Emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress among Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong

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1 High Ability Studies Vol. 16, No. 2, December 2005, pp Emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress among Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong David W. Chan* Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong The relationships among emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress were investigated in a sample of 624 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. A mediation-effect model specifying that emotional intelligence had an effect on psychological distress mediated by social coping was hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling procedures. For comparison, a direct-effect model and a direct-and-mediation-effect model were also fitted to the data. The results indicated that the mediation-effect model provided an adequate and good fit, suggesting that the effects of self-relevant and other-relevant emotional intelligence on psychological distress were mediated by avoidant coping and social-interaction coping, respectively. Implications of the findings for enhancing emotional intelligence of students and in promoting the use of adaptive social coping strategies for their psychological well-being are discussed. Emotions, emotional experiences, and emotional disorders are generally acknowledged to lie at the heart of the practice of mental health (e.g. Kring & Bachorowski, 1999). Yet, the scene of psychotherapy has largely been dominated by an emphasis on cognition and behavior, and is relatively less informed by systematic studies or basic research on emotion (see Heesacker & Bradley, 1997). In recent decades, a consistent view has gradually emerged, indicating that affective phenomena constitute a unique source of information for individuals about their surrounding environment, and this emotional information could in turn inform their thoughts, actions, and subsequent feelings (Salovey et al., 2000). However, individuals cannot be assumed to be equally skilled at perceiving, understanding, and utilizing this emotional information, suggesting that individuals differ as to their abilities to exert effective control over their emotional lives. Such individual differences are now more commonly described as differences in emotional intelligence, which contribute substantially to the psychological well-being of individuals (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). While different researchers and practitioners might view emotional intelligence somewhat differently, as a spectrum of abilities, or abilities and personality characteristics (see Goleman, 1995; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Ciarrochi et al., *Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong. davidchan@cuhk.edu.hk ISSN (print)/issn X (online)/05/ # 2005 European Council for High Ability DOI: /

2 164 D. W. Chan 2000; Mayer et al., 2000a,b), they generally agree that the construct of emotional intelligence could provide a general framework that allows the identification of specific skills needed to understand and experience emotions most adaptively. Thus, this framework has been recognized to have particular relevance in personal growth and development (e.g. Steiner & Perry, 1997), and in emotional regulation in psychotherapy (e.g. Greenberg, 2002). Specifically, within this framework, Mayer and Salovey (1997) have defined emotional intelligence by the specific competencies it encompasses, organizing skills in four branches: perceiving emotions, facilitating thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions. Research studies have also demonstrated that successful coping depends on the integrated operation of these emotional competencies. Indeed, emotional intelligence has been found to foster effective coping with past events and traumatic experiences (e.g. Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1997; Pennebaker, 1997), with anticipation of desired goals in the future (e.g. Taylor et al., 1998), and with current events and chronic stress (e.g. Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000a,b). In the field of gifted education, emotional intelligence also has particular relevance (see Mayer et al., 2001). Gifted and talented students, despite their high cognitive abilities, are not immune to social and emotional problems in their childhood and adolescence (e.g. Robinson & Noble, 1991; Piirto, 1992; Webb, 1993). Very often, many gifted students might even experience painful and troubling psychological problems similar to those experienced by their peers (Pfeiffer & Stocking, 2000), and some might feel more intensively than their peers about what happens around them (Piechowski, 1997). Indeed, this intense emotional sensitivity or involvement has been attributed to gifted students uneven or asynchronous development that renders them vulnerable to feeling different and a misfit among peers (Tannenbaum, 1997; Neihart, 1999). Such intense sensitivity might also reflect to some extent gifted students emotional intelligence, or their abilities to monitor, regulate, and manage their own as well as others emotions in their coping with being gifted. In this connection, one might conjecture that to help gifted students cope more effectively with their giftedness, efforts to assess and enhance their emotional intelligence deserve attention. One notable attempt to assess individuals emotional intelligence is the work of Schutte and her colleagues who constructed and developed a 33-item self-report Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS; Schutte et al., 1998) based on the Mayer Salovey model of emotional intelligence. In a number of studies related to the instrument s development, they have also demonstrated the sound psychometric properties of the measure, including its reliability and validity. While their findings from responses to the EIS suggested that the scale could be conceptualized as a unidimensional scale of emotional intelligence, other studies have distinguished factors that were related to trait emotional intelligence and information-processing emotional intelligence (e.g. Petrides & Furnham, 2000). Nonetheless, the EIS yields a global emotional intelligence score that could be used to help identify individuals who are at risk for performing poorly at tasks that require emotional intelligence. In addition, these atrisk individuals might benefit from special guidance and counseling services,

