Emotional Intelligence, Resilience and Happiness Among South African Police Officers

Abstract

Police officers frequently face extremely stressful and potentially dangerous situations, making their psychological well-being critically important. These individuals are subjected to not only unsafe but also potentially volatile situations. Therefore, it is essential that police officers are emotionally intelligent, resilient and experience happiness in everyday life. This study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI), resilience and happiness among police officers in South Africa. A structured questionnaire was distributed among the police officers. The Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS), the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) and the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) were used in the study and displayed acceptable reliability. In the correlation analysis, positive significant associations were found between the dimensions of EI, resilience and happiness. Regression analyses showed positive predictive relationships observed between the regulation of emotion dimension of EI and two resilience dimensions, namely resilience recovery and resilience control. Positive predictive relationships were also found between these two resilience dimensions and happiness. Three EI dimensions, namely self-emotion appraisal, use of emotion and others’ emotion appraisal were not statistically significant in predicting the resilience dimensions (resilience recovery and resilience control). Recommendations and limitations for this study are discussed.