The Survey of Emotional Intelligence in Male and Female Elite Athletes in Individual and Team Sports

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage self-emotions and others'' emotions and includes the intelligent use of emotions. This study aimed at investigating the emotional intelligence in male and female elite athletes in team and individual sport fields. The sample consisted of 62 female elite athletes and 74 male elite athletes selected from different individual and team sports. They filled out Schutte''s emotional intelligence scale. The obtained data were analyzed by two-way analysis of variance and independent t test at significance level of 0. 05. The results showed no significant difference in emotional intelligence between male and female elite athletes (P>0. 05). Findings also revealed no significant difference in emotional intelligence between individual and team sports (P>0. 05). The results showed that female athletes benefit from emotional intelligence in their sport performance and progress as much as male athletes and also both individual and team athletes need the same degree of improvement of emotional intelligence and use it in their sport، so it is suggested that special exercises should be planned regardless of gender or sport type to increase emotional intelligence of athletes.