Is Emotional Intelligence Important For Mental Skills? The Relationship Between Athletes’ Emotional Intelligence And Mental Skills

The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between mental skills and emotional intelligence of athletes. 160 males 76.2%) and 50 females (23.8%) as a total of 210 athletes voluntarily participated in the research. Athletes’ age was 21.10±2.68, their sport experience was 8.22±4.21 years and the length of weekly total trainings was found to be 10.56±6.06 hours. The Ottawa Mental Skills Assessment Tool and Emotional Intelligence Inventory in Sport were used as the data collection tool. Analyses were conducted in SPSS 22 program by descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis with enter method. Pearson correlation analysis showed that all the dimensions of emotional intelligence were significantly correlated with goal-setting, self-confidence, commitment, relaxation, activation, focusing, imagery, mental practice and competition planning. Regression analysis showed that use of emotions significantly contributed to goal-setting, relaxation and imagery; appraisal of own emotions and use of emotions contributed to activation and mental practice; emotional regulation and use of emotions contributed to self-confidence; social skills contributed to focusing, social skills and use of emotions contributed to competition planning. It can be concluded in line with the finding of this research that athletes’ emotional intelligence was significantly correlated with mental skills and that emotional intelligence could contribute to mental skills of athletes. It can be suggested according to the findings that necessary practices can be performed to enhance athletes’ emotional intelligence which can in turn increase their mental skills.