Emotional perception as a stable predictor of psychosocial adjustment during adolescence

Emotions are a very valuable source of information for our adjustment and well-being. Within our skills to process the emotional information, emotional perception is fundamental to begin such process successfully. Nevertheless, the majority of the studies conducted in this area have used adult or clinical samples. In this work we investigated through a prospective one-year longitudinal study the relation between emotional perception and psycho-social adjustment in a secondary student sample. The results showed emotional perception as a stable predictor of higher personal adjustment and lower emotional imbalance and clinical maladjustment. The emotional perception ability also appeared as a significant predictor of dependent variables, even when the variable criterion at time 1 was controlled. Significant variation was found depending on sex and age. Possible educational implications and future lines of research on emotional perception and emotional intelligence are discussed.