Examining Adolescent Resilience and Self-Regulation: The Moderating Influence of Emotional Intelligence

Background: Self-regulation is crucial for adaptive functioning, particularly during adolescence and adulthood. While self-regulation generally positively related to resilience, this association may be influenced by emotional intelligence (EI), which promotes effective emotional processing and regulation. The present study investigated the moderating role of emotional intelligence in relationship between resilience and self-regulation among adolescents. Materials and method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a convenient random sample of 298 participants. Standardized self-report construct was used to measure resilience, emotional intelligence and self-regulation. Hayes PROCESS macro (Model 1) with bootstrapping was used to conduct moderation analysis to test the interaction effects and conditional associations at low, medium, and high emotional intelligence levels. Results: Overall, moderation model explained 76.7% of the variance in self-regulation (R² = .767, p < .001). Resilience (β = –6.08, p < .001) and emotional intelligence (β = –2.85, p < .001) significantly predicted self-regulation. Moreover, the interaction between resilience and emotional intelligence was also significant (β = 0.056, p < .001), indicated moderation. Conditional analyses demonstrated that resilience had a negative effect on self-regulation at low levels of emotional intelligence but a positive effect on self-regulation at high levels of emotional intelligence. Conclusion: Findings revealed that emotional intelligence is a significant moderating factor between self-regulation and resilience. Increasing emotional intelligence may strengthen the positive effects of resilience on self-regulation. This implies that interventions targeting emotional intelligence have the potential to enhance self-regulatory abilities, particularly in subjects with different levels of resilience.