that personality characteristics and emotional intelligence predicted happiness, significantly in students.

Conclusion: Finding showed that promotion of personality traits and emotional intelligence could lead to increasing happiness in students.