A training on emotional competence with adolescents: Efficacy and role of personality

Emotional competence includes the ability to express, understand, and regulate emotions. Many studies documented the efficacy of trainings in enhancing socio-emotional skills in young people. However, little attention has been paid to factors that can facilitate learning in such contexts, such as personality traits. This study aimed at exploring: (a) the efficacy of a training on emotional competence in increasing adolescents’ knowledge on facial expression of emotions, emotional lexicon, and emotion regulation strategies; and (b) the influencing role of the Big Five personality traits on learning in such training. We involved 236 sixth and seventh-graders from Italy, divided in an experimental and a control group. The adolescents assigned to the experimental group participated in a four-unit training on emotional competence, during school time. Before and after the training, both groups completed questionnaires assessing their knowledge and Big Five personality traits. Through repeated-measure ANOVA, we found that, after the training, the participants in the experimental group increased their knowledge on facial expression of emotions, emotional lexicon, and emotion regulation strategies, compared to both the pre-training phase and the control group. Agreeableness was positively correlated to learning of emotional lexicon. On the whole, our findings confirmed the efficacy of the implemented training to enhance adolescents’ emotional competence, also highlighting the role of personality in influencing learning. Notwithstanding limitations (e.g., absence of a follow-up assessment), this study confirmed the utility of emotion-based trainings, encouraging to consider individual differences when designing them.