Comprehensive investigation of emotional intelligence between open and closed skill athletes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the differences between open and closed skill athletes on the construct Emotional Intelligence. 209 male inter-college level players were chosen as subjects. They were further dispersed under two aggregations which incorporates n=130; open skill and n=79; closed skill. A standardized questionnaire developed by Hyde et al. (2001) was employed to collect the data for emotional intelligence. An exploratory research design has been used in the present study that has followed a quantitative method of data collection and analyses. The Purposive Sampling procedure was followed to achieve the goal of the study. Unpaired t-test was employed to establish the differences between open and closed skill athletes. For testing the hypotheses, the level of significance was set at 0.05. Findings show that no significant differences were found between the means of both groups with regard to the variable self-awareness, empathy, emotional stability, managing relations, self-development, commitment, altruistic behavior and overall emotional intelligence. However, significant mean differences were observed between both groups in relation to self-motivation (t=2.42, p