Proceedings of The 3rd International Conference on Applied Research in Education
Year: 2021
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/3rd.areconf.2021.06.250
Reservations and Complexity: The Relationship between Politeness and Emotional Intelligence
Masoumeh Ahmadi Shirazi
ABSTRACT:
Although politeness has a major place in many languages, and should be noticeable in everyday behavior, many people, especially the youth, in the current generation do not always act politely. Politeness is not considered as much as it used to be. This may be attributed to individuals’ low Emotional Intelligence (EI). The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between EQ and politeness. To this end, a group of 50 EFL Iranian learners participated in this study by responding to politeness and EI Appraisal Tests. The first test measured politeness suggested by Brown and Levinson (1978), which had 25 items with four possible responses whose scores ranged between 1 (the least polite) and 4 (the politest). The EQ questionnaire was a self-report appraisal test with 28 items measuring EI through 5-point Likert Scale. The correlational analysis revealed there was not a statistically significant relationship between EQ and politeness of EFL learners. The second purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between politeness and the four skills of EQ. The results revealed that politeness does not have any statisically significant relationship with any of the four EQ skills (i.e., Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management) among EFL Iranian learners. These findings suggest that politeness is a complicated phenomenon as is the case with EQ requiring further investigation.
Keywords: personal competence, social competence, emotional management, Emotional Quotient.