Fahimeh Taghizadeh and Masoumeh Shojaie
The goal of the present research is to analyze the relation between emotional intelligence and team cohesion among elite and amateur table tennis players. To reach that goal, 47 elite and 44 amateur players from West Azerbaijan, Tehran, Kurdistan, Mashhad and Yazd were selected. Emotional intelligence questionnaire (Shutt) and The Group Environment Questionnaire (Carron, Widmeyer and Brawley) were used to collect data. Data analysis was conducted by applying the Two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Pearson's Correlation Coefficient. The results showed that level of proficiency does not influence the emotional intelligence (P>0.05), but gender affects emotional intelligence (p≤0.05). In addition, there is not a significant relation between emotional intelligence and team cohesion and its subscales in amateur players (P>0.05); however, there is a significant relation between EI and group cohesion in elite athletes (P≤0.05). Furthermore, Level of proficiency and gender do not have any effect on group cohesion (P>0.05). Among the subscales of group cohesion, individual attraction to group- social found to be higher in male athletes comparing with female players.
