EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-EFFICACY AS DETERMINING FACTORS FOR PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT AMONG ADOLESCENTS

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-EFFICACY AS DETERMINING FACTORS FOR PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT AMONG ADOLESCENTS

CHAPITRE ONE

INTRODUCTION

Adolescence is frequently a challenging phase in development since it marks the change from childhood dependent to adult dependency and self-sufficiency (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 1998). One key issue that teenagers face during their adolescence is developing a feeling of personal agency in what appears to be a resistive word.

Adolescents are seen as tomorrow’s leaders in our communities. They have huge potential and talents to succeed in their various desires and established life goals. To attain these goals, they must be dedicated, sacrificed, self-disciplined, motivated, and have a cordial connection with their parents, peers (both in school and social gatherings), and the environment in which they find themselves. Adolescents at this age have a lot of obligations and obstacles, which can lead to stress (Imonikebe, 2009). To be successful in these duties and pursuits, they must have strong mental health and functional social supportive networks. As responsibilities and tasks grow, and new social relationships emerge, teenagers may become unsure of their ability to satisfy these obligations Dwyer & Cummings (2001). Difficulties in dealing with the ensuring stressor frequently result in lower performance in areas such as academic achievements/performance and interpersonal interactions, raising psychological suffering and negative attitudes toward learning and life (Dwyer & Cummings, Salami, 2006). All of these always pose problems to the highly sought-after attributes of a social support network, highlighting the necessity to expand on the concept of social support.

According to Bames (1854), social support (SS) is the perception and reality that one is for, has assistance available from other people, and is part of a supportive social network. Emotional support (nurturance), material help (money aid), informational support (guidance), and/or companionship support (feeling of belonging) are all examples of supportive network resources. However, other researchers have taken a different approach to social assistance. For example, Hagihara, Tarumi, and Miller (1998) defined social support as the provision and receipt of tangible and intangible goals, services, and benefits (e.g., encouragement and reassurance) in the context of informational relationships (e.g., family, friends, coworkers, co-students, and lecturers). It has also been suggested that social support is too complicated to be reduced to a single theoretical idea (Vanx, 1988); as a result, comprehensive models incorporating the primary aspects of most contemporary conceptualizations of social support have been constructed (Cutronor & Rusell, 1987). This extensive elaboration of social support is now considered as a comprehensive component toward properly understanding it (Alankee, Johnson, & Hunt, 1998).

Social support is also characterized as physical and emotional comfort provided by family, friends, colleagues, and others. It is knowing that we are part of a community of people who love and care for us, who value and admire us. It is the sum of the individual’s social, emotional, and instrumental exchanges, with the subjective result that the individual views himself or herself as a continuing valued object in the eyes of significant others (Gordy, 1996). The total of all the ties that make a person feel as if he or she matters to the people who matter to him or her is referred to as social support. Social assistance can take many different forms. Human connection experts have identified three major categories of social support. Alarie (1996) found that while these forms of social support are intended to have a good impact on the lives and health of individual adolescents, they can sometimes have detrimental implications. Furthermore, numerous studies have shown that being integrated into social networks and receiving high levels of social support are important for mental health, high productivity and performance, as well as encouraging achievement of set goals and well-being, particularly in adolescents (Kessler & Mclead, 1995; Alarie, 1996). The amount of social contacts, both close and distant, is connected to higher levels of happiness. Different sorts of assistance from different sources, such as emotional, practical, and informational support, may promote health within partnerships (Houze & Kalin, 1995). According to Stansfelf and Sproton (2002) and Alarie (1996), close relationships can be both stressful and stress-relieving, and high levels of negative interaction within a relationship increase the likelihood of mental illness.

When taken as a whole, Goodenew, 1993; Levitt, Guacci-Fanco, & Levitt, 1994; and Wentzel, 1998, defined social support as a morale booster or forces that adolescents received from their parents, classmates, and/or teachers based on their life pursuit and target goals. They further elaborate that teenage perceived social support is related to academic accomplishment, in that they/adolescents receiving social support) perform better in both emotional reasoning and self-efficacy and self-esteem than those who do not view their socializers as such. Other scholars argued that, despite the growing body of evidence linking the perception of supportive social relationships, academic achievement, emotional reasoning, and high self-efficacy/self esteem, the mechanisms through which social support exerts its influence on these achievements are rarely studied. As a result, supportive social relationships may influence adolescents’ behavior indirectly through motivational and affective mechanisms.

Furthermore, Furman and Buhrmesten (1992) defined social support as a phase in which teenagers see their parents and teachers as less helpful, while their perception of peer support increases. Thus, adolescence is a great time to investigate the impact of perceived social support on emotional well-being, self-efficacy, and behavior-exhibited, with a special attention on affective and motivational mechanisms that are involved.

Social support can be measured as the belief that help is accessible, actual help received, or the degree to which a person is incorporated into a social network. Social support, on the other hand, has been linked to many benefits for both physical and mental health, but it is not always beneficial, according to the two main models proposed for the link between social support and health: the buffering hypothesis and the direct effects hypothesis.