The Causal Modeling of Social Adjustment Based on Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, and Critical Thinking in Secondary School Male Students

Social adjustment in adolescents, as a key and effective factor in mental health, has been considered by numerous experts. During adolescence, the social adjustment of adolescents undergoes emotional, biopsychological, etc. changes and has not fully developed. It is necessary to conduct relevant research in the form of modeling and identifying variables affecting students' adjustment to improve their social adjustment. No domestic study has explained the relationship between social adjustment based on emotional intelligence, resilience, and critical thinking. Therefore, conducting this research can have important implicit achievements for the education system of the country. Accordingly, this study aimed to model causal social adjustment based on emotional intelligence, resilience, and critical thinking.

This descriptive –correlational research applied structural equation modeling; the social adjustment of the criterion variable, resilience, and critical thinking of the mediating variables, and emotional intelligence were also considered as predictor variables. The statistical population included all male high school students in Buchan City, Iran, in the academic year of 2017 –2018. Of them, 300 subjects were selected by cluster sampling method. The minimum sample size for modeling research is 300 individuals. Therefore, 316 questionnaires were collected; however, due to the distortion and inadequate response to some of them, the number of questionnaires reached 300. The inclusion criteria of the research were providing consent forms and the ability to complete the questionnaires. The exclusion criteria included a willingness to cooperate and a lack of response to the questionnaires. To collect the required data, Bell’s Social Adjustment Inventory (Bell, 1961), Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Bradberry & Graves, 2003), Connor –Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003), and the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) (Facione & Facione, 1994) were used. Descriptive statistics, including mean and standard deviation as well as, inferential statistical methods, such as Pearson correlation and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS and LISREL versions. A significance level of 0.05 was considered for all statistical tests.

The current study results revealed that the direct effect of emotional intelligence on social adjustment (p</em><0.001, β=0.42), the direct effect of emotional intelligence on critical thinking (p=0.017, β=0.23), the direct effect of emotional intelligence on resilience (p</em><0.001, β=0.35), the direct effect of critical thinking on social adjustment (p</em><0.001, β=0.67), the direct effect of resilience on social adjustment (p</em><0.001, β=0.31), and the direct effect of critical thinking on resilience (p</em><0.001, β=0.63) was positive and significant. Additionally, the indirect effect of emotional intelligence on social adjustment mediated by critical thinking (p</em><0.001, β=0.39) and the effect of emotional intelligence on resilience mediated by resilience (p<0.001, p</em>=0.27) were positive and significant. Additionally, the hypothesized research model provided a relatively good fit with the collected data (X2</sup>/df=1.65, CFI=0.97, NFI=0.94, IFI=0.97, AGFI=0.91, RMSEA=0.038).

According to the present research findings, emotional intelligence, directly and indirectly, affects social adjustment through resilience and critical thinking.