3 training, and support to enhance their emotional intelligence. It is further believed that with their enhanced emotional intelligence, these individuals may gain better access to the healthy information and action tendency within emotions, and use the information to make sense of their reactions to situations as well as to guide adaptive action (see Greenberg, 2002). In assessing the emotional intelligence of Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong using a Chinese version of EIS, Chan (2003) identified four dimensions of emotional intelligence. While these dimensions do not map nicely into the four branches delineated in the Mayer Salovey model, they could be distinguished by being either self-relevant abilities (self-management and utilization) or otherrelevant abilities (empathy and social skills). In addition, these dimensions of emotional intelligence were found to predict gifted students use of specific social coping strategies to cope with their being gifted, suggesting that different dimensions of emotional intelligence might prompt the use of different social coping strategies as investigated by Swiatek (1995, 2001, 2002) in her studies. Specifically, self-relevant emotional intelligence appeared to relate more closely to avoidant coping, whereas other-relevant emotional intelligence were more connected to coping through social interaction. Chan (2004), in yet another study, further found that some of these social coping strategies significantly predicted specific psychological symptoms. Since gifted students might have heightened sensitivities to emotions that demanded accurate appraisal as well as appropriate regulation (Piechowski, 1997), one could surmise that those who were more emotionally intelligent would perhaps engage in using more adaptive coping strategies, which might in turn lead to their reduced vulnerability to psychological distress (see Mayer et al., 2001). In this connection, it was of great interest to examine whether social coping did mediate the effect of emotional intelligence on psychological well-being. Further, the question whether emotional intelligence also had a direct salient impact on gifted students psychological well-being in addition to the indirect effect as mediated by social coping needed to be addressed. With this view, the present study aimed at examining the relationships among emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese gifted students. Specifically, this study extended the findings relating emotional intelligence to social coping (see Chan, 2003), and those relating social coping to psychological distress (see Chan, 2004). Based on these past findings, structural equation modeling procedures were employed to test the hypothesized mediation-effect model that social coping mediated the effect of emotional intelligence on psychological distress. For comparison, other competing models, including models that specified direct effect as well as direct and mediation effects, were also tested. Method Participants Emotional intelligence, coping and distress 165 A total of 624 students (307 boys and 317 girls) nominated by their schools to join the gifted programs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong participated voluntarily in

4 166 D. W. Chan this study. These students were in grades 4 to 13, and were between the ages of 9 and 19 (M512.98, SD52.30). Specifically, letters were sent to principals of schools all over Hong Kong to enlist their help in recruiting gifted students. In nominating students, principals and teachers were requested to recommend students on the basis that they were judged to be either gifted intellectually (with a high IQ score), academically (with outstanding performance in school subjects), or that they have demonstrated specific talents in other nonacademic areas. Since there are no generally accepted standard measures in Hong Kong schools, and schools generally do not have access to information on specific IQ scores of students, no threshold IQ score was specified, and individual schools would make their own judgment on different aspects of giftedness based on their knowledge of their students. Consequently, gifted students in this study were sampled from a broad age range, and could be regarded as relatively heterogeneous with respect to their gifts and talents. Procedures All 624 students who accepted school nomination participated voluntarily in this study with written consent obtained from their parents. Students were then invited to attend group assessment sessions to complete three instruments assembled to assess their emotional intelligence, social coping strategies, and psychological distress. These instruments were the shortened Chinese 12-item EIS (EIS-12; Schutte et al., 1998; Chan, 2003), the Chinese 12-item Social Coping Questionnaire (SCQ-12) adapted and modified from SCQ-17 (Swiatek, 1995, 2001; Chan, 2004), and the Chinese 20-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-20; Chan, 1993, 1995). All 624 students completed these instruments anonymously, and were assured that the data they provided were confidential and would be used for research purposes only. Measures Emotional Intelligence Scale. The Chinese EIS-12 was adapted from the English 33- item EIS originally developed by Schutte and her colleagues (Schutte et al., 1998). The 33-item EIS aims to assess different aspects of emotional intelligence that includes the appraisal and expression of emotions in self and others, regulation of emotions in self and others, and utilization of emotions in thinking and solving problems. The 12 items in the shortened Chinese version were developed from the translated 33 items based on findings in the study with Chinese gifted students (Chan, 2003). In completing the Chinese EIS-12, participants responded by indicating their agreement to each of the 12 statements using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Item responses can be scored into four three-item subscales assessing self-management, utilization, empathy, and social skills. Social Coping Questionnaire. The Chinese SCQ-12, which was adapted from the Chinese version of SCQ, aims to assess relevant social coping strategies for gifted

