Parent-Adolescent Relationship Quality, Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Functioning among Pakistani Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

The central context for the development of emotional and social competencies is parent/teen interactions. The present cross-sectional study aimed at assessing the relationship between perceived quality of family relationship, emotional intellegence and interpersonal functioning in 204 school going children of age 10-19 years of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan using purposive sampling technique. They filled out a demographic form, a 15-item parent–adolescent relationship measure covering shared activities, connectedness and hostility, the 30-item Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form, and the 32-item Functional Idiographic Assessment Template-Questionnaire Short Form. In SPSS 27, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, multiple regression, independent-samples t tests and one-way analyses of variance were used to analyse data. Global trait emotional intelligence (r = .33-.38) and some of the interpersonal-functioning dimensions were positively correlated with parental relationship dimensions. The regression models in the thesis were found to predict well-being (B = .218, p = .041) and self-control (B = .272, p = .012), while shared activities predicted sociability (B = .185, p = .033), interpersonal intimacy (B = 1.255, p = .020), and interpersonal conflict scores (B = .558, p = .042). Hostility had a positive correlation with global trait emotional intelligence (B = .143, p = .013), emotionality (B = .246, p < .001) and disagreement (B = .814, p = .048); but these effects need to be confirmed against the original scoring key and the SPSS output. There was significant gender differences found throughout most of the emotional-intelligence and interpersonal areas but no significant difference was found for socioeconomic status. Global trait emotional intelligence and well-being was related to birth order. The results overall reflect the importance of parent-adolescent relationship quality in the emotional and relational development of teens, but cannot be used to draw causal inferences due to the cross-sectional, self-report design.