Adult Attachment, Emotional Intelligence, and Resilience as Correlates of Social Engagement, Academic Engagement, and Confidence of Persistence in College Students

The current study investigated freshmen university students (N = 210) to examine the role of attachment style (anxiety, avoidance), emotional intelligence (repair, attention, clarity) and resilience in predicting student adaptation to college (academic, social, personal and academic engagement). Four multiple regression analyses were conducted for each subscale of adaptation to college. The results indicated that; a) emotional intelligence (attention, clarity) and resilience significantly predicted student academic adjustment; b) emotional inelligence (repair) predicted student social adjustment; c) emotional inteligence (clarity), resilience, and adult attachment (anxiety) significantly predicted student personal adjustment; and d) emotional intelligence (repair, clarity) and resilience, significantly predicted student academic engagement. Additionally, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was run to examine sex and ethnic/racial difference in the ten variables. Results indicated significant differences between men and women with regard to academic adjustment and emotion attention. However, MANOVA suggested no significant difference between students of color (all non-white students as a single group) and White students. Implications for research and practice are discussed.