5 Emotional intelligence, coping and distress 167 students in this study. The Chinese SCQ was developed on the basis of the original 35-item English version by Swiatek (1995). The Chinese version has undergone a number of revisions to accommodate the revisions by Swiatek (2001, 2002). The present Chinese SCQ-12 retained three relevant three-item subscales from SCQ-17 (Chan, 2004) to assess the denial of giftedness, avoidance, and peer acceptance. Apart from the three subscales, a three-item subscale was added by drawing three items from the new social interaction subscale from Swiatek s (2002) revised scale to tap coping activities of gifted students in helping others. Thus, the 12 items can be scored into four subscales of denying giftedness, attempting avoidance, valuing peer acceptance, and helping others. In responding to this Chinese SCQ-12, participants judged the extent to which each of the statements representing social coping was descriptive of them or applied to them using a five-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). General Health Questionnaire. The Chinese GHQ-20 assesses students psychological distress in terms of current nonpsychotic symptoms in the five symptom areas represented by scales of health concerns, sleep problems, anxiety, dysphoria, and suicidal ideas. Students were requested to rate each symptom statement on a 4- point scale by comparing themselves during the past 2 weeks with their usual selves. The 4-point scale was scored to reflect the severity of the relevant symptoms that the respondent experienced (see Goldberg, 1978; Goldberg & Williams, 1988). Overview of analyses The present study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures in testing the relationships among emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress of Chinese gifted students using LISREL 8 (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993). When SEM procedures are used, hypothesized models are tested at the construct level rather than at the level of a single measured variable, thus reducing the effect of measurement error associated with specific instruments. Apart from the confirmatory analyses, SEM procedures also allow relationships among sets of constructs to be examined. In general, SEM models have two basic elements. The measurement model delineates the associations between measured and latent variables and the correlations among latent variables. The structural model estimates the direct and indirect effects among latent variables. The present analysis followed a stepwise procedure, one similar to that recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988), in which the acceptability of the measurement of constructs of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress was evaluated first before proceeding to an evaluation of relations among constructs. In evaluating the relations among the latent constructs, the mediation-effect model specifying that social coping mediated the effect of emotional intelligence on psychological distress was first tested, followed by the testing of competing models that included the direct-effect model

6 168 D. W. Chan and the direct-and-mediation-effect model. Since these models would be rejected by the chi-square test statistic at a conventional alpha level if a large enough sample was used, and accepted if a small enough sample was used, a number of residual-based fit indices and comparison-based fit indices were employed to help determine whether the hypothesized models were well-fitting for these data (e.g. Bentler, 1989; Steiger, 1990; Browne & Cudeck, 1993). Thus, apart from the chi-square statistic, the fit indices used included the Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation (RMSEA), the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (S-RMR), the Expected Cross-Validation Index (ECVI), the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), the Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI). In general, an adequate and good fit is suggested by RMSEA and S-MSR values below 0.05, and by fit index values above 0.90, and the best fitting model among competing models will be the one with the smallest ECVI value or the greatest likelihood that the model will crossvalidate across a similar-sized sample from the same population (see Byrne, 1998; Diamantopoulos & Siguaw, 2000). Results The relevant item responses of the students to EIS-12, SCQ-12, and GHQ-20 were first tabulated and scored into four subscales of emotional intelligence, four subscales of social coping, and five subscales of psychological distress. Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and internal consistency measures of these subscales. The moderately high internal consistency values (0.58 to 0.85) provided some initial support that these subscales could serve as indicators of the constructs of Table 1. Measures of emotional intelligence, social coping and psychological distress (N5624) Measure Number of items Mean rating Standard deviation Coefficient alpha Emotional intelligence Self-management of emotions Utilization of emotions Social skills Empathy Social coping Denying giftedness Attempting avoidance Helping others Valuing peer acceptance Psychological distress Health concern Sleep problems Anxiety Dysphoria Suicidal ideas

