Emotional Intelligence and Identity Style as Risk Factors for High-Risk Behavior in Prisoners: The Mediating Role of Resiliency and Social Adjustment

Background: A motivation for the intense scientific interest in high-risk behaviors is to do with firmly held belief that behaviors such as substance abuse and delinquency have ubiquitous, catastrophic outcomes. Objectives: The current study aimed to examine a model of risk factors for high-risk behaviors in prisoners. It was hypothesized that emotional intelligence and identity style have an indirect effect on high-risk behaviors via the mediating role of social adjustment and resiliency. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of 293 prisoners that were selected via simple random sampling and participated in this research by completing Schutte’s emotional intelligence scale, Berzonsky identity style inventory, social adjustment scale, Conner-Davidson’s resilience scale, and high risk behavior scale; all these instruments are reliable and have been validated. Structural equation modeling (SEM) through SPSS 20 and AMOS 20 were used for data analysis. Results: The results suggested that the model had good fit (root mean square of approximation = 0.07, comparative fit index = 0.95, normed fit index = 0.91, goodness of fit index =0.93) with the data. Accordingly, the indirect effect of resiliency on high-risk behavior via social adjustment and resiliency, and the indirect effect of identity style on high-risk behavior via emotional intelligence and resiliency were approved. Conclusions: Our findings suggest the importance of high-risk behaviors in terms of etiological pathways, maintenance process and treatment interventions.