The purpose of the present research was a comparison of emotional intelligence in elite athletes in several sports and non-athletes. For that matter, 160 women including 90 handball, futsal, and basketball players participating in 2009-2010 premier league (30 women in each group) and 70 non-athletes filled out the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i). This questionnaire consists of 15 subscales for an overall assessment of emotional intelligence. The results of statistical analysis showed that the subscales of problem solving, happiness, independence, stress tolerance, self-actualization, emotional self-awareness, interpersonal relationship, optimism, self-regard, impulse control, and empathy were significantly higher in athletes than non-athletes. Between-group comparisons revealed that there is a significant difference between handball players and all the other groups in the problem solving subscale. The non-athletes showed a significant difference from all the athlete groups in the happiness subscale. Emotional selfawareness of the handball players was significantly different from that of the non-athletes and basketball players ( ). Considering the above findings, we can say that emotional intelligence is higher in athletes than non-athletes, since they must constantly control and manage their emotions under different conditions of training and competition. Since emotional intelligence can be learned, it seems that participation in sports activities can be considered as a factor for developing this feature.
