The Role of Marital Status in Emotional Intelligence, Happiness, Optimism and Hope

The role of marital status in emotional intelligence, happiness, optimism and hope was examined as well as the relationships between emotional intelligence, happiness, optimism and hope. The role of demographic factors was then considered in relation to these constructs. The participants included 500 individuals who were selected from Shiraz City; Fars province, Iran. A demographic questionnaire and five self-rating measures were used in this study. Married individuals demonstrated higher levels of “emotional intelligence,” “happiness,” and “trait/state hope” than widowed, divorced, single and remarried individuals. The “emotion attention” subscale of emotional intelligence was negatively correlated to “happiness,” “dispositional hope” and “state hope.” Emotional intelligence was found to correlate negatively to the “agency” factor of “state hope” on the “emotion clarity” subscale. Happiness correlated negatively with “optimism” and positively with “hope.” The roles of age, gender, occupation, level of education and ethnicity in the emotional intelligence, happiness, optimism, and trait and state hope were not significant.