7 Emotional intelligence, coping and distress 169 emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress for further evaluation with SEM procedures. Measurement models of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress To evaluate the acceptability of these subscale scores as indicators of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress, matrices of item covariances were separately computed from items from subscales of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress for confirmatory factor analyses. Specifically, the four-factor measurement model of emotional intelligence, the four-factor measurement model of social coping strategies, and the five-factor measurement model of psychological distress were tested using separate maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analyses. Tables 2, 3, and 4 present the summary of results of these confirmatory factor analyses for emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress, respectively. The corresponding chi-square Table 2. Completely standardized four-factor solution of emotional intelligence by maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis (N5624) Emotional intelligence Factor Social skills Compliment others for doing something well (24) Help others feel better (30) Feel experiencing others life events (26) Self-management of emotions Easily recognize emotions as experienced (22) Aware of emotions as experienced (9) Control over emotions (21) Empathy Know what others feel by looking (29) Recognize emotions from facial expressions (18) Know how others feel by their tone of voice (32) Utilization of emotions See new possibilities when mood changes (7) Emotions make life worth living (8) New ideas when a change in emotions (27) Factor correlation matrix Factor 1 Factor 2 66 Factor Factor Note. Decimals are omitted. Original item numbers in the Emotional Intelligence Scale are in parentheses.

8 170 D. W. Chan Table 3. Completely standardized four-factor solution of social coping by maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis (N5624) Social coping Factor Denying giftedness People think but are mistaken that I am gifted Don t think I am gifted Not gifted but just lucky at school Attempting avoidance Afraid of making mistakes Embarrassed when making a mistake Scared thinking of failure Valuing peer acceptance Being gifted does not hurt my popularity Students do not like me any less because I am gifted Not being gifted wouldn t make students like me more or less Helping others Students come to me for help with homework Explained course material to other students Tried using knowledge to help other students Factor correlation matrix Factor 1 Factor 2 25 Factor Factor Note. Decimals are omitted. values and fit indices for these three measurement models are summarized in Table 5. It can be seen from the results of the confirmatory analyses as summarized in these tables that when the relevant items were specified to load on their appropriate factors, the loadings were all statistically significant (p,0.01). For all measurement models under consideration, the residual-based fit indices were less than 0.05 or approached 0.05, and the other comparison-based fit indices were all above Comparing the measurement models with the independence or null models where there were no correlations among variables, the chi-square values and ECVI indices were all sizably reduced. These results suggested that the measurement models could be considered to be generally adequate and well-fitting models. The matrices of factor correlations also indicated that the four subscales of emotional intelligence correlated substantially with one another, as did the five subscales of psychological distress, reflecting the latent variables of emotional intelligence and psychological distress could be represented by the corresponding subscales as indicators. The four

9 Emotional intelligence, coping and distress 171 Table 4. Completely standardized five-factor solution of psychological distress by maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis (N5624) Psychological distress Factor Health concern Did not feel in good health Felt run down Felt ill Did not feel energetic Sleep problems Early awakening Lost sleep Difficult to sleep Difficult to stay asleep Anxiety Feared to say anything Could not make a start Dreaded everything Felt everything on top Dysphoria Not playing a useful part Not enjoying activities Felt worthless Not feeling happy Suicidal ideas Felt life not worth living Thoughts of ending life Wishing to be dead Idea of killing oneself Factor correlation matrix Factor 1 Factor 2 46 Factor Factor Factor Note. Decimals are omitted. subscales of social coping, however, appeared to fall into two relatively independent clusters, suggesting a construct of passive or avoidant coping as opposed to one of active coping through social interactions with peers. In addition to evaluating the measurement models of three scales at the item level, an overall measurement model at the scale level was also fitted to these 13 subscales, representing the 13 indicators to the five hypothesized latent variables of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress. The resulting indices, also

