Influence of emotional intelligence on stress among college students

College students undergo lot of stress during their period of study in university or college. There may be various reasons for this. Too much stress could affect their studies which may get reflected in their grades if left unchecked. There are many ways to handle stress and become stress free. The aim of the present study is to find whether emotional intelligence can be used as a tool for handling stress. Emotional intelligence (EI) or emotional quotient (EQ) is the capacity of individuals to recognize their own, and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour. For the present study a group of 200 college students between the ages of 18 to 24 were selected at random and two set of inventories, one for emotional intelligence and the other for stress were administered on these students. The responses of these students were analysed using statistical tools such as correlation, chi-square and ANOVA. A significant correlation and association was found between emotional intelligence and stress among the respondents.