Predicting Occupational Stress from Emotional and Social Intelligence of Civil Servants in Rivers State (Published)
The study focused on predicting occupational stress of civil servants form their emotional and social intelligence in Rivers State. The study adopted correlational design. A total of 600 civil servants were drawn through proportionate stratified sampling technique. Three instruments, Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS), Social Intelligence Scale (SIS) and Occupational Stress Inventory (OSI) which were validated and had reliability coefficients of 0.827 for EIS, 0.849 for SIS and 0.953 for OSI respectively. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Relevant data gathered were analyzed with multiple regression analysis as statistical tool. The result of the study showed that the combination of emotional intelligence dimensions and social intelligence components are significant predictors of the occupational stress of both female and male civil servants and the predictive strengths accounted for 81.9% and 91.6% respectively for the variance in the occupational stress. Based on the findings, it is recommended that since it has been established that both emotional intelligence and its dimensions as well as social intelligence and its components could predict the occupational stress of civil servants, efforts should be made by individual researchers and Government sponsored researchers to further research on whether high or low emotional and social intelligences could increase or decrease occupational stress among civil servants.
Keywords: Civil Servants, Emotional Intelligence, Rivers State, Social Intelligence, occupational Stress