The association between emotional intelligence and early adolescent tobacco and alcohol use

A study was conducted to explore the relationship between emotional intelli gence (EI) and adolescent tobacco and alcohol use (TAU). Subjects were 205 multi-ethnic adolescents (52% male) from middle schools in southern Califor nia (mean age = 12.63 years), 153 from a public school and 52 from a paroch ial school. An abbreviated version of the Multifactor Emotional Intelligenc e Scale, Student Version [Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (1997) . Multifactor emotional intelligence scale, student version. Durham, NH] wa s used to assess the EI of the students. EI was negatively correlated with a general, overall measure of tobacco and alcohol use, and with individual tobacco and alcohol scales and items. It is plausible that the adolescents with high EI may possess a greater mental ability to read others well and d etect unwanted peer pressure. These abilities may have led to an increased resistance to TAU, thus explaining the negative correlations found in this study. Further research is needed to validate these findings. (C) 2001 Else vier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.