The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Quality of Life among Tourism Students (Case Study: Tourism Students of University of Mazandaran)

Having a good quality of life has always been a human desire. Quality of life is the degree of enjoyment to important possibilities of one’s life. The possibilities are the opportunities and limitations an individual has in their life which reflect the interaction of personal and environment factors. Three main areas of quality of life includes psychology, sociology and economics. Cognitive psychologists assess personality traits to predict the quality of life. Sociology focuses on the role models and social factors on quality of life and Economics uses income for that matter. In psychology, emotional intelligence is a new perspective on human capabilities and numerous definitions are provided for it. Mayer and Salovey in 1997 defined Emotional Intelligence as the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and /or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth. Emotional intelligence abilities, traits or competences have become social capital in service industry. Tourism is still a growing and profitable sector thus employees’ emotional intelligence will become an essential competitive asset. This paper seeks to identify the relationship between emotional intelligence and quality of life for the tourism students at University of Mazandaran. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of an association between emotional intelligence and quality of life among tourism students.
The correlation method was used in this research. 139 samples were selected using stratified sampling (85 students, 54 girls and boys). Standard questionnaire was used for data gathering about quality of life and emotional intelligence. In order to measure quality of life, the questionnaire created by the World Health Organization was used which has 26 items in four subscales including : physical health (7 items), mental health (6 items), social relations (8 items), and environment (3 items) and the two questions assessing general mood. Emotional intelligence was measured by emotional intelligence questionnaire consisting of 90 questions by Baron with 15 components in five areas (interpersonal, intrapersonal, adaptability, stress management and general mood, respectively). Structural equation modeling was used for analysis. SPSS version 22 was used to analyze the data at 0.05 level of significance (p ≤0.05).
Discussion and Nowadays, tourism is considered as the most comprehensive service industry of the world that has acquired a special place in economic, cultural, social, and political realms. the results of research show that there is a significant relationship emotional intelligence and quality of life for the tourism students. Also, these results show that there is fitness in assumed Model with observed data. Ration Chi-square to the degree of freedom that represents the model goodness of fit is also obtained 59/1. The root mean square error of the estimate is also obtained 0/06, estimate this index equal to 0/05 or less is good for models, but for values below 0/10 is also acceptable. Comparative fit index also obtained 0/89. also obtained normal fit index values close to one (0/91) indicating goodness of fit pattern. goodness of fit index also obtained0/86. The results showed that the 6-fit index, two indices have been reported to have an acceptable fit was observed from 4 index also reported excellent fit. The results showed that the conceptual model with dimensions of emotional intelligence explain about 58 percent of the variance in quality of life. The results of this study showed that 37 percent of the variance in quality of life domains could explain by interpersonal domain and intrapersonal areas have explain 38 percent of the variance in quality of life, safety, stress management could explain 29 percent of the variance in quality of life.
Results showed that the relationship between the compatibility with a range quality of life general mood and quality of life of students is not significant. Which directly or indirectly have a positive effect on quality of life. Other results of this study showed that individual outcom domain could explain 38 percent of the variance in quality of life is supported by the researches. Students with high emotional intelligence have personality traits such as Self Concept, stress management strength and flexibility. Emotional intelligence can increase the health, welfare, wealth, success, love and happiness. high emotional intelligence abilities are effective in administration of mood, impulse control and empathy, awareness of the feelings of others and in cases of failure to do more to promote the individual desire. These features are a sign of the health of the person that directly or indirectly have a positive effect on quality of life. Other results of this study indicate areas of stress management are able to explain29 percent of the variance in the quality of-life management is supported by the record. The results showed that the relationship between quality of life and areas of compatibility with the general mood regarding the scope and quality of life of students is not significant. tourism experts in university are teaching position and important positions in the tourism role. Tourism experts must have certain personality characteristics and cognitive and emotional features such as high social relationships, problem solving, reality test, flexibility, stress tolerance, management of emotions, adventure, empathy, interpersonal relationships and responsibility, impulse control and optimism that was introduced in this paper as the dimensions of emotional intelligence.