AN INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND THINKING STYLES AMONG IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

This study aims to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and thinking styles among Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To this end, 90 intermediate university students (42 male and48 female) specializing in the English translation were asked to fill out the Persian versions of emotional quotient inventory (EQ-I) (Bar-On, 1997) and thinking styles inventory (Sternberg-Wagner, 1992) questionnaires. Pearson correlation was used to test the relationship between emotional intelligence and thinking styles and t-test was used to determine the differences of two genders in using styles of thought. Analyzing data results revealed that there was no significant relationship between students' emotional intelligence and their thinking styles. Also the findings of the t-test showed that no significant difference was found between males and females with regard to their thinking styles.