THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIMENSIONS AND TRAIT MINDFULNESS IN STUDENTS’ FLOURISHING

Flourishing encompasses the socio-psychological prosperity of individuals and reflects feeling good and functioning well.Examining conditions and individual resources contributing to students' flourishing is an important part of positive psychology research in higher education.Some studies suggest that emotional intelligence (EI) and mindfulness contribute to students' flourishing.Since both EI and mindfulness are complex constructs, it is necessary to examine them at the dimension/facet level to understand their contribution to students' flourishing better.Also, in often highly demanding academic domain specific EI dimensions such as emotional self-regulation and self-motivation may be of great importance for students' flourishing.However, there is a lack of studies exploring the role of these specific EI dimensions as well as the role of specific mindfulness facets to students' flourishing.Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of the specific EI dimensions i.e. regulation of emotion in the self (ROE) and use of emotion to facilitate performance (UOE) and specific facets as well as overall trait mindfulness to students' flourishing.A convenience sample of 124 university students at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb (97% female, 20 years on average) participated in a study by completing several questionnaires: the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, and the Flourishing Scale.The correlation analysis showed that the EI dimensions i.e.ROE and UOE as well as mindfulness, both at facet and overall trait levels, were related to students' higher flourishing.Regression analyses showed that EI dimensions explained 44.8% of flourishing with ROE and UOE both being significant predictors.Also, regression analyses showed that three of five facets of mindfulness explained 40.2% of flourishing with observing, describing and acting with awareness being significant predictors.Finally, the results of hierarchical regression analysis showed that after controlling for EI dimensions, overall trait mindfulness, without observing facet, additionally explained 8% of flourishing.The final model explained 52.6% of flourishing with only the UOE and overall trait mindfulness remaining significant predictors of flourishing.This suggests that UOE and mindfulness have key roles in students' flourishing.