Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be defined as an "ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions" (Salovey and Mayer, 1990) [1]. As such EI plays a major role in sport sciences. Studies conducted so far have shown contrasting findings. The paper contains data concerning the psychometric properties of the "Profile of Emotional Competence" questionnaire administered to a sample of 479 subjects (239 athletes, 240 non-athletes, age ranging from 12 to 18 years old, 239 men, and 240 women) in order: i) to explore EI between athletes and non-athletes students and ii) to examine differences in EI of young participants in terms of gender and age.
Keywords: Emotional intelligence in athletes; Psychometric properties; Questionnaire administration; “Profile of Emotional Competence” questionnaire.