EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION AS PREDICTORS OF DEPRESSION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

In this study, the degree of predicting depression of university students' emotional intelligence and emotional expression was investigated. For this purpose, the sub-dimensions of the research, the differentiation of depression level according to some demographic variables and the relationship between depression level and emotional intelligence and emotional expression were also examined. The participants of the study were 370 students who studying at Biruni University. To the participants, prepared by the researcher; Personal Information Form; including gender, number of siblings, parental status or separation, faculty and grade level was applied. In addition, Beck Depression Scale (Hisli, 1988), Emotional Intelligence Feature Scale (TEIQue-SF) Short Form (Deniz et al., 2013) and Emotional Expression Questionnaire (Kuzucu, 2006) were applied. In the study, no significant difference was found between depression and the demographic variables of the study. In the results related to depression and emotional intelligence; emotional intelligence and depression of students were negatively related. Accordingly, as students' emotional intelligence increases, their depression levels decrease. In addition, it was found that students' emotional intelligence significantly predicted their depression levels. According to this result, it may be possible to estimate the depression levels by looking at the emotional intelligence levels of the students. In the results related to depression and emotional expression, positive emotional expression and proximity expression were found to be negatively related to depression. In addition, there is a positive relationship between negative emotion expression and depression. Accordingly, as the students' proximity expression and positive emotional expression increase, their depression levels decrease and as negative emotional expression increase, their depression levels increase. At the same time, it was determined that students' emotional expression significantly predicted depression. Accordingly, it may be possible to predict depression levels by looking at students emotional expression.

Keywords: Depression, emotion, emotional intelligence, emotional expression

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