EFL Teachers’ Emotional Intelligence and Their Personality Types: Exploring Possible Relations

Abstract

The major aim of this study was to examine the relationship between teachers’ emotional intelligence and their personality traits in an Iranian context. To this end, 85 Iranian EFL teachers were asked to fill out The Big Five Inventory Personality Test (John & Srivastava, 1999) and The Bar-On Emotional Intelligences test (1997). The results showed both negative and positive correlations among different subscales of the variables under study. It was found that among the 15 components of EI, problem solving has the highest positive correlation with personality types (i.e., agreeableness). Also, problem solving was found to have the highest negative significant correlation with personality types (i.e., neuroticism). Pedagogical implications are discussed.