Passion, Emotional Intelligence and Conflict Management in Athletes: A Correlational Study

The emerging athletes often faced significant pressure to maintain optimum levels of mental skills, which affected their performance. The study aimed to find out the difference between state- and national-level athletes in passion, emotional intelligence, and conflict management. The research was conducted on 184 university athletes, aged 18–25, from diverse sporting disciplines, including state- and national-level athletes. The Passion Scale, Sports Emotional Intelligence Test, and Thomas–Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument were utilised as measurement tools. The mean, standard deviation, and t-value were computed. The results of the study indicated that there were significant relationships between certain components of passion, emotional intelligence, and conflict management styles. The findings also revealed significant differences between state- and national-level athletes in obsessive passion, passion criteria, compromising conflict management style, and emotional intelligence. National-level athletes were found to have higher emotional intelligence, obsessive passion, and passion criteria, whereas state-level athletes reported higher use of the compromising style of conflict management.

Harmonious passion, Obsessive passion, Emotional intelligence, Conflict management, Passion criteria

1. Alanazy, W., & Alzamil, S. K. S. (2026). The impact of emotional intelligence on conflict management styles used by Saudi nurse managers-a cross sectional, correlational study. Frontiers in psychology, 16, 1630530. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1630530 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Amiot, C. E., Vallerand, R. J., & Blanchard, C. M. (2006). Passion and psychological adjustment: A test of the person–environment fit hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(2), 220–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205280250 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Carpentier, J., Mageau, G. A., & Vallerand, R. J. (2012). Ruminations and flow: Why do people with a more harmonious passion experience higher well-being?. Journal of Happiness studies, 13, 501-518. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Carron, A. V., Brawley, L. R., & Widmeyer, W. N. (1998). The measurement of cohesiveness in sport groups. In J. L. Duda (Ed.), Advances in sport and exercise psychology measurement (pp. 213–226). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Fernández, A., Extremera, N., & Villa, A. (2018). Passion, emotional intelligence, and conflict outcomes in competitive performance. International Journal of Sports Psychology, 49(2), 168–186. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Books. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Konter, Erkut & Kueh, Yee Cheng & Kuan, Garry. (2020). Relationship Between Passion and Courage among the Experienced Male Soccer Players. Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences. 27. 85-96. 10.21315/mjms2020.27.4.8. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Laborde, S., Dosseville, F., & Allen, M. S. (2016). Emotional intelligence in sport and exercise: A systematic review. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 26(8), 862–874. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.12510 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2012). Emotional intelligence and conflict resolution strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(2), 364–382. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Mohammad, G., Khan, S., & Singh, J. (2015, June). Emotional intelligence between state and national level volleyball players. Journal of Physical Education Research, 2(2), 53–59. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Roberts, G. C., Treasure, D. C., & Balague, G. (2013). Passion types and conflict management among athletes. Sport, Exercise, and Peformance Psychology, 2(4), 227–243. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. Singh, Karanbir; Kapur, Sonia1. Gender difference in relation to emotional intelligence and conflict among Elite boxing players. Saudi Journal of Sports Medicine 15(3):p 276-280, Sep–Dec 2015. | DOI: 10.4103/1319-6308.164315 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

13. Suri, Anoop. (2025). Passion With Compassion and Emotional Intelligence. 10.4018/979-8-3373-2404-3.ch016. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. Thomas, K. W. (2008). Thomas-kilmann conflict mode. TKI Profile and Interpretive Report, 1(11), 1-11.. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

15. Vallerand, R. J., & Houlfort, N. (2009). Passion, emotional intelligence, and stress coping. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10(5), 567–577. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

16. Vallerand, R. J. (2010). On passion for life activities: The Dualistic Model of Passion. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 42, pp. 97–193). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(10)42003-1 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]