The main aim of the current study was to investigate the role of trait emotional intelligence (TEI) in preventing students’ school burnout directly and indirectly via anxiety and academic resilience. The data were derived from a sample of 1235 high school students (962 females and 273 males), ranging in age between 13 and 17 years (mean = 15.46; stand deviation = 1.22). Structural equation modelling revealed a strong indirect effect of TEI on school burnout, mediated via anxiety and resilience. Overall, students with high TEI were less likely to experience school anxiety and more likely to exhibit resilience which, in turn, reduced school burnout risk. Findings are discussed with reference to the wider role of TEI in educational contexts and highlight the need and potential for scientifically driven interventions to enhance emotional adjustment at school and in life, more generally.

Students’ school burnout has been extensively investigated in relation to interpersonal factors such as peer relations and social adjustment. However, few studies have examined the role of individual traits such as empathic skills. Our aim in this study was to test, within a single comprehensive model, how students’ empathic skills affect their levels of school burnout, both directly and indirectly via satisfaction with school relationships. A sample of 998 high school students (aged 14 to 19 years) took part in this cross-sectional study. Participants completed quantitative self-report measures of school burnout, empathic skills (both cognitive and affective), and satisfaction with school relationships (peers and teachers). Using structural equation modeling, we tested a conceptual model in which emphatic skills were hierarchically associated with satisfaction about school relationships and school burnout, while also controlling for age. The structural equation model offered an excellent fit for the empirical data. Analysis of the total, direct, and indirect effects showed that empathic skills were associated with both satisfaction about school relationships and school burnout. Satisfaction with school relationships appeared to mediate the relationship between empathy and school burnout. Students’ age was also found to have statistically significant effects. The negative effect of high school students’ empathic skills on their risk of school burnout may be prevented or at least reduced by helping them to develop positive and satisfying relationships with both teachers and peers.

We explored the relationship between the ascribed tendency of Albanian preschoolers’ to take on prosocial and/or hostile roles and their empathy and emotion comprehension. Participants were 63 preschoolers (3- to 6-years-old) and six teachers. Pupils’ empathy and hostile/prosocial roles were assessed via teacher reports and their emotional comprehension through a non-verbal test. The results confirmed the pattern of relationships previously found in Italian preschoolers ( Belacchi & Farina, 2010 , 2012 ) among children’s roles in bullying, developmental stage of emotion comprehension, and empathic disposition. Differences emerged regarding Albanian teachers’ attributions of roles and empathic disposition as a function of gender; they also perceived children displaying hostile behavior as having strong perspective-taking abilities. This evaluation style may be culture-specific and related to the values of a society-in-transition such as Albania.

Alexithymic traits, which entail finding it difficult to recognize and describe one’s own emotions, are linked with poor trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and difficulties in identifying and managing stressors. There is evidence that alexithymia may have detrimental consequences for wellbeing and health, beginning in adolescence. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the prevalence and incidence of alexithymia in teenage girls, testing the statistical power of TEI and student burnout to discriminate between high- and low-alexithymic subjects. A sample of 884 female high school students (mean age 16.2 years, age range 14–19) attending three Italian academic-track high schools (social sciences and humanities curriculum) completed self-report measures of alexithymia, school burnout, and TEI. Main descriptive statistics and correlational analysis preceded the discriminant analysis. The mean alexithymia scores suggest a high prevalence of alexithymia in female adolescents; as expected, this trait was negatively correlated with TEI and positively associated with school burnout. Participants with high vs. low alexithymia profiles were discriminated by a combination of TEI and burnout scores. High scores for the emotionality and self-control dimensions of TEI were strongly associated with membership of the low alexithymia group; high scores for the emotional exhaustion dimension of school burnout were indicative of membership of the high alexithymia group. These findings suggest crucial focuses for educational intervention: efforts to reduce the risk of emotional exhaustion and school burnout should especially concentrate on enhancing emotional awareness and self-control skills, both strongly associated with low levels of alexithymia.

Children’s behaviours during bullying episodes are associated with both interpersonal-situational variables (e.g., social status indices) and personal-dispositional variables (e.g., emotional competence). The aim of the present study was to investigate – in a group of 202 kindergarteners (age range: 3–6 years) – the relationships between participants’ roles in bullying and their: 1) empathy and emotion comprehension skills; 2) social preference and social impact, while also examining the effects of their sex and age. Our main finding was that prosocial behaviours were positively related to social preference status and emotional skills; while hostile behaviours were negatively related to social preference status and positively related to social impact. Outsiders had low social impact among peers and poor emotional skills. Children who experienced victimization more frequently were markedly the least preferred in the peer group. We conclude that social impact and social preference are separate factors and play distinct roles in peer relationships from early childhood onwards.