PERSONALITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF ADOLESCENTS: THE MODERATING ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE SAMUEL O. SALAMI Kampala International University, Kampala, Uganda The purpose in this study was to examine the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and psychological well-being of adolescents and the moderating role of emotional intelligence in that relationship. Adolescents (N = 400) randomly selected from secondary schools in southwestern Nigeria completed the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and emotional intelligence (Law, Wong, & Song, 2004), and psychological well-being (Ruff & Keyes, 1995) scales. It was found that personality factors and emotional intelligence had significant correlations with psychological well-being. Emotional intelligence moderated the relationship between neuroticism, extraversion, and psychological well-being. Implications for counseling adolescents and directions for future research are suggested. Keywords: personality, psychological well-being, adolescent, emotional intelligence, Big Five. Adolescence has been described as a period of physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes that involves experimentation and risk taking (Aggarwal, 1998; Lerner & Galambos, 1998). During this period, some developmental problems have been identified, especially those dealing with self-perceptions, feelings about the self, negative emotions in general, and identity versus role confusion (Lerner & Galambos, 1998). Coupled with these problems are the multifarious needs (biogenic, physiogenic, psychogenic, and sociogenic) that adolescents have to satisfy. These problems usually culminate in heightened emotionality among adolescents. When these emotional tensions are not SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2011, 39(6), 785-794 © Society for Personality Research DOI 10.2224/sbp.2011.39.6.785 785 Samuel O. Salami, Department of Guidance and Counseling, Kampala International University, Kampala, Uganda. Appreciation is due to reviewers including Torsten Norlander, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden, Email: Torsten.Norlander@kau.se Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Samuel O. Salami, Department of Guidance and Counseling, Kampala International University, Kampala, Uganda. Email: drsosalami2002@yahoo.co.uk