10 172 D. W. Chan Table 5. Fit indices of the measurement models of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress (N5624) Model x 2 df Fit index RMSEA S-RMR GFI NNFI CFI ECVI Emotional intelligence Independence model * Measurement model Social coping Independence model * Measurement model * Psychological distress Independence model * Measurement model Emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress Independence model * Measurement model 96.75* Note. Fit indices are from LISREL analyses (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993). x 2 5normal theory weighted least squares x 2 ; RMSEA5Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; S- RMR5Standardized Root Mean Square Residual; GFI5Goodness of Fit Index; NNFI5Non- Normed Fit Index; CFI5Comparative Fit Index; ECVI5Expected Cross-Validation Index. *p, presented in Table 5, indicated that this overall measurement model fitted the data reasonably well. Structural models of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress The structural models specifying the patterns of relationships among latent variables of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress were successively evaluated using SEM procedures. While the data on emotional intelligence suggested that the two hypothesized latent variables of emotional intelligence, selfrelevant emotional intelligence and other-relevant emotional intelligence could be highly correlated, it was still of substantive interest to maintain their distinctness. Thus, the structural models to be tested specified direct paths and mediating paths from two latent variables of emotional intelligence and two latent variables of social coping to one latent variable of psychological distress. Figure 1 presents the hypothesized mediation-effect model. As conventionally presented, the variables in boxes were indicators defining the latent constructs in ovals. Avoidant coping was hypothesized to mediate the effect of self-relevant emotional intelligence on psychological distress, and social-interaction coping was hypothesized to mediate the effect of other-relevant emotional intelligence on psychological distress. All parameters shown are standardized, and are statistically

11 Emotional intelligence, coping and distress 173 Figure 1. The hypothesized mediation-effect model of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress significant (p,0.01), indicating that the hypothesized paths are all significant. The results suggested that students who were high on self-relevant emotional intelligence were less likely to engage in avoidant coping strategies in coping with their being gifted, and the use of avoidant coping could contribute substantially to psychological distress. On the other hand, students who were high on other-relevant emotional intelligence or had more empathy and social skills were more likely to engage in social-interaction coping that would help reduce psychological distress. The model accounted for 52% of the variance in psychological distress. The various fit indices of this mediation-effect model presented in Table 6 also indicated that this hypothesized mediation-effect model was well-fitting. Table 6 also summarizes the findings and the various fit indices obtained in fitting two competing models to the data. Specifically, one direct-effect model and one direct-and-mediation-effect model were considered. In the direct-effect model, two sets of latent variables, self-relevant and other-relevant emotional intelligence, and avoidant and social-interaction coping, assumed to be uncorrelated across sets, were specified to be causally prior to and have direct effects on the latent variable of psychological distress. In the direct-and-mediation-effect model, two direct paths, one from self-relevant emotional intelligence and one from other-relevant emotional intelligence, were added to the mediation-effect model. Since the three models

12 174 D. W. Chan Table 6. Fit indices of the structural models of emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress (N5624) Model x 2 df Fit index RMSEA S-RMR GFI NNFI CFI ECVI Independence model * Mediation-effect model EI 2.SC 2.PD * Direct-effect model EI 2.PD & SC 2.PD Direct-and-mediation-effect model EI2.SC2.PD & EI2.PD * Note. EI5emotional intelligence; SC5social coping; PD5psychological distress. Fit indices are from LISREL analyses (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993). x 2 5normal theory weighted least squares x 2 ; RMSEA5Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; S-RMR5Standardized Root Mean Square Residual; GFI5Goodness of Fit Index; NNFI5Non-Normed Fit Index; CFI5Comparative Fit Index; ECVI5Expected Cross-Validation Index. *p, under consideration involved the same latent constructs and indicators, they could be compared using the fit indices. It can be seen from Table 6 that the fit indices of the direct-effect model suggested that this model did not adequately fit the data, although the model still accounted for 50% of the variance in psychological distress. The two direct paths from self-relevant emotional intelligence and from other-relevant emotional intelligence to psychological distress were both nonsignificant, as indicated by the nonsignificant estimated parameters (p.0.05). In contrast, the direct-and mediation-effect model had fit index values comparable to those obtained in the hypothesized mediation-effect model, and could be considered well-fitting, accounting for 55% of the variance in psychological distress. However, like the direct-effect model, the two direct paths from emotional intelligence to psychological distress were again nonsignificant, as was the path from social-interaction coping to psychological distress. Since this model was of greater complexity in terms of additional paths than the mediationeffect model, the mediation-effect model could be considered the model of choice because of parsimony and the lower ECVI value. Discussion The present findings extend past findings on the relationships between emotional intelligence and social coping strategies, and between social coping strategies and psychological distress among Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. Based on past findings, a model has been postulated specifying that the effects of emotional

13 Emotional intelligence, coping and distress 175 intelligence on psychological distress were mediated by social coping. However, rather than testing the hypothesized model at the level of observed variables, SEM procedures were used to test this hypothesized mediation-effect model at the construct or latent variable level, thus reducing the effect of measurement error associated with specific instruments. At the same time, this model could be compared and evaluated with other competing models using the SEM procedures. The SEM procedures first started with establishing measurement models of the constructs to be tested. The construct of emotional intelligence defined by indicators of self-management, utilization, empathy, and social skills was supported in past findings (Chan, 2003), as was the construct of psychological distress defined by indicators reflecting health concerns, sleep problems, anxiety, dysphoria, and suicidal ideas (Chan, 1993, 1995). Thus, the confirmatory analyses for the two constructs could be considered validation analyses in connection with the calibration analyses in past studies. In contrast, the measurement model of the construct of social coping was based partially on past findings (Chan, 2004), as the whole spectrum of social coping strategies were not included, and only strategies found to predict psychological distress were included as indicators together with the new and untested indicator of helping others. Nonetheless, the measurement models provided adequate fit to the data, lending support to the validity of these constructs. In examining the structural models specifying relationships among these constructs, three models were successively tested. Perhaps, it was convenient to consider the complex direct-and-mediation-effect model first, and consider the two other models as special cases of this complex model. The direct-and-mediationeffect model had direct paths from self-relevant emotional intelligence and otherrelevant emotional intelligence to psychological distress, and indirect paths from these constructs to psychological distress through avoidant coping and socialinteraction coping, respectively. While the fit indices indicated that the model was well-fitting, the two direct paths from the two constructs of emotional intelligence to the construct of psychological distress suggested the viability of a less complex model. Indeed, the deletion of the two direct paths from emotional intelligence to psychological distress or fixing them to zero would correspond precisely to the mediation-effect model that yielded good fit indices and significant paths as hypothesized. Alternatively, retaining the two direct paths, but deleting the two paths, one from self-relevant emotional intelligence to avoidant coping and one from other-relevant emotional intelligence to social-interaction coping, would yield less adequate fit indices with significant direct paths from social coping to psychological distress but nonsignificant direct paths from emotional intelligence to psychological distress. Taken together, the mediation-effect model was the model of choice. The mediation-effect model has important implications for the promotion of psychological well-being among Chinese gifted students. For one thing, the mere enhancement of emotional intelligence among students might not be effective, given that the direct paths were nonsignificant. Rather, to promote psychological wellbeing or to reduce psychological distress effectively among gifted students, enhancement of emotional intelligence in terms of self-management and utilization

14 176 D. W. Chan of emotions needs to be connected with discarding the use of avoidant coping in confronting their giftedness, and enhancement in terms of empathy and social skills needs to be connected with increased social interaction with peers. In this connection, promoting emotional intelligence in gifted students and helping them enhance their emotional intelligence relevant to adaptive coping might eventually help them enhance their resilience in coping with problems arising from their being gifted. Thus, the important mediating role of social coping has to be recognized as it has great implications for the provision of preventive interventions through the promotion of emotional literacy (e.g. Steiner & Perry, 1997), and the development of counseling services for gifted students in Hong Kong. This study certainly has many limitations. Among others, the question that has to be addressed is the adequacy of the sampling of indicators to define constructs of the models to be tested. For one thing, researchers have relatively diverse views of the construct of emotional intelligence, and thus might arrive at the use of different indicators for the construct (see Goleman, 1995; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Ciarrochi et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2000a,b; Petrides & Furnham, 2000). If one considers that the Mayer Salovey ability model is tenable, then the selection of indicators to reflect the four branches of perception, facilitation, understanding, and management should receive due attention in future studies. On the other hand, the selective sampling of social coping strategies is evident in this study. While this study only considered social coping in response to being gifted, many relevant adaptive strategies such as the use of humor (see Swiatek, 2002) have not been included. An inclusion of more coping strategies will necessarily entail the broadening of the construct under study, and may provide new insights into the relationships among emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress. This study has tested three models, and found the hypothesized mediation-effect model most tenable. However, one has to bear in mind that this study only provided an opportunity for invalidating the models, and the hypothesized mediation-effect model survived the test. Undoubtedly, there are many competitive models that might be proved to be equally viable under similar evaluation procedures. Thus, the meaningfulness of the model must be grounded in theory, and the present model appears to be viable under substantive considerations. Nonetheless, cross-replication with more heterogeneous samples not restricted to school nominated gifted students should be helpful in establishing the generalizability of the present findings. Acknowledgements This study was supported in part by a direct grant for research from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. References Anderson, J. C. & Gerbing, D. W. (1988) Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach, Psychological Bulletin, 103, Bentler, P. (1989) Comparative fit indices, Psychological Bulletin, 